Brain Training Program

How Brain Fitness Software Helps Learning & Reading

Correcting The Underlying Delay or Deficit
The fastest and most effective way to deal with almost any problem in life is to treat the underlying cause of the difficulty. For reading and learning, this means a brain training program to exercise and remove the underlying cognitive delays that make learning difficult.

And yet, this is not what happens in education, where brain training software is only now gaining traction.

The alternative to treating the underlying cause is instruction, lots and lots of extra instruction. This "work around" approach includes tutoring after school and/or smaller class sizes in school. Remediation, in most case, takes years, and involves gargantuan efforts from the student, teachers and parents.

Cognitive Training Takes A Few Months At Most
A brain training program, by contrast, is typically a 3-6 month, one time effort. Effective brain training protocols can bypass years of tutoring and extra effort, and along the way restore confidence and a love of learning often lost in a long remediation process.

If a cognitive brain based intervention is able to improve processing speed so that a student has improved phonological awareness, reading will come much more naturally and much faster. It makes a huge difference decoding words if you can hear the sounds inside the word. Alternatively, if brain training can improve working memory, so that a child can retain what he/she is reading, this represents an almost immediate, quantum leap in reading comprehension skill. This is where Cogmed, a relatively new cognitive training program is hoping to make an impact.

What Is Brain Fitness?

Learning and reading require proficiency in a wide range of cognitive skills -- visual and auditory processing, working memory, short and long term memory, selective attention and sequencing, to name a few.

To read with metacognition, i.e., to be able to think critically and self-correct while reading -- the essential and ultimate reading skill -- requires dexterity in the English language which in turn requires absolute levels of cognitive skill proficiency, not unlike requiring certain muscle strength to lift a 100lb weight. For instance:

• Auditory processing speed of 40 sounds a second. At this speed, phonological awareness is crystal clear -- a student can hear three letter blends, as in s-p-r-i-n-g and can automatically break down and decode much longer words into the correct phonemes. If a student is processing slower than 40 sounds a second, some words will be muddy and will not be read naturally.


• Working Memory must be able to capture and hold seven items at once. While there are many higher levels of working memory skill -- Einstein figured out relativity using his working memory! -- this base level, a phone number spoken at natural language speed, is essential in all reading and learning.

Approximately 90% of reading and learning issues are caused by one or more cognitive skill gaps, and yet almost no time at school is invested in closing these gaps. This is the opportunity of Fast ForWord, to take a different approach, a brain based intervention, to remove these cognitive impediments and to help your child learn at his or her potential.

How Our Brain Program Works

Fast ForWord software, our virtual online brain training program, has exercises that build brain fitness to the level required to process natural language at natural language speed. It has various exercises that train processing, attention, working memory and sequencing, first, somewhat in isolation and then, working together in an integrated fashion as is required in reading and learning.
Fast ForWord description

Brain Plasticity
The label itself, cognitive training or brain program, correctly implies that a student can do something about their learning, that brain training will improve cognitive brain function and therefore learning efficiency. This is brain plasticity, the now established science that the brain can not only be rewired, but that this is its normal state, to be constantly adapting, self-organizing to improve its capabilities. For instance, a recent study by MIT showed that visual cortex brain tissue in the blind is used for language processing.
MIT brain plasticity study

While most schools still cling to the idea that learning is fixed and the best way to deal with any learning issue is more instruction, and if that does not work, then even more instruction, the opportunity of brain plasticity is taking hold in the after-school educational world as new brain fitness programs are developed. At this point though, only a handful of programs have been able to invest sufficiently in the clinical testing required to vouch for efficacy, and of those, Fast ForWord software is far and away the brain training program gold standard.

Neuroscience Principles
Fast ForWord was developed by four of the world's leading neuroscientists and cognitive researchers. It took a number of years, requiring many millions of dollars in Silicon Valley funding, using neuroscience principles that in various experiments have been shown to be the most effective in coaxing the brain to rewire quickly and effectively.
Fast ForWord background in brain fitness

Here are the core neuroscience principles of Fast ForWord:

• Frequency. Just as regular physical exercise builds new muscle tissue or muscle memory, cognitive skill building requires frequency, 4-5 session a week over a few weeks or more. Cognitive skills though, once built, integrate into overall language function where they are then exercised naturally in daily life, and so the program is one time only.


• Intensity. Brain training re-works existing processes, creating new, more efficient neural pathways. This requires intensity, not unlike foreign language "immersion" where a month in a country speaking only the local language can do wonders! Fast ForWord builds in this intensity with adaptive algorithms, challenging exercises that adapt to each student's skill level.


• Noradrenaline release. This chemical has the effect of "melting" and then resetting new pathways. Fast ForWord uses extensive rewards to encourage the release of this chemical in the brain, when new levels of success (and ability) are achieved.


• Shaping. This is another concept that mimics physical skill building. Brain training is most effective using tiny, incremental steps (called "shaping") to create new neural pathways to lead the brain to new learning abilities.


• Natural Learning. The most powerful form of learning is natural learning, where the brain absorbs new understanding without direct instruction, not unlike how young children learn language. Fast ForWord uses natural learning in both its cognitive and reading phases.

How Often Can Brain Training Help?

There have been several studies done using Fast ForWord, where fMRI's were conducted before and after the program. In every case so far, the fMRI has indicated post program changes in brain activity patterns while reading. Most notably post-Fast ForWord fMRI's show much more reliance on the language parts of the brain, as is the norm for good readers.

These studies leave no doubt that the brain is plastic and that Fast ForWord rewires learning.

How this rewiring translates into academic gain will vary for every student -- how much change, and how quickly. There are many variables, most notably IQ, personality traits, and other cognitive issues not addressed by Fast ForWord.

Gemm Learning Outcomes
Because we are careful to screen out students we have a low chance of helping, our success rate is high:

---- In approximately half of all cases, our brain training software is a silver bullet. It is able to strengthen underlying cognitive skills to the point where the symptoms of learning and reading difficulty are no longer evident.

---- In most other cases, we are able to make tangible gains that change the learning dynamic for the student.

While gains from our program typically are measured in the short term, i.e., when the program is in progress or shortly after completion, profound gains also occur later. Learning is sequential and so so improvements in the fundamental building blocks of learning can take a year or two to filter into higher level critical thinking.

Find Out If We Can Help

The ultimate measure of our brain training program success is our client satisfaction rate: 96.8% of clients say they would recommend us to others. However, every child is different. To find out if your child is a candidate for our program, call for a free consult Monday-Friday, 9AM to 6PM EST, or request a different time here:
Request consult outside regular hours.