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Neuroplasticity Creates The Potential to Transform Learners
“Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.”
Norman Doidge
The scientific consensus on how much the brain can change – and the connection between neuroplasticity and learning — has been turned upside down over the last two decades.
According to neuroscientist and best-selling author Norman Doidge, “Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.” Entrepreneur Naveen Jain says that “neuroplasticity research showed that the brain changes its very structure with each different activity it performs.”
So what exactly is neuroplasticity? Going by the quotes above, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s some kind of magic. In fact, neuroplasticity is a radical new understanding of how the brain works made possible by the functional MRI, which captures brain activity in a video format.
You can see in this fMRI image how powerful it is to be able to observe a brain reading and to compare individuals at different skill levels.
Over the years, scientists have used this new window into how the brain responds to develop a whole new generation of learning interventions that tap into neuroplasticity as a way to change learning skills at their roots.
Conventional wisdom has been that the “window” for helping children develop their learning skills ends at three years of age. This is not true. The window is open throughout a person’s life. With practice, all brains can develop higher levels of learning skills.
It is true that in the first three years of life the brain is in set-up mode and learning circuitry is “always on,” and so the rate of learning — discarding old connections in favor of newer, better ones — is fantastic. Beyond that window, exercises aimed at boosting learning ability need to overcome a more cemented learning process. But that’s all. It is very possible, and a number of therapies, exercising the brain in very different ways, targeting very different aspects of brain function, are having success.
Neuroplasticity: The Ability of the Brain to Change in Response to Stimuli
Brain plasticity (or neuroplasticity) refers to the fact that the brain is adaptive — it self-organizes, meaning that if exercised appropriately, it can adapt and change for the better.
This new understanding of the brain, discovered in a famous ferret experiment and then confirmed in the 1990s by the invention of the fMRI, is in stark contrast to the prior theory that each part of the brain has a fixed specialized function.
And that once these functions are learned, typically at a young age, they are fixed, predetermined for life. As explained in great detail in Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself, this theory was called localizationism and it has been proved wrong.
In fact, the brain is not only plastic and able to change; it changes constantly. Brain maps, the functionality by region, change constantly depending on individual needs.
This is called “competitive plasticity” (or “use it or lose it”), referring to the fact that the brain is constantly dropping connections (knowledge or skills) that are seem to be no longer needed or that are not being challenged – synaptic pruning – and it will add connections if there are new demands.
For instance, the brain of a person learning the violin will steadily add more brain capacity to the playing hand, as the demands for accuracy, speed and coordination grow. A recent MIT study showed that visual cortex tissue in blind individuals is used for language processing.
The Brain’s Ability to Communicate Can Change
The process of neuronal communication occurs very rapidly, and messages are sent almost instantaneously. However, in some people, neuronal communication takes longer than in other people or does not happen at all.
The efficiency of communication in our brain depends on an abundance of proper synaptic connections between neurons. If a message cannot get across the synapse to the next neuron, or if there are not enough pathways for the message to travel down, the message can’t be communicated to different areas of the brain. If something is described as “plastic”, this simply means that it has the ability to change. It is now well known that many elements of the brain’s communication system can change.
Synaptic plasticity (stronger connections)
The synapse (connection between the neurons) can change in strength. For example, if there is more neurotransmitters crossing the synapse, there is more activation of the receptor sites on the next neuron, which leads to a stronger connection. Like any other form of exercise, synaptic strength will increase if there is repeated and consistent activation of neurons
Neuronal plasticity (new connections)
The brain communication network as a whole can also be improved. Neuroplasticity simply refers to the ability of neurons to form new synaptic connections with one another. When something new is heard, either existing neuronal pathways are slightly altered or new connections are formed.
In this way, constant and repetitive use of language will improve the ability of the brain to change itself, and thus the brain’s communication can improve.
The Brain Is Like A Muscle
Despite being the most complex human organ, the brain isn’t actually so different than a physical muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets, and the less you use it, the weaker it gets.
However, in another way, the brain is different from a muscle in that it’s more versatile. The brain plasticity miracle of stroke recovery occurs because brain cells previously doing something else can be trained in the roles of brain cells killed by a stroke.
Research on neuroplasticity shows that when you exercise your brain, things that were once difficult become easier, and the impossible becomes possible. When neuroplasticity and learning are connected, the potential for positive outcomes expands.
The brain’s ability to change based on how it’s used is what makes practice so important for developing and refining new skills. For instance, researchers can tell through brain scans that as musicians learn to play a new instrument, the parts of their brain associated with fine motor control grow and develop new connections to other parts of the brain.
Likewise, when dyslexic children learn to read, a part of their brains called the “left parietal lobe” starts lighting up more brightly than before and becomes more like the corresponding part of the brain in non-dyslexics.
Neuroplasticity researchers often say that “neurons that fire together wire together,” which essentially means that when your brain is activated in a certain pattern, it becomes easier for your brain to fall into that pattern again in the future.
Using Neuroplasticity To Transform Learning
The brain self-improves but does not have a mind of its own, so to speak. It responds to what you ask of it. So there’s a way to manipulate and manage what the brain works on. The trick is creating a starting point, then tiny steps to lead the brain in the right direction.
The potential for neuroplasticity to transform lives is part of what inspired us to provide neuroscience-based learning and reading software to families at home.
Many Gemm Learning testimonials seem incredible- remarkable change in a short period. But really, they show how willing the brain is to be led toward new growth. And to the efficacy of the software we use, which takes full advantage of the neuroplasticity opportunity.
To find out if we can help your child, call for a free consultation or take a free assessment here.
The First Three Years – “Always On” Plasticity
Young Brains Are in Constant Set-Up Mode
When your son or daughter is born, your child’s brain has 100 billion brain cells. However, the brain doesn’t look the same as an adult brain. The cells have not started absorbing inputs from the five senses, and the cells have not yet formed connections to other cells. This cell-to-cell connection in the brain is responsible for intelligence and the mastery of skills.
As the brain begins to connect cells, synapses form between nerve cells. The synapse doesn’t physically touch other nerve cells; however, neurotransmitters affect the synapse. Nerve cells, complete with their synapse, connect with other nerve cells, and circuits are formed.
Every cell can potentially connect to 15,000 other cells. By the time your child is three years old, there are about a quadrillion connections.
Brain In Constant Learn Mode
A number of scientific experiments have confirmed that in the first three years of life, the brain is in a complete learning setup mode. It assumes nothing and processes everything, connecting everything to everything. For instance, a door opens and a dog barks — early in life this is remembered in case it is useful.
In the first few weeks of life, babies can recognize the different faces of monkeys, until they recognize there is no useful purpose in holding that information, and so they lose that skill. By a process of trial and error, the brain eventually figures out how to learn what is connected and relevant, and what isn’t.
It’s an incredibly fertile and active period for the brain, with learning running at peak levels. The success of this setup phase has a profound effect on a child’s life.
Experiments – Brain Growth Varies By Environment
Fast ForWord software founder Michael Merzenich discusses an experiment involving rats placed in different sound environments. Some rats heard a wide variety of sounds and music, while others heard only a ceiling fan with one repetitive sound. As you might guess, this difference in environment had a significant stimulatory effect on brain growth. The rats that only heard a ceiling fan had stunted auditory brain development.
This same dynamic applies to the language you hear at birth. If you grow up hearing most Asian languages, your brain tunes into picking up different tones – a huge part of Asian language structure. Whereas, babies that grow up hearing English are confronted with phonetic language, and so what it focuses on is identifying different syllable and vowel sounds.
You can see why classical music is so popular for babies. It has a wide range of frequencies, patterns, and surprises that stimulate listening. Similarly, you can see why most experts come out against the whole idea of teaching babies to read. Yes, they can be taught to read, but really, is specializing in those first 3 years on reading the highest and best use of a fertile brain?
The Language Mapping Task – And Ear Infections
As you can imagine, mapping an entire language is a big project. After figuring out phonemes, words are attached to meaning; then there’s language syntax, recognizing the impact of tone, etc.
And so there is a strong link between early childhood and reading. If a child has ear infections during this 3-year setup period, language development can be compromised. In fact, many reading delays can be traced back to auditory processing issues caused by ear infections.
This is why the best way for parents to help a child learn to read is to focus on language bombardment. For instance, reading out loud to a child and talking to a child in adult language with lots of depth in vocabulary and language structure. In the first three years, it is best not to distract the brain with other projects, such as learning to read, until you are sure oral language has been mastered.
Learning Connections Slow Down (But Never Halt)
While some synaptic pruning starts early, serious pruning doesn’t begin until around age 3. The brain keeps the connections it uses most; it discards unused ones. This process accelerates around age 5.
The first three years of life are critical. After this wonderful period of growth in learning skills, the brain has made most of the connections it needs for learning and shuts down this aspect of growth to focus more on learning actual content, i.e., language, sounds for reading, etc.
This is where the idea of learning being fixed comes from. From the knowledge that the first three years of life are unique, and indeed they are. It is also true that once learning mechanics are wired, it is harder to change them after those first three years. Naturally, “rewiring” is harder than wiring for the first time.
If you stimulate the brain’s motor pathways by teaching your child to ride a bike, your child will develop the skill of balancing on the bike, motor coordination, grace, and a sense of balance. If you stimulate the brain’s motor pathways by playing tennis, the child develops the same skills, but more specifically related to tennis. The sports skills a child develops stay with them for life.
An older child could still learn how to ski or play ping pong, but when the brain’s cells are set up in circuitry for a sport at a young age, it’s easier to excel in the sport.
Brain Plasticity Is Lifelong
While older brains aren’t in “always on” learning mode, they’re still constantly self-improving, learning, and changing. This is what science now tells us: it’s called brain plasticity. So it is not true to say rewiring isn’t possible. Just because you don’t have a brain in always-on mode, it does not mean that a brain that has glitches in its early setup cannot be trained to improve.
Rewiring is possible; brain wiring and learning are not fixed.
That scientific discovery- that brain wiring is not fixed- has been quoted by Norman Doidge as the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century. It has huge implications for every child, teenager, or adult who is struggling with learning or reading. Profound and lasting change is possible.
Gemm Learning uses Fast ForWord, using neuroscience principles to tap into that brain change potential – with great success.
