There is substantial interest in the possibility that cognitive skills can be improved by dedicated behavioral training. Yet despite the large amount of work being conducted in this domain, there is not an explicit and widely-agreed upon consensus around the best methodological practices. This document seeks to fill this gap. We start from the perspective that there are many types of studies that are important in this domain-e.g., feasibility, mechanistic, efficacy, effectiveness. These studies have fundamentally different goals, and, as such, the best-practice methods to meet those goals will also differ. We thus make suggestions in topics ranging from the design and implementation of control groups, to reporting of results, to dissemination and communication, taking the perspective that the best practices are not necessarily uniform across all study types. We also explicitly recognize that there are methodological issues around which we currently lack the theoretical and/or empirical foundation to determine best practices (e.g., as pertains to assessing participant expectations). For these we suggest important routes forward, including greater interdisciplinary collaboration with individuals from domains that face related concerns. Our hope is that these recommendations will greatly increase the rate at which science in this domain advances. I. INTRODUCTION: The past two decades have brought a great deal of attention to the possibility that certain core cognitive abilities, including those related to processing speed, working memory, perception, attention, and general intelligence, can be improved by dedicated behavioral training (

On March 19, 2021, this report was posted as an MMWR Early Release on the MMWR website (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr). After detection of cases of COVID-19 in Florida in March 2020, the governor declared a state of emergency on March 9,* and all school districts in the state suspended in-person instruction by March 20. Most kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) public and private schools in Florida reopened for in-person learning during August 2020, with varying options for remote learning offered by school districts. During August 10-December 21, 2020, a total of 63,654 COVID-19 cases were reported in school-aged children; an estimated 60% of these cases were not school-related. Fewer than 1% of registered students were identified as having school-related COVID-19 and <11% of K-12 schools reported outbreaks. District incidences among students correlated with the background disease incidence in the county; resumption of in-person education was not associated with a proportionate increase in COVID-19 among school-aged children. Higher rates among students were observed in smaller districts, districts without mandatory maskuse policies, and districts with a lower proportion of students participating in remote learning. These findings highlight the importance of implementing both community-level and school-based strategies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and suggest that school reopening can be achieved without resulting in widespread illness among students in K-12 school settings. Florida has one independent school district in each of its 67 counties. For the 2020-21 school year, 2,809,553 registered students were enrolled in approximately 6,800 public, charter, and private K-12 schools, ranging from 707 to 334,756 students per school district. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some school districts delayed the start of the 2020-21 academic year after suspension of in-person learning in March. Most schools resumed in-person instruction sometime during August 10-31, 2020, except those in the two largest school districts, Broward and Miami-Dade, which began remote learning in August but did not resume in-person instruction until October 9 and November 10, respectively. Statewide, as of September 24, 45% of registered students received full-time in-person instruction. To assess the occurrence of COVID-19 in Florida schools after resumption of in-person instruction, CDC and the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) reviewed school-related cases *

Researchers have explored a variety of interventions to improve cognition among older adults. One of which is computerized cognitive training programs. The number of commercially available, cognitive training programs has increased greatly, but scientists debate their value. The purposes of this systematic literature review and meta-analysis were to (1) evaluate the efficacy of commercially available, computerized cognitive training programs to improve cognition in older adults and (2) examine far transfer of training to untrained tasks relevant to everyday functioning. Articles were reviewed if the study (a) included a sample of adults aged 55 and older, (b) used a commercially available, computerized cognitive training program, (c) was a randomized controlled trial, (d) measured cognition as an outcome, and (e) included a sample that was free from health conditions affecting cognitive function (e.g., cancer, stroke, psychiatric conditions, or traumatic brain injury). Effect sizes were calculated using random effect models to determine cognitive training effects for various cognitive domains and far transfer tasks. There were significant small to medium training effects for the cognitive domains of attention (d = 0.651, p < .001), processing speed (d = 0.294, p = .002), and visuospatial memory (d = 0.252, p = 0.016). There was also evidence of far transfer to selfreported measures of everyday function (d = 0.277, p < 0.001). Commercially available computerized cognitive training programs may improve certain cognitive abilities among older adults, who also report improvement on tasks relevant to their everyday lives.

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