Metacognition
An elusive but defining element of learning success.

Without metacognition -- learning awareness -- your child cannot achieve at his or her potential. Delays in developing this most crucial of learning skills explains why many struggling early graders go on to under-achieve at high school and college.

What is it?
Metacognition refers to a level of thinking about what you are learning as you learn (listening to a teacher, reading or studying): Am I getting this? Does this fit with my current knowledge? If I am not getting it, what should I do right now -- re-read, get help?

Planning the way to approach a learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating the progress towards the completion of a task: these require metacognition. Similarly, maintaining motivation to see a task to completion is a metacognitive skill.

Why Is It Important?
Students who demonstrate a wide range of metacognitive skills perform better on exams and complete work more efficiently. They are self-regulated learners who utilize the "right tool for the job" and modify learning strategies and skills based on their awareness of effectiveness.

A student with metacognition is aware of his or her own strengths and weaknesses, the nature of the task at hand, and available "tools" or skills. Individuals with a high level of metacognitive knowledge and skill identify blocks to learning as early as possible and change "tools" or strategies to ensure goal attainment.

Why Many Students Do Not Develop Metacognition
Metacognition when reading/listening to a teacher requires free brain capacity, headroom to think over and above the listening or reading. And so the information needs to be coming to the student automatically, subconsciously like riding a bike.

If child's learning mechanism is overloaded --if reading is not automatic, if listening in class, i.e., auditory processing, is inefficient -- then metacognition cannot develop as it should.

About half of all students in the US leave 8th grade below grade level. The vast majority have delayed metacognitive skills. They may well have functional reading and listening skills but these skills are inefficient, taking up too much conscious brain space, crowding out metacognitive development.

Our Programs Aim to Develop Metacognition
Gemm Learning uses Fast ForWord software to help the brain learn to process efficiently, which frees up brain capacity for development of metacognition.

These skills take years to develop. Time lost learning the basics such as efficient listening or reading with automaticity impacts metacognitive skills later. If you think your child has an over-loaded learning mechanism that could lead to a metacognitive gap later in life, fill in this screening to see if we can help.

For more on metacognition when reading click here.

If you are intrigued by the idea of brain plasticity but find it hard to get your head around the concept, The Brain that Changes Itself is a great book.

As related in this book, the adaptability, self-healing and rejuvenating power of the brain when exercised the right way is amazing. The stories of miracle recoveries and transformations are heart warming and exciting. The book tracks the experiments and clinical trials that lead to our current understanding that the brain is indeed "plastic" -- it is adaptable and malleable -- as these tidbits show:

A neuroscientist nursed his father back to full health after a massive stroke using brain exercises. After his father's death years later they discovered that the brain had reconstructed itself using only the 3% (!!) of mass not stroke affected.

The brain of a person who had lost all sense of balance learned how to balance again using outside sensors to re-learn what to do, then rebuilding internal vestibular skills.

Experiments such as one with ferrets, where the brains connections to the eyes and ears were surgically switched. Two months later the previously auditory part of the brain was now processing visual signals. It adapted.

ENTER MIKE MERZENICH

Of course, a book like this has a lot about Fast ForWord software and its co-founder, Dr. Michael Merzenich. Here's an excerpt:
"......Merzenich is worth the search. The Irish neuroscientist Ian Robertson has described him as "the world's leading researcher on brain plasticity." Merzenich's specialty is improving people's ability to think and perceive by redesigning the brain by training specific processing areas, called brain maps, so that they do more mental work. He has also, perhaps more than any other scientist, shown in rich scientific detail how our brain-processing areas change....."

All kinds of media and respected individuals have praised this book for taking a dry subject like brain plasticity and bringing it to life through personal experiences.

If you have a child with a learning issue that concerns you, this book will give you renewed hope that the future is bright and that a better outcome is possible.

This story just came in. Mayra has been working at Gemm for about four months.
Recovering from a coma
Mayra was once a student who excelled in almost everything she did. She was at the top of her class in college and played violin for the philharmonic. Mayra was an active volunteer, dedicated to her own education and to helping others.

But then her world fell apart. Mayra earned the opportunity to study in Spain, where she contracted Pneumococcal Meningitis - an infection that often leads to severe brain damage causing the loss of use of entire regions of the body. Mayra's case was no different. The doctors treating Mayra told her parents that she was clinically brain dead. Mayra lost all ability to see, speak and move and her parents had to re-teach her how to chew food, stand and walk. Every aspect of her life needed to be relearned. After a year in the hospital, Mayra recovered some of her normal functions but her cognitive and auditory processing were still severely impaired. Her neurosurgeon told Mrs. Rodriguez the synaptic pathways in her brain had been severed. Basically, the information was still in Mayra's head but she could not access it.

About this time she found Gemm Learning. Medical bills were consuming the family and so Gemm offered to provide Mayra a scholarship for Fast ForWord.

Several months later, after participating in Fast ForWord software, as well as continuing her regular therapies, Mayra has made an astounding recovery. She is able to participate in conversation and has started reading again. Her mother is ecstatic about her recovery and is thrilled with how Gemm Learning and Fast ForWord has helped her daughter.

Incredibly, we are happy to report that Mayra now has a goal of returning to SUNY Binghamton to become a lawyer. It's a stretch goal, but given her recent progress we think she will get there and we are proud to be part of her journey.

Here's a new Fast ForWord software success story that just came in. Gemm has been working with this student for about three months.

A 7 year old battles back from high dose chemo.
Stephen, now in 3rd grade, missed all of 1st grade receiving high dose chemotherapy for osteosarcoma, bone cancer. He has a titanium rod in his leg that requires three surgeries per year to adjust to his body growth. But don’t expect Stephen to complain about the surgeries, the medications, any of it. He just wants to be a kid with time each day to play.

After chemo, Stephen’s mom noticed what medical professionals call chemo brain – a decline in cognitive skills brought on by the toxic effects of chemo. Stephen, previously a good student, was now spending hours on homework, his confidence was down and his teachers recommended a Special Education classroom.

Stephen’s mom felt otherwise. That’s when she came to us. She wanted to know if Fast ForWord could reverse the poisonous effects of chemotherapy. Our center director, Tina Liberatore, was unsure at first. She had seen Fast ForWord work in a wide variety of cases and she was aware that it is being used with stroke patients and she was anxious to help.

Stephen is remarkable young man who had already survived so much. Her advice was to not only to try it, but given the family's medical bills, we offered a scholarship.

Three months later, Stephen is thriving. According to his mother, “Stephen is doing everything faster. His writing has picked up a lot. He has learned to love reading and his reading comprehension is much improved. His hearing teacher has noticed an “amazing” improvement. He is not quite as fast as his classmates, but is working five times faster than last year.” His teachers have also noticed a positive shift in his confidence. By all accounts he is now “singing down the hallway on his way to class.”

“By speeding up his auditory processing, Fast ForWord has effectively slowed the world down for Stephen, making his day much more manageable” said Michelle Reynard, Stephen’s Program Director. “We are exceedingly proud of the phenomenal progress he has made in just a few short months.”

With less time needed for homework, Stephen now has more time to just play. There can be no greater cause for giving thanks this holiday season.

A recent article "Study links autism to six new genes" published in Newsday: "Many researchers now believe most autism and Aspergers cases have unique causes." "The findings suggest autism strikes in a brain that can't properly form new connections and also may help explain why intense education programs do help some autistic children -- because certain genes that respond to experience weren't missing, they were just stuck in the 'off' position." "'The circuits are there but you have to give it an extra push... The genetics suggest that 'what were doing makes sense when we work with these little kids - and work and work --and suddenly get through."

This research confirms that these disorders – from ADD through full blown autism – have at their root a problem with neural development. It is somehow delayed or impaired. Connections that should have been made simply never were.

This is why learning interventions like Fast ForWord have had success. The exercises are accessible and provide enough intensity to provide that extra push.

Auditory Processing Disorder (or Central Auditory Processing Disorder/ CAPD) is basically the role the brain plays in the hearing process which ultimately enables us to develop learning skills. In order to help children to overcome any CAPD issues we focus on developing their cognitive processes. This ensures the breakthrough that gives long lasting improvements of language, reading and learning skills.

Some level of auditory processing is by far the most common reason that children need reading help not to mention language based learning issues such as difficulty following directions, speaking delays, vocabulary and articulation issues.

Fast ForWord software works on auditory processing very successfully. Send me an email and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.