The Brain Activity Map Project and Learning Difficulties

May 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Brain Activity MapIf you have a child in kindergarten to third grade with a reading disorder, auditory processing disorder, dyslexia, or other learning difficulties, President Obama’s new project to map out the genes of the human brain will help children like him or her in the coming decade.

That’s because the project will take at least 10 years and will cost a minimum of $3 billion. Your child will be in high school by then, and if his or her reading skills don’t improve in the meantime, your child is headed for a life of poverty, according to studies.

Obama’s Brain Activity Map Project is now in the beginning stages and includes top scientists from the following institutions:

• Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Chemistry Department at the University of California in Berkeley

• The Kavili Foundation in Oxnard, CA

• The Kavili Institute for Brain and Mind, UCSD, La Jolla, CA

• Kavili Nanoscience Institute and Departments of Physics, Applied Physics and Bioengineering at California Institute of Polytech, Pasadena, CA

• Kavili Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY

• Department of Genetics and Wyss Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

In the summary of the project details, the scientists report that their goal is to reconstruct the full record of neural activity across complete neural circuits and better understand both fundamental and pathological brain processes.

Searching for genetic influence and nanotechnology answers on dyslexia, auditory processing disorders, dementia, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorder is the goal of this project.

Right now scientists often view the millions of synaptic connections in the brain as impenetrable jungles where researchers get lost. They attach electrodes to the brain and test only a few neurons in a small area of the brain. But when the brain contains millions of neurons, the rate of discovery of information about the brain would take light years to accomplish.

Neurons connect to thousands of other neurons in circuits inside a matrix. They don’t act as individual neurons. And the fact that the neurons exhibit a characteristic called plasticity, which means they can change rapidly due to stressors placed on them, makes it difficult if not impossible to make new discoveries at anything other than a snail’s pace.

With the aid of statistics, thermodynamics, and quantum physics,  a method called emergent analysis has created explosive bursts in information related to other topics including superconductivity, quantum Hall effects and coherence, magnetism and superfluidity. This type of analysis has already proven itself in the areas of sequencing of genomes, and now it will be applied to the study and mapping of the human brain.

Some of the questions that the researchers will be answering include what happens when the brain develops and then reorganizes itself after an injury, how drugs alter behavior and the local/global effects, what memories are transferred from one area of the brain to another over time, and how the brain can overcome learning difficulties and disorders. They expect that new diagnostic tests will be developed for brain diseases and new devices and strategies will be developed for brain stimulation to overcome diseased circuits as well as new facts and therapies for autism.

Every dollar invested into the project is expected to return $140 back to the economy with new industries and commercial opportunities. The scientists are hopeful that another result is a new generation of scientists that can teach students more effectively. Find out more of how this study could affect children with learning difficulties.

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Why Most 8th Graders Lack Proficiency in Reading

May 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

8th Grade Students Lack Proficiency in ReadingThe statistics from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the year 2009 are, frankly, quite frightening. When you look at what percentage of students lack proficiency in reading, you’ll be shocked. Here are some of those results:

 

 

Northeast states      Only 35.4% of 8th graders are proficient in reading.

Midwestern states   Only 34.2% are proficient.

Western states        29.3% are proficient.

Southern states      26.4% are proficient.

 

The state with the highest proficiency level was Massachusetts, where 43% of the 8th graders made the grade in reading. Some of the lowest performing states were Alabama, West Virginia, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. And there are still regional pockets where reading scores are even worse. For example, in Detroit, only 7% of the 8th graders are proficient.

These scores haven’t improved much in two decades. The experts report that if a low percentage of students reach the minimum standards, it could be due to the choice of poor teachers or possibly less money.

But maybe there’s more to this picture than blaming the teachers and not having enough money. The truth is that the entire school system is failing.

What we already know about reading is that it requires processing skills in several areas of the brain. Reading requires language skills. You have to hear the sounds of the words to read fluently. When you read silently, you still hear the words inside your head. But if you don’t know the difference between the sounds, your comprehension of the material is low. What you think you’re reading is totally different from what’s really on the pages.

Reading requires a certain amount of working memory power within the brain. Interestingly, memory exercises are frowned on in schools. Somewhere along the way, school boards decided to do away with making children memorize a lot of information. And with this decision came the  decline in building up that part of the brain.

We’re left with children who can’t read. They have poor skills in writing. And their math scores are just as poor. Those three Rs – reading, writing and ‘rithmetic are the solid foundation that all other learning springs from.

It’s currently thought that a child who isn’t proficient in reading by 3rd grade may not ever catch up, and is doomed to dropping out of school or low income jobs for the rest of his or her life. Don’t put your child anywhere near this outcome.

The best gift you can give your child in this day and age is not that new shiny bicycle, that new computer, or the latest computer game. Instead, it’s skills in reading. Do whatever you can to make his scores proficient or above proficiency in reading. The way to get started is with our Fast ForWard™ program. You’ll never look back.

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The Bottom Line on Learning Styles is to Improve Auditory Processing

April 19, 2013 by

Learning StylesYou may never have given any thought to learning styles until recently if your child was diagnosed with auditory processing disorder or APD.

If so, you learned that everyone learns difficult new information in one of three ways – auditory by hearing, visual by seeing, and kinesthetic by participating in an activity.

Information on learning styles became popular when Rita and Kenneth Dunn discovered that when students focused on learning information the way their brain preferred to learn it, and the learning style presented by the teacher matched the students’ learning style, their grades improved after only six weeks.

Rita Dunn is a Professor in Administration and Instructional Leadership at St. John’s University in New York. The learning styles concept is utilized worldwide now, as Dunn started her research in 1980 and has had plenty of time to refine the concept and also back the idea with research studies.

However, most schools still haven’t adopted the learning styles method – and that means that if your child is a visual or tactile learner (needs hands-on activity to learn), then he or she is in trouble once setting foot into the classroom.

What Makes the Most Sense about the Learning Styles Concept

Let’s think about the learning style concept in a different way, considering which came first – auditory learning, visual learning or kinesthetic learning. Is there a relationship between the three?

Before a child can read, how is he processing information? How is he learning language? It’s really through hearing. The auditory system wins and is used predominantly. He hears his parents make sounds and speak words, and he associates those words with what is happening. He doesn’t know how to read or even identify the alphabet. He can’t touch a word and he can’t touch most of the things his parents are discussing. The whole process of learning is primarily dependent on auditory processing early in life.

If a child has difficulty with auditory processing, he’s at a distinct disadvantage. The teacher will deliver new knowledge to learn by lecturing and class discussions. If the child has an auditory processing disorder, he can’t hear the differences between sounds in words spoken in class. His brain doesn’t recognize and interpret sounds the way other children without the disorder do.

Even if there is no background noise in the classroom, the auditory processing that occurs between the ears and the brain could still be inadequate. That means your child can’t follow directions because he can’t hear them. He can’t follow conversations and understand what is being said. Auditory processing disorder affects about 5% of all children.

A child’s brain will try to cope with the deficit by switching learning styles to visual or kinesthetic. It’s entirely possible that a child who has a learning style of visual or tactile is a child that had to make the switch in his brain to cope. He was struggling to process language due to faulty auditory processing.

Thus, the answer is to go after the direct cause of the problem. Change the auditory processing by improving it so the deficit is corrected and then watch your child blossom.

Learn more about the relationship between auditory processing disorder and learning.

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Students with APD Struggle to Learn a Second Language

April 17, 2013 by

Students With APD Struggle to Learn a Second LanguageYou’ve heard the claims made by many people  – both parents and education specialists: if your child learns a second language at school, he’ll have an advantage over other students in years to come.

It’s easier for them to learn a second language as a child because their brain is growing faster and it’s more flexible when they are children than when they are older or are adults. This idea was based on research from the 1960s.

The time that a child should learn a second language is debatable. Researchers Stern, Burstall & Harley in 1975 followed 17,000 British schoolchildren learning French and discovered that older children are better at learning a second language than younger ones. In the 1980s, Genesee found that children learning a second language in grades 7 or 8 had scores on language proficiency equal to those who started learning in kindergarten or grade one.

Several studies have found that younger children pick up on native accents in a language better than older children. Pronouncing words depends on not only the ability to hear them but also the ability to speak them correctly.

And that’s the point here – that students with APD, or auditory processing disorder, can’t hear the sounds of the words in the new language. In fact, they aren’t hearing the sounds of the words in the first language either.

How much can a young brain with and without APD handle at one time? If the child has auditory processing disorder, then all the good intentions in the world won’t help the child learn the new language. It would be setting the child up for failure.

Languages have different sound patterns that have to be learned by the brain. Thus new sounds from another language could alter how English sounds are heard and spoken. Learning a first language is like learning to put on and tie your shoes; learning a second language is learning how to become a marathon runner. If you don’t have your shoes on right, you can’t run the marathon.

Does your child have APD? If so, think twice about the idea of having him or her learn a second language. Let’s focus on getting the shoes to fit.

Build English language proficiency with the auditory processing disorder treatment at Gemm Learning.

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What Happens When Children Lack Reading Fluency

April 10, 2013 by

Reading FluencyHow much children comprehend a chapter in a book depends on something called reading fluency. This is the ability to read effortlessly and with feeling.

Now think about this for a minute: your child is reading out loud with lots of stops and starts. He looks to you every time he can’t pronounce a word and you intervene. When he comes across a new word, he asks for a definition. How fast do you think he’s reading? Do you think his speed is fast enough for him to truly comprehend what he is reading?

How good would your comprehension be if you had to stop continually in the middle of a sentence? You would have to re-read a passage a few times, right?

The same thing is true with children.

Here are some alarming statistics:
•  44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.
• 44% of American 4th grade students cannot read fluently.
• 15% of all 4th graders read no faster than 74 words per minute. At this pace, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of ideas within the sentence and across the page. People speak at 100-175 words per minute. They can listen at a faster rate, up to 800 words per minute. At 74 words per minute, they’re putting themselves to sleep.

Reading fluency is everything.

When your child can hear himself reading a book at a faster rate, he can better connect the ideas in the sentence together. He can relate the ideas of the paragraphs together better as well.

The human mind can comprehend fast talkers easier than slow talkers; think of how quickly your brain adapts to an auctioneer and how you automatically start talking faster after an auction. When you listen to a slow talker, it’s too easy to forget what they said in their last sentence. Effective communication needs two people to hear the words at a rate fast enough to encode it; it’s the same thing with reading.

Reading fluency is everything.

Yet something odd is happening in America. In 4th grade, about 56% of students can read fluently but 8th graders aren’t doing too well. They haven’t mastered fluency and now their homework load is drastically increased. They must read several chapters per subject and turn in homework questions. How will they ever get through it all? Do they even get through it all?

It’s no wonder why they start to lose interest in reading. The act of reading has become an endless cycle of failure. They can’t read a paragraph without knowing what all the words mean. If they stop to look up the word, they can’t go on reading at the point where they left off. They have to re-read the passage.

Their self-talk might be something like this: “I think I’ll start my homework. History again. (starts reading) Inauguration? What does that mean? Maybe I better look it up. Wait, didn’t Mrs. Toth tell us today? I can’t remember what she said. (Looks it up.) Why can’t I remember it? Everyone else remembers things. Oh, so that’s what it is – the event when the new President gets sworn in. Okay, now I get it. I must be dumb, I couldn’t remember it. Back to the chapter. I guess I’ll have to start over… I bet Jessica doesn’t have to start over when she does her homework… Secede from the nation? What does that mean? I’ll have to look it up… Another word I didn’t remember… Cold War? What war was that?”

As much as some education experts believe that memorization is not important, there are things in life that have to be learned that provide the foundation for additional knowledge to be gained. Learning how to associate two seemingly unrelated things together is a cognitive skill that must be mastered.

In reading there are basic cognitive skills that have to be learned before a child can go on to the next level. And if they aren’t being addressed in school, the child isn’t getting those skills anywhere else. He won’t even get them from tutoring because tutoring focuses on a subject and not the cognitive skills.

It’s no wonder that the child doesn’t like history – or any other subject. The self-talk he uses is potentially self-degrading AND he’s missing some basic facts that help him read.
Childhood is the time that’s supposed to be filled with amazement, wonder and joy for everything in life. Feeling inadequate doesn’t fit into the picture. Or it shouldn’t.

No child can read fast until reading accuracy and fluency are mastered. That’s the bottom line.

If your student is a struggling reader, find a solution that enhances reading fluency. Discover the online reading programs offered at Gemm Learning.

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Why Can’t Your Child Do Math?

April 2, 2013 by

Why Can't Your Child Do Math?If your child is having difficulty in math, he or she is not alone. If you look at the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results for 2009, you’d find that by age 15, American students fall to 31st place in a roll call of 65 different countries.

What’s quite interesting is that in fourth grade, their scores were highly ranked in 11th place. And by 8th grade, they rose two notches to 9th place out of 56 different countries.

At an education conference at Temple University in Washington, D.C., Dr. Steven G. Feifer, a neuropsychologist specializing in learning disabilities, explained the reason for this decline in math ability. It has to do with how students are quizzed and how they learn math. In elementary school, children are taught the basics of math and how to get answers. By high school, they’re expected to apply math to the real world. The problem is that Americans are taught to focus not on process or real-world problem solving, but on simply getting correct answers.

One part of the problem is that Americans spend less than an hour in math and science per day in school. In some Asian countries, students spend 10 to 12 hours in school compared to Americans who have a six-hour day. Asians also are required to go to school up to 243 days a year, compared with only 180 days in America.

But the biggest difference is in how the brain processes mathematical information. Asian countries have a number system centered on a base 10-system, but ours is more complicated. When we think of a number, we focus on the actual word representing a number. That is, we think of the words “twenty-five” instead of the symbols “25.” We have a harder time processing numbers because the English words for numbers get longer and longer, but the Chinese number system uses only a couple of characters to express each digit. That means that the Chinese word for “two thousand and eighty-two” might only be a few characters, making it much easier to remember and use.

So what Dr. Feifer is saying  is that processing numbers depends on processing words in the brain.

Now imagine for a moment that a child can’t read fluently. He really can’t process words as well as he should. It’s inevitable that his math skills are also be affected. And you can work on math skills all you want – you still won’t see improvement until the reading fluency scores improve.

What Dr. Feifer adds is that the brain continues processing mathematics by then encoding a number as a fixed symbol to be sequenced in a particular order. This involves rote memory. Next, additional mathematical processing occurs via knowing how to solve problems, and then the problem can be solved. Kids need a working knowledge of how to solve these problems to get them correct.

Dr. Feifer believes that math instruction needs to cover verbal and visual-spatial thinking skills in order for children to excel.

Interestingly, that’s what we do here with students in the Fast ForWord program. By increasing several cognitive skills while focusing on verbal skills, auditory skills and visual spatial thinking skills, Fast ForWord cognitive software can produce an overall improvement in brain functioning. Math skills automatically improve. That’s why our students tell us that their math scores improve without doing any additional math practice.

Working on verbal skills is the key to improving math skills. If your student needs help, learn more about the benefits of Fast ForWord cognitive software.

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Why are Metalinguistic Skills Important?

March 4, 2013 by

metalinguistic skills“Metalinguistics” isn’t exactly a word that most people know. As a parent, you may have never heard the word. It rarely comes up in conversations with other parents or even teachers.

Metalinguistics is the ability to look at language skills as a thing; to evaluate language as a process or even a system; and to maneuver around successfully in using language. Typically adults do not talk about the syllables in the words they are speaking or the actual meaning of a word in a sentence — which are metalinugistic skills. The term was coined in the 1970s when researchers used it to describe the process of learning multiple languages, however it applies to many facets of language.

Once you understand the intricacies of your native language, you can successfully begin to learn another, new language. You can start to compare and contrast the languages and remember that in one language you do a-b-c, whereas in another, the rule is d-e-f.

Metalinguistic Awareness Depends on Metalinguistic Skills

Metalinguistic awareness is the awareness that you can change language in different ways, that you have the power to manipulate it. For example, if you write a letter to someone and realize afterwards that sentences #4 through #7 do not make sense, you can rewrite those sentences. You have the power to change them.

As they grow up, kids start to examine their own work, such as their written letters or homework assignments, and begin to see that there may be better ways to say something. For example, they may write a sentence like:

“I went to the big pond for a big day of fishing in the lake.”

Metalinguistic awareness will alert them to the fact that there’s a discrepancy in the sentence: is it a pond or is it a lake?  With metalinguistic awareness, a person can reflect on the language.

They could also understand – with metalinguistic awareness – that if someone says, “My little dog is an Olympic athlete,” it doesn’t mean that the dog participates in the Olympic athletic events. Instead, it means that the dog is very athletic, good at athletic skills, and the owner thinks that the dog has a lot of potential.

Children with auditory processing disorder (APD) have difficulty with metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness. However, programs created to assist children, teens or adults with APD focus on metalinguistic skills to bring these learners success.

As a parent, improving your student’s metalinguistic skills allows you to ask him or her to do their homework and to check it. You can expect higher grades and your student will gain understanding. Get more information about Learning Difficulties programs offered by Gemm Learning.

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Children with APD Versus Children Without APD

February 28, 2013 by

children with adpChildren with normal auditory processing have skills that those with APD, or auditory processing disorder, do not. The child without APD recognizes that words can have multiple meanings.  He can understand language and speak it in conversation. And he can recognize when language is supposed to be funny or figure out riddles and puns. These are called metalinguistic skills.

Ambiguous language isn’t a problem in the child without APD because he can draw inferences to determine the meaning of a sentence. For example, if you tell a child without APD, “A penny for your thoughts,” you won’t expect the child to ask for the penny.

You could say that a child without APD has language dexterity; he’s able to move to and fro in conversation easily.

Children without APD didn’t have to be taught these skills; they come automatically and are expected to appear.

But in those with APD, the lack of these skills can make life challenging and frustrating because he or she doesn’t understand that something is funny, doesn’t understand what others are talking about, and doesn’t understand that not everything people is literal.

Those with APD  need instruction to develop the language dexterity needed for life. What type of instruction does a child with APD need from parents and experts? How do you teach a child that when you say he should think out of the box, it doesn’t mean that somehow he was sitting in a box to begin with?

There are different techniques that can be used to help children with APD make up for their deficits.

  1. Remember the Gossip Game, sometimes called the Telephone Game? This is where one child tells a secret to another child who passes it along to another. The secret is announced after the last child receives it and found to be vastly different than the original version. This game improves auditory skills along with the ability to discriminate and recognize changing acoustic cues.
  2. Parents can play Simon Says games with their children. This game depends on waiting for the word commands to change (auditory vigilance) while integrating both sides of the brain.
  3. Playing games such as Pictionary or crossword puzzles increase metalinguistic skills.

There are many other strategies that are used by experts to teach a child metalinguistics. Researchers have made plenty of discoveries that are used in effective programs for those with APD. Language dexterity can indeed be learned. Get more information about the auditory processing disorder treatment offered by Gemm Learning

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How Adequate Blood Sugar Levels Affect Your Child’s Attention Span

February 26, 2013 by

blood sugar and attention spanHave you ever wondered if there was a food or supplement that could improve attention span in your child?

If you ask nutritionists that question, you’ll hear two consistent answers:

  1. Protein
  2. Omega 3 fats

However, the answer is often more complicated than that. What has to be looked at regarding diet often includes what are the foods and drinks the child is consuming? Is he currently taking any supplements? Has he been tested for any nutrient deficiencies?

Attention span can wax and wane during the course of the day. Evaluating the composition of meals and snacks and their relationship to attention span often uncovers new answers as to why cognitive skills aren’t consistently high.

We’ve been reporting on the effects of low blood sugar on children in this blog for a few weeks and know that many parents find an influence of hypoglycemia on their child’s attention span. This, in turn, affects overall learning.

Attention Span Studies

One of the earlier studies on this connection between blood sugar and attention span came from the Department of Psychology at University College in Wales. Researchers wanted to see the effects of blood sugar levels on attention span in young adults. They gave a glucose drink or a placebo to participants and then tested their attention via a Rapid Information Processing Task and a test called the Stroop Task.

What is the Stroop Task?

The Stroop Task is named after John Ridley Stroop. It tests the ability to quickly perceive words. If you look at words written in black ink with an occasional word written in green or blue ink, the Stroop Effect would be obvious if a person has difficulty noticing the word blue was written in green ink. If someone is asked what color the word blue is, the answer is usually blue, not green.

This task is performed in the brain by a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate, located between the right and left halves of the frontal lobe.

Two Types of Attention in All of Us

In an interview, Raymond De Young from the University of Michigan commented on the difference between two types of attention, directed attention and involuntary attention.

Directed attention is where you directly focus on a specific topic or activity. You use directed attention when you read a book; it keeps you on the task of reading. Directed attention wears out as time goes on and at the end of the day.

Involuntary attention draws the mind to other things you aren’t focused on, such as looking at a large truck coming towards you as you are crossing a street. For a child in a reading environment, involuntary attention draws the mind to distractions in the room.

When we have to focus for a long time, directed attention fatigue sets in. The fatigue reduces our mental effectiveness and interferes with the ability to think about long-term goals and concepts that are abstract . It also results in irritability and impulsivity.

If we need to restore our directed attention, we have to rest it for awhile. By getting into nature where there’s a lot of involuntary attention activity, directed attention will restore itself.

In our modern world, we spend time in an indoor environment where there are a lot of distractions. We have to use more directed attention if we want to accomplish things. This is why walking to school is actually a good idea for children compared to a car ride, especially if they live within a half-mile of school.

Results of the Wales Study on Attention

The researchers used the Rapid Information Processing Task and the Stroop Task as ways to measure what was happening when blood sugar levels were higher. They gave the children in the study a glucose drink. Those who received the drink had faster Rapid Information Processing Task times and better Stroop Test results, too.

They concluded that higher levels of glucose in the brain were most likely associated with better attention spans and better memory.

What your child eats definitely has an influence on what’s happening inside his brain and his attention span.

 

Sources:

1.  http://www.snre.umich.edu/eplab/demos/st0/stroopdesc.html

2. Blood glucose influences attention in young adults, Neuropsychologia, May 1994, Vol. 32, Vol. 5, 595-607.

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Resilience in Dyslexic Students: A Great Trait, But No Way to Live

February 15, 2013 by

dyslexic-students

Is Dyslexia Really a Gift?

For dyslexic students, the tasks that most of us take for granted are a daily struggle. Activities as simple as reading and listening can be excruciating. For example, while non-dyslexic students can easily read the instructions at the head of a test and dive right into their assessment, dyslexics must work hard to fight their own brain’s interpretation of that text so that they too can proceed with the exam.

For many dyslexic students, success in school and in life is contingent upon learning to cope with the stresses of their disability. Successful dyslexics are therefore said to develop a natural resilience that allows them to process text and ideas quickly by not “getting down” about their struggles. However, this resilience, while helpful, is no way to live. Indeed, in the very act of being resilient every day, dyslexics contraindicate the process itself, not helping themselves so much as learning to cope.

Defining Resilience

Once thought of as a personality trait, the ability to be resilient in the face of adversity is now seen as a process that all humans are capable of undergoing. Resilience as psychologists and educators now understand it is merely the capacity of an individual to withstand stress and tragedy, coming out stronger in the end. Resilience is a process that all people go through in one way or another throughout their lives; as we grow from children into functioning adults, all people must learn to cope with the adversity they will face (This Emotional Life, 2011).

However, the very nature of resilience is that it is a process reserved for the most stressful, the most traumatic times in our lives. Far from a daily operation, resilience in its purest form is meant to help us through the hurdles of despair that pull us away from our normal existence. Therefore, the need for dyslexic students to exhibit resilience every day is, by its very nature, placing stress on a process meant to relieve it.

Using Cognitive Interventions to Help Dyslexics Function, Rather than Cope

The goal of cognitive intervention in dyslexic education is to circumvent the need for resilience or coping mechanisms each day. While dyslexics must be resilient in the process of recognizing and overcoming his or her disability, it is not a process that must be employed every single day. Students, whether dyslexic, autistic, or cognitively impaired in some other way, need to have the ability to function with their disabilities, rather than around them. That is, while the ability to be resilient in the face of stress is admirable and important for each individual to master, resilience should be a strategy used for traumatic times in life, not everyday existence.

References:

This Emotional Life. (2011). What is resilience? Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/resilience/what-resilience.

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