Fast ForWord Neuroscience Principles

The Neuroscience Principles Behind Fast ForWord

Designed by neuroscientists, Fast ForWord cognitive software builds essential fundamental skills based on a working model of how the brain works, using the established principles outlined below.

Frequency and Intensity

While the window for brain training as a way to rewire learning stays open throughout life, after the first three years, stimulating new neural pathways and improving brain function requires frequency and intensity.

Fast ForWord creates intensity using patented adaptive software that finds each student’s ability level and then exercises those skills right where they need them. The program is also designed so that the exercise setup is very brief, leading to a large number of tasks performed in a short period.

That’s the intensity. The five-day-a-week 30-minutes/day protocol provides frequency.

Shaping: Change In Tiny Increments

A muscle can build strength only through repetitions at stepped-up resistance. In the world of neuroscience, this process is called “shaping” — creating new pathways to higher function in tiny incremental steps. The brain, like a muscle, can change if an exercise path is presented appropriately.

Stimulate Norepinephrine: Brain Change Agent

At regular intervals, students receive unexpected surprises from the neuroscience software, such as fun on-screen activities or sounds. These surprises are designed to produce a spike in norepinephrine, which promotes brain change.

Many of the exercises focus on memory in conjunction with other skills. Fast ForWord does this to encourage the brain to reorganize as a system. Every minute of computer time is productive, every minute working toward improved learning.

Engage The Student: Adaptive Algorithms

Each individual brings a unique set of strengths and weaknesses to any new task. A task that is quite easy for one student will be difficult for another. To benefit from training, the level of difficulty must be challenging without being discouraging. This level differs for each student and changes over time as performance improves.

This response to challenges is central to how the nervous system operates, and shaping the system’s response properties progressively and adaptively is part of effective learning.

Critical to the success of cognitive software is making every minute of exercise intense and productive. Each task needs to adapt in a way that optimizes training intensity and improvement in that skill.

The ability to adjust task difficulty in response to individual users’ performance on a moment-to-moment basis is one of the key innovations in cognitive training made possible by computer technology, and it is incorporated into Fast ForWord.

It constantly assesses the participant’s skill level, adding speed and complexity at the student’s own pace.

Simultaneous Development – for Enduring Gains

The program integrates a variety of tasks to develop multiple cognitive and language skills at the same time. This is based on the idea that these skills are interconnected and that improvements in one area (like phonological awareness) can support improvements in other areas (like reading comprehension).

Lasting gains happen when cognitive, language, and literacy skills are trained simultaneously, blending skills and gains in ways that integrate into overall learning and are repeated in daily life, so they endure.

Lasting gains are central to the Fast ForWord value proposition.

Natural Learning Science

Early learning is natural. Children learn through discovery. Then they test in real-world settings, and then integrate it into knowledge and behavior. This powerful learning process uses in-the-moment feedback to promote deep understanding and lasting gains.

Fast ForWord has no instructions—the cognitive software uses exploration and discovery techniques to replicate natural learning.

Rewards – Dopamine

Fast ForWord exercises include frequent breaks with reward sounds and signals that aim to stimulate dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in the brain. Dopamine is often called the “reward molecule” because it’s involved in the brain’s reward system, motivating us to seek out and work for things that satisfy our needs and desires. Here’s a brief explanation of how dopamine can aid learning:

• Reward Prediction: Dopamine neurons become activated when we expect a reward. If the reward is greater than expected, these neurons increase their activity, reinforcing the association between the action taken and the reward. If the reward is less than expected, the dopamine neurons decrease their activity. This process helps us to learn to predict rewards based on our actions, effectively promoting behaviors that lead to positive outcomes.
• Motivation: Because dopamine is associated with the reward system, it influences motivation. Higher dopamine levels generally increase motivation to perform actions that may lead to a reward. This is crucial for learning, as it encourages engagement in behaviors and activities that result in positive feedback and learning.
• Memory Consolidation: Dopamine is also believed to play a role in memory formation. Research suggests that dopamine facilitates consolidating memories of reward-associated events. Essentially, the pleasant feelings associated with reward stimulate dopamine release, which in turn helps to consolidate the memory of what led to that reward. This helps individuals remember and repeat behaviors that led to positive outcomes.
• Focus and Attention: Dopamine is associated with maintaining attention and focus, both crucial for learning. Appropriate dopamine levels can help individuals stay engaged in tasks longer, allowing for more effective learning.

In summary, dopamine helps us learn by reinforcing rewarding behaviors, increasing motivation, helping with memory consolidation, and enhancing focus and attention.

By applying these neuroscience principles, Fast ForWord seeks to address the root causes of language and reading difficulties, rather than merely the symptoms.

Learning Is Connected

While Fast ForWord was developed as a reading intervention, students spend the last 1-2 months remediating the causes of reading delays, which overlap with language-related learning difficulties. This makes it a powerful program for ADHD and for other learning issues detailed here.   

Not surprisingly, published research on Fast ForWord has shown that it helps many children improve their language and reading skills.