Dianne Horgan was a professor in the Psychology Department at Memphis State University and her article was one of the first outlining the benefits of Chess in the United States. Here is a concluding excerpt from that article edited and formatted for easier reading. The article in full can be found here – [ PDF ].
Helping learners think logically is not easy.
But our observations and research show that young children can be
taught to think clearly and with discipline, to plan ahead,
and to make sound decisions.Learning these skills early in life can only benefit later intellectual development.
We’ve seen that the way children acquire these skills differs in fundamental ways from adults.
Implications for education are basically twofold:
- Emphasizing their natural capabilities, teach children to take a global
perspective to acquire and organize data quickly- Teach children to attend to the processes of their thought rather than
the outcomes.