Still the Write Stuff: Why We Must Continue Teaching Handwriting

• August 23, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

When it comes to lost arts, we could argue that none is getting lost faster than handwriting. Since the personal computer and now the telephone have become the primary methods for recording our ideas, we simply do not write – I mean with an actual writing implement like a pen or pencil – as much as we used to.

So, we must ask ourselves, is this really a problem? Sure, one could argue that receiving a handwritten letter is more meaningful than getting one that is typed, but that’s an emotional opinion; it’s not a scientific argument. And aren’t professionals in all fields using more computers, tablets and handhelds to communicate, record and share ideas? So, what is the real value of learning handwriting skills versus being able to type 100 words per minute on a QWERTY keyboard?

At Indiana University, Dr. Karin Harman James, assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences, focuses her research on how motor stimuli can influence our visual recognition, and how the brain changes as we have different experiences. This research provides a basis for a scientific argument for the continued instruction of handwriting.

In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Cognitive Science, adults were shown new characters as well as a mirror image of these characters after reproducing them through writing and keyboarding. When quizzed afterward, subjects were shown to have a “stronger, longer lasting recognition” of the characters’ correct orientation when they had written them by hand versus produced them by matching them to a keyboard button. This suggests that engaging the motor nerves to create the shapes by hand helped solidify the ability to identify such shapes.

In another study, James’ team took this idea to the next level to see what was actually going on inside the brain during these activities. They used a functional MRI to map brain activity in children as they looked at letters before and after letter-learning instruction. Their results showed that those who practiced writing the letters showed more brain activity than those who only looked at the letters. In addition, according to a 2010 report on the research in the Wall Street Journal Online, James said that after four weeks of training, the children who practiced writing skills showed brain activation similar to an adult’s.

Between these two studies, we see excellent examples of brain plasticity at work. James’ work demonstrates a clear connection between how engaging more of the brain in the activity of writing improves how letters are committed to memory. Given that letter recognition is an essential step for early readers, it’s easy to see why practicing writing letters is an essential component of the groundwork for later success.

Certainly, with limited time, schools try to maximize student achievement, and give them a baseline of skills that will allow them to continue to develop to optimize their success throughout life in an increasingly technology-based society. That said, based on James’ research, it’s quite clear that penmanship has an important place in the classroom, and not just as an important traditional skill.  In actually applying pen to paper, we allow our students to engage their brains in ways that typing on a keyboard cannot. And whether such an activity is done with pen and paper, a stylus and a tablet PC or chalk on a blackboard, it is in every student’s best interest to practice the “write” stuff.

For further reading:

The many health perks of good handwriting. Deardorff, Julie. Chicago Tribune, June 15, 2011. Referenced on August 14, 2011.

How handwriting trains the brain. Bounds, Gwendolyn. The Wall Street Journal Online, October 5, 2010. Referenced on August 14, 2011.

Writing strengthens orthography and alphabetic-coding strengthens phonology in learning to read Chinese. Guan, Connie Qun; Liu, Ying; Chan, Derek Ho Leung; Ye, Feifei; Perfetti, Charles A. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 103(3), Aug 2011, 509-522.

 

Related Reading:

Why Limit Screen Time? Scientific Research Explains

Ok, so you made a mistake. But look what you learned!

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: brain development, brain plasticity, brain training, cognitive skills, creativity, digital natives, early learning, elementary learning, memory, processing, writing

Connecting the Dots Between Infant Temperament and Future Success

• August 18, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

What factors will ultimately determine a child’s ability to succeed in life? While measures like socioeconomic status might allow a child to start off on the right foot, current research is delving into the nature of temperament and how that affects a person’s ability to successfully navigate life’s many challenges.   If temperament is pre-determined, there’s not much a parent can do, but if nurture plays a role, then how can parents help their child have the best quality of life?

While temperament has long been thought of as something innate, recent research has demonstrated that only some aspects are genetic, while others are environmental.

On the genetic side, as any parent will agree, much of an individual’s personality manifests very early on in the infant’s life. Parents with more than one child often note that one of their children seems easygoing from day one, but another child is demanding. One child may be outgoing and social, while their sibling may be more shy or withdrawn.

As we consider how these seemingly innate traits develop, we cannot ignore the fact that the environment – from parental attention to nutrition – exerts a strong influence on a child’s personality development. Current research tells us that a pregnant mother’s iron levels can affect the disposition of her child. Emerging data gleaned from animal research indicates that the quality of maternal parenting styles, such as the way a mother nurses her infants or the amount of maternal grooming, affects the temperament of her offspring.

An interesting question arises: How do these early manifestations play out as the child matures? For example, will an infant who is able to self-calm herself in stressful situations by turning away from aversive stimuli or sucking her thumb, for example, continue to exhibit self-regulatory behaviors as she gets older?

Considering the interplay between innate versus cultivated aspects of temperament, what actions can a parent take to affect the development of a child’s personality to give that child the best chance at personal satisfaction, academic achievement and successful relationships later in life? As the above research – and our own parental gut instincts – suggest, we can set them up by providing:

• Excellent nutrition
• Logical, predictable rules for living with others
• Optimal environments and schedules for sleep
• Lots of interactive play with family and friends
• Less screen time
• Lots and lots of parental love and affection

 

With parents providing these positive factors for their children, every child – from shy to outgoing, from tense to easygoing – will have the best chance at developing a balanced temperament as they mature.

For further study, read: Child Temperament and Parenting, by Samuel Putnam (University of Oregon), Ann Sanson (University of Melbourne), Mary Rothbart (University of Oregon). 

References:

Feder, A; Nestler, EJ; Charney, DS.  Psychobiology and molecular genetics of resilience.  Nature Reviews  Neuroscience 10 (2009) 446 – 457

Related Reading:

Building a Foundation for School Readiness for Low Income Children

The Magical Combination of Love and Limits: Tips for Teaching Positive Behavior

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, behavior, brain development, cognitive skills, decision making, early learning, how children learn, infant brain, Innate abilities, learning environment, learning through play, play

Building a Foundation for School Readiness for Low Income Children

• August 16, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As educators with experience in child development, we understand the essential nature of being responsive to a child. Children who do not receive enough attention do not develop in the same way as those who receive consistent nurturing and feedback. Research has demonstrated how, at a physiological level – their brains simply wire themselves differently as they develop. This deficit in early childhood experiences often manifests itself as developmental delays across a wide spectrum of behaviors. These behavioral delays appear in parallel with delays in brain development.

Imagine a child growing up in a home where sensitive, responsive caregiving is rare. Maybe mom and/or dad work more hours and are simply not available. Maybe they come home too tired to read or play or simply snuggle with the child. Or, this is an environment where sensitive, responsive nurturing is not valued very highly. While it is not the case in every situation like this, at its extreme, the parent or parents may be truly neglecting the child’s needs at this early stage. Even moderate differences in these important parent-child interactions have important longer-term consequences for development.

Research has shown that in these situations a child’s brain development quickly gets derailed. Children who do not receive enough of what is known as “sensitive-response caregiving” and cognitive stimulation do not develop executive function skills as readily as their counterparts in more caring, stimulating environments. (Lengua et al., 2007; Li-Grining, 2007) In other words, children may not be encouraged to be aware of and interact with the world around them (cognitive stimulation). They also may not be encouraged to engage or develop planning, decision-making or troubleshooting skills (executive function).

Executive functions, also known as “domain-general” functions, are those called upon in various types of learning opportunities; these include such functions as working memory, regulation of emotions and attentional control. On the other hand, a “domain-specific” cognitive process is one that represents a specific skill or skill area, such as reading or counting.

But what are the implications as children grow and enter school? Recently, a team of researchers led by Janet Welsh at Penn State studied readiness for school in a group of Head Start children and how certain cognitive processes were associated with the development of certain skills. Specifically, they studied the relationship between domain-general and domain-specific cognitive processes in these low-income pre-kindergartners, and tracked them through kindergarten.

Welsh‘s study showed that skills scaffolded consistently from one level to the next, and these skill levels represented good indicators of how well the child would develop the next set of skills. In other words, good working memory and attention control predicted the development of early literacy and numeracy skills, and these skills were predictors of later math and reading achievement.

Whether through experience in the home, great work in the pre-kindergarten classroom and/or support from computer-based learning exercises, it is clearly essential that we support the early development of domain-general cognitive skills as early and as strongly as possible.

While this may seem obvious, Welsh’s research underscores the essential nature of laying a foundation in those executive functions, those domain-general cognitive abilities, for each and every student – but especially for those at an economic disadvantage if we are to close the gaps and truly offer the same opportunities to every student.

Read the full study: The Development of Cognitive Skills and Gains in Academic School Readiness for Children From Low-Income Families, Janet A. Welsh, Robert L. Nix, Clancy Blair, Karen L. Bierman, and Keith E. Nelson. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2010, Volume 102, Number 1, p. 43-53.

For further reading:    

Family Involvement in School and Low-Income Children's Literacy Performance, Eric Dearing, Holly Kreider, Sandra Simpkins, and Heather Weiss. Harvard Family Research Project. January 2007.

Early Care and Education for Children in Low-Income Families Patterns of Use, Quality, and Potential Policy Implications, Gina Adams, Kathryn Tout, and Martha Zaslow. Prepared for the Urban Institute and Child Trends. January 2006, revised May 2007.

The impact of poverty on educational outcomes for children, HB Ferguson, S Bovaird, and MP Mueller. Paediatr Child Health. October 2007. 12(8): 701–706.

Related Reading:

Building Unstructured Play Into the Structure of Each Day

Lifelong Learning and the Plastic Brain

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Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: achievement gap, attention, brain development, cognitive skills, early learning, emotions in learning, executive function, how children learn, learning environment, literacy, math, memory, play, processing, technology in education, toddler

Left vs. Right: What Your Brain Hemispheres Are Really Up To

• July 12, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

In the 1980’s, brain researchers viewed the two sides of the brain as dichotomously opposed: the right hemisphere was seen as a gestalt processor, good at “seeing the big picture,” while the left hemisphere was attributed with detail processing skills. Other views at that time attributed the left hemisphere with being more logical and analytical while the right hemisphere was considered more intuitive.^[i]

Some went so far as asserting that men and women exhibited different right vs. left preferences: men were attributed with stronger left hemisphere skills and women better right hemisphere skills. Although this male-female distinction was never empirically verified through research, the somewhat “pop-psychology” view that the right hemisphere is important for skills like music and art, predominated. In fact, there were books written instructing individuals on how to “draw with the right hemisphere” or how to “teach to the right hemisphere”.^[ii]

It now appears that some of these notions need to be revised.  A current view is that, for the majority of us, the right hemisphere is a pattern recognizer that may develop before the left. From this perspective, the right hemisphere enables a child to attend to and appreciate the gist of a sensory experience within each cognitive domain. For example, in acquisition of mathematical concepts, the right hemisphere may enable a young child to appreciate quantities in terms of more vs. less prior to assigning numerical values to the quantities (which would involve left hemisphere skills). There is research demonstrating that babies can discern a group of dots in terms of general aspects of quantity.^[iii]

Patricia Kuhl at University of Washington in Seattle has shown that typically developing infants show an interest in human voices over other environmental sounds like a car horn or doorbell, and direct their attention to human voice when it conveys information that is interesting.^[iv] Ultimately this may lead to an understanding of how the melody of a voice is used to convey a person’s intent.  In other words, recent research suggests that the right hemisphere may be best at processing patterns like voice contour, facial expression, aspects of size and quantity, gestalt aspects of the world which, from a developmental perspective, represent the way children begin to learn about cognitive areas like music, art, mathematics or language.

Considering the cognitive domain of music, for example, the right hemisphere appears to have a fundamental preference for recognizing melody, which allows a young infant to be interested in and ultimately reproduce early nursery songs. In the realm of visual processing, the right hemisphere has been shown to be better at perceiving the form or outline of an object than the details contained within the object.^[v]. And, similarly, although many people regard the left hemisphere as dominant for language, newer research has shown that the right hemisphere is superior at processing information like vocal inflection (prosody), and perhaps going directly from word to meaning, especially in very familiar phrases like idiomatic expressions (eg., “it is raining cats and dogs”) while the left hemisphere is more important for processing aspects of language that depend on analyzing the specific sequence of the sounds and words which are essential for understanding grammatical form of language and perceiving internal details of words.^[vi]

Several neuroscientists have accordingly revised and expanded the early right-left dichotomy to see the right hemisphere as preferential in processing form, structure, and perhaps, direct links to emotion,^[vii]  while the left hemisphere handles complex, rapidly changing stimuli, in which discerning the specific sequential order is critical to perception (as in speech perception, for example, where one must discern and order very rapidly changing complex acoustic events very quickly.)^[viii]

Another revision to the older view of right versus left hemisphere complements the view that the right hemisphere is preferential for pattern analysis, and comes from developmental neuroscience which has reported research that supports the contention that for most cognitive skills the right hemisphere matures before the left.^[ix] This certainly seems to the case when one looks at the early stages of neuronal development and migration in the fetal brain,^[x] and also the building of early axonal superhighways, as well as the research on myelination.^[xi] In fact, it may be that when this typical right to left maturation does not occur, developmental neurological abnormalities result. For example, there is some early research evidence that Autism Spectrum Disorders may represent one example of developmental deviations in this typical right-to-left developmental hierarchy.^[xii]

Although it may seem somewhat of a stretch from the early research in this area, one can observe how this organization might be reflected in early childhood development in the stages children pass through in the gradual mastery of skills. For example, when a child first begins to enjoy music, the observant adult notices that the child moves his or her whole body to the musical rhythm. For nursery songs, like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” the child often begins by humming the melodies. In both cases, this may represent right hemisphere processing.

In most cases, it will be a few years before the child will be able to read musical symbols which would presumably involve more left hemisphere skill. We do have research that shows that when three month old babies are first listening to oral language, the right hemisphere is much more active than the left.^[xiii] Patricia Kuhl has shown that mothers instinctively seem to match their speech to babies’ early developing perceptual preferences by exaggerating melodic inflection with young babies, probably reflecting their intuitive knowledge that they need to exaggerate the language cues (intonational contour and vocal inflection) that the right hemisphere seems to process preferentially while deemphasizing the production of the speech sounds themselves (left hemisphere preferences).^[xiv]
 

[i] Deutsch, Georg and Sally P. Springer. Left Brain, Right Brain: Perspectives From Cognitive Neuroscience . W.H. Feeman and Company/Worth Publishers. 2001.
[ii] Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Penguin Putnam Press. 1999.
[iii] Xu, Fei et al. (2005) Number sense in human infants. Developmental Science. Vol. 8. 2005.
[iv] Kuhl, Patricia. Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Vol 5. 2005.
[v] Devinsky, Orrin and Mark D’Esposito. Neurology of Cognitive and Behavioral Disorders. Oxford University Press. 2004.
[vi] Hickok, Gregory and David Poeppel. The Cortical Organization of Speech Processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2007.
[vii]Cahill, L. et al. Sex-Related Hemispheric Lateralization of Amygdala Function in Emotionally Influenced Memory: An fMRI Investigation. Learning and Memory. Vol. 11: 261-266. 2004
[viii] Tallal, Paula. Improving Language and Liteacy is a Matter of Time. Nature Reviews Neuroscience Vol. 5. 2004.
[ix] Huttenlocher, Peter. Morphometric Study of Human Cerebral Cortex Development. Neuropsychologia. Vol. 28. 1990.
[x] Galaburda, Albert et al. From Genes to Behavior in Developmental Dyslexia. Nature Neuroscience  Vol 9. 2006.
[xi] Herbert, Martha et al. Brain Asymmetries in Autism and Developmental Language Disorder: A Nested Whole-Brain Analysis. Brain: A Journal of Neurology.2004.
[xii] Herbert, Martha et al. Ibid.
[xiii] Hickock, Gregory and David Poeppel. Ibid.
[xiv] Kuhl, Patricia. Ibid.

Related Reading:

A Gymnast, a Cursor and a Monkey Named Aurora

7 Amazing Discoveries from Brain Research

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Categories: Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: auditory processing, brain development, cognitive skills, infant brain, Innate abilities, language learning, memory, musical training, phonemic awareness

How Learning and Literacy Enhance Our Brains

• June 30, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Reading is a recent cultural invention. It is not a skill we are naturally programmed to develop like walking or vocalizing. It is a relatively recent development in human history estimated to be only about 6000 years old. The development of oral language in humans is believed to be nearly 300,000 years old.  Oral language is thought to have co-developed with the use of tools as both require complex motor control.

To quote from the recent book Reading in the Brain (Dehaene, 2009): "At this very moment, your brain is accomplishing an amazing feat­—reading. Four or five times per second, your gaze stops just long enough to recognize one or two words.  You are, of course, unaware of this jerky intake of information.  Only the sounds and meanings of the words reach your conscious mind.  But how can a few black marks projected onto your retina evoke an entire universe?"^[i]  

In 2010, Stanislas Dehaene, et al. published a study which evaluated whether learning to read improves brain function, and also whether there are tradeoffs for such learning.^[ii] In other words, does learning to read “occupy” a space in the brain that could or would be used for something else in our evolutionary past?

Dehaene and his research team have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure how the brain responded to various stimuli, including spoken and written language, visual faces, houses, tools, and checkers in a group of literate and illiterate adults. Ten were illiterate, 22 learned to read as adults, and 31 learned to read as children.

In the end, their studies generated a number of fascinating conclusions. Literacy—no matter at what point in life the skill is acquired, in youth or as an adult—enhances brain response in three ways:

1. It boosts the organization of the visual cortex. Located toward the back of the brain, this is the area that processes visual information.
2. It allows the area of the brain responsible for spoken language—the planum temprale—to be activated by written sentences.
3. It refines how the brain processes spoken language.

Granted, there is much more detail to understand behind these conclusions, and I certainly invite you to read the entire article. Still, for us as educators, these conclusions hold useful insights.

In being aware of how literacy is related to these other skills, such as speaking and visual processing, we can use this information as yet another tool to help us better understand what we can expect from our students, no matter their ages. If they come into our classroom able to read, we know that we can expect them to have greater capacity for speech. If they come in with fewer or no reading skills, we might want to be aware that they might have challenges in processing visual input. 

Given these conclusions, the more we can continue to develop technology solutions that can teach while detecting deficiencies and adapt to student needs “on the fly,” the better we will be able to individualize instruction, fill in gaps in learning and strengthen essential skills.

As these scientists continue their investigations and the research sheds more light on how reading affects brain processing, we as educators will continue to increase our abilities to make better targeted instructional decisions that will help every individual student achieve optimal success.

[i] Dehaene, Stanislas. Reading in the Brain. Penguin Viking Publishing. November, 2009.

[ii] Dehaene, Stanislas et. al.How Learning to Read Changes the Cortical Networks for Vision and Language. 2010.

Related Reading:

How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: adaptivity, auditory processing, brain development, child reading development, cognitive skills, early learning, elementary school learning, improving reading skills, Innate abilities, learning to read, literacy, processing, reading comprehension, visual processing

Bilingual Babies: Language Delay or Learning Advantage?

• May 3, 2011 by Cory Armes

Over the years, many people have speculated about the advantages and disadvantages of exposing an infant to a second language.  On one hand, it sounds great to think that children could be proficient in two languages by the time they go to school but, on the other hand, there is the concern that adding a second language could cause confusion and even delay language development in very young children. 

Fortunately, Janet Werker, a psychologist at Vancouver's University of British Columbia, and her colleagues discovered that learning two languages simultaneously does not cause confusion and, in fact, can give young children cognitive advantages over their monolingual peers.  It now appears that bilingual children develop enhanced visual sensitivity to language as well as the auditory sensitivity that we would expect.

Most people in other countries speak multiple languages and researchers have not found real evidence of language confusion in children who learn more than one language at a time.  Of course, infants and toddlers who grow up in bilingual homes often will mix the two languages and that ‘mixing’ even has a name: code-switching.  By the time these babies are three years of age, they will move back and forth between the languages but they also naturally learn to follow rules that govern that movement. For example, if one parent is not bilingual, they stick to the dominant language for that parent but will code-switch with the bilingual parent. 

The study[i] also tested visual-language discrimination with four, six and eight month-olds and found that at the two earlier ages, infants can distinguish between two spoken languages when looking at a video of a person speaking with the sound muted, even if they are only familiar with one of the languages.  By eight months of age, the babies’ brains can even discriminate between two unfamiliar languages simply by watching someone speak. Further studies will determine how long this ability is maintained in childhood but it does appear that there is a lasting influence from early exposure to additional languages. 

Research also indicates that babies growing up in a bilingual environment are better able to attend to perceptual cues such as a change in voice tone or facial expression, in both languages and can apply this ability to distinguish things in the world as well.  Additional research [ii] suggests that bilingual children also could have more flexibility in learning.  

So, if you speak two languages fluently, share them with your babies from day one.  Expanding infancy with a second language could provide stronger cognitive skills, more perceptive social skills and better learning in general.  Don’t worry about videos, flash cards or other fancy options for teaching babies a second language - just talk and read together!

Related Reading:

What Every Parent Should Know About Their Baby’s Developing Brain (Part 1)

Engaging Children in the World with Words

[i] Moskowitz, Clara. What Bilingual Babies Reveal About the Brain: Q&A with Psychologist Janet Werker. March 01, 2011.

[ii] Hsu, Jeremy. Bilingual Babies Get an Early Edge. April 13, 2009.

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Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: auditory processing, brain development, brain plasticity, brain training, early learning, infant brain, language learning, oral language skills, processing, vocabulary

Sensory-Motor Development and Learning in Children

• April 28, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

Spring is always a busy time of year for our private providers who are ramping up to serve Scientific Learning adaptive learning software to more children and their families over the summer months.  So, we like to bring our private providers together with some of our most inspiring speakers at the annual Visionary Conference for a weekend full of engaged learning. 

This year's Visionary Conference was so jam packed with great content, I've been chomping at the bit to share some of it with the rest of you.  One presentation that received rave feedback was by Cheryl Chia of BrainFit Studio, one of our international VARs from Singapore. She presented on sensory-motor development and learning in children. BrainFit Studio is located in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia.

Cheryl’s team has developed programs for children to improve sensory-motor abilities and have a positive impact on their learning abilities and academic performance. She focuses on three aspects of brain fitness. The first two, Sensory-Motor and Visual Brain Fitness, she calls the “pillars” of her intervention: SMART Moves and SMART Vision. SMARTMoves, the Sensory-Motor pillar emphasizes proprioception ( the automatic awareness of the positions of our arms and legs), tactile sensation, and the vestibular system (balance and posture). SMART vision, the Visual Brain Fitness pillar, includes visual spatial perception, and visual memory—skills that are essential for handwriting and courses with spatial concepts, like geometry. Visual ability is also important for team sports and social skills. 

The third pillar is Computer-Assisted Brain Fitness Training that includes the Fast ForWord® family of products.

Cheryl shared her assessment protocol, a “cognitive map” prepared for each child that focuses on the three pillars. The cognitive map is used for determining which pillars to emphasize for each child.

View the full presentation to see video of the types of activities the children participate in under each BrainFit pillar and the outcome data. 

I hope you find it as compelling as I did!

Related Reading:

How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function

Let's Get Engaged!

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Fast ForWord

Tags: accelerate learning, brain development, brain training, cognitive skills, how children learn, Scientific Learning events, technology in education

Engaging Children in the World with Words

• April 26, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As we all know, the rudimentary elements of language are established at the earliest ages. From a baby’s first months, they instinctively begin listening and forming the neurological groundwork for what will become their abilities to understand language, as well as speak and read.

While there are numerous studies around the topic, I’d like to take you through a simple series of imaginary scenarios to demonstrate the importance of this point—for children as well as for those of us in charge of their learning.

First, imagine the world from the baby’s point of view. They observe, see the shapes and colors around them, and as they do, they hear the voices of their parents, and they begin associating certain sounds with the surrounding world. Now, imagine how the understanding of that process—as a teaching tool in the hands of a conscientious parent—can shape that child’s abilities from the earliest of ages.

Scenario 1: A parent—let’s call her Jane—is walking down the street, slowly because she is holding her young toddler’s hand. Suddenly, a loud siren screams and around the corner comes a gleaming fire engine. Jane quickly points to it, looks into her child’s concerned eyes, smiles and says, "Loud!" As the fire engine goes by, it splashes through a great puddle in the road, spraying the two with water. Jane says, smiling and laughing, "Ohhh, no! Wet! We got wet!" Jane’s child begins to smile and laugh, too.

Scenario 2: Another parent, Carol, has her child in a stroller and is walking at a brisk clip. She is conducting business with the cell phone in one hand and is pushing the stroller with the other. They are enjoying the sunshine, and the child is calmly, quietly watching the world go by. Suddenly, a loud siren screams and around the corner comes a gleaming fire engine. Carol says, "Oh, darn it. Can you hold on a sec?" into her phone. Her child, startled by the loud noise, begins to sob, but Carol doesn’t know it because she’s watching the fire engine pass and can’t hear her child because of the siren. As the fire engine goes by, it splashes through a great puddle in the road, spraying the two with water. Carol, with fury and frustration in her voice, says, "DARN IT! Can I call you back later? I just got soaked." By this time, Carol is genuinely angry and her child is wholeheartedly crying.

In these brief images, with so much playing out in terms of outward attitudes and reactions to circumstances, and we can even look ahead to possible bonding issues. But let’s think specifically about language. What has the child—as well as the parent—in scenario one gained and the child in scenario two lost?

While Carol’s child has witnessed frustration and fear in the face of incoming stimulus, Jane’s child has experienced the world through a comforting, loving, happy interpretive filter. In short, we cannot underestimate the importance of simply being engaged with the children in our lives. As teachers, encouraging the parents we encounter to be as connected and involved in their children’s lives as early as possible.

Related Reading:

The Speech and Language Connection: The Nursery Rhyme Effect (Part 1)

Let’s Get Engaged!

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: brain development, early learning, emotions in learning, how children learn, language learning, learning environment, toddler

Increasing Our Alertness to Caffeine Use in Ourselves and Our Children

• March 18, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Whatever your personal opinion of that daily coffee or diet soda might be, we as a society—not just as individuals, but as a whole society—have made the use of caffeine into a daily ritual. For some it is an approved indulgence. For others, it represents an absolute need.

While this is obviously a problem amongst adults, it represents adverse example-setting when practiced in the presence of children. Every time we pull through the drive-thru for that daily double-mocha, every time our children hear us say, “I need a diet soda,” we send a message to our charges in the back seat that this is a necessary part of our daily, adult lives.

That stage is being set, so let’s take a step back and look objectively at this habit of caffeine, both in ourselves and our children.

Make no mistake: caffeine is a drug. As a psychoactive compound, this stimulant blocks the action of adenosine and adenosine receptors. Essentially, caffeine binds to adenosine receptors in nerve cells, but it doesn’t slow down the cell’s activity; instead, it speeds it up. Also, while adenosine opens blood vessels, caffeine causes them to constrict.

On the “positive” side, the immediate effects in humans range from enhanced cognitive performance (Smit and Rogers, 2000) to auditory vigilance (Lieberman et al., 1987) to improved reaction time (Durlach, 1998; Lieberman et al., 1987).[i]

But on the “negative” end of the spectrum, it causes high blood pressure, increases heart rate, disrupts sleep cycles, and negatively impacts attention spans.

As the body becomes habituated to the drug, it compensates for these effects, and begins to require more caffeine to function at normal levels. One study showed that children aged 9-10 who regularly drank two or fewer cans of cola a day were less alert than their non-indulging counterparts.[ii] In short, the more caffeine we take in, the less of its effects we experience, and the less we are able to function at normal levels of alertness.

Aside from the stimulant nature of caffeine, we cannot ignore how it is delivered: children and adolescents primarily get caffeine doses through drinking soda and energy drinks. During their most formative years, they are repeatedly exposed to and conditioned to the paring of sugar and caffeine. Interestingly, Robinson and Berridge refer to sugar as a “natural reward” that “activates similar reward pathways as drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, amphetamine, and nicotine.”[iii]

So along with decreased brain function, these habits can potentially contribute to life-long afflictions like diabetes and obesity.

Lastly, let’s add to this the fact that childhood and adolescence is the fastest stage of brain development. At this time, proper sleep and nutrition are critical elements in laying the foundation for future brain health and fitness. The consumption of caffeine and sugar undermines both.

We know the habits that contribute to a healthy life. Maintaining good nutrition, getting the right amount of sleep and staying away from drugs are all key lessons that we want our younger generations to internalize. How can we help make that happen?

As challenging as it might be, might we consider starting with ourselves, ditching the daily double-mocha and diet soda, and taking the first step toward leading by example? By becoming more aware of our own habits, maybe we can begin to help our children take positive control of their own.

References:

[i] Temple, Jennifer L. (2010) Caffeine Use in Children: What we know, what we have left to learn, and why we should worry. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2009 June; 33(6): 793–806. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2699625/

[ii] Heartherley, S.V., Hancock, K.M.F. and Rogers, P.J. (2006) Psychostimulant and other effects of caffeine in 9-11-year-old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 47-2, 135-142.

[iii] Robinson TE, Berridge KC . The psychology and neurobiology of addiction: an incentive-sensitization view.

Addiction. 2000 Aug;95 Suppl 2:S91-117. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11002906

Related Reading:

What Every Parent Should Know about Their Baby’s Developing Brain (Part 2)

Adolescence: What’s the Brain Got to Do with It?

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Family Focus

Tags: brain development, childhood obesity, cognitive skills, development, health and well being, nutrition, processing rate, sleep

Join Dr. Martha Burns and Sherrelle Walker for a Virtual Brain Fitness Seminar

• February 24, 2011 by Carrie Gajowski

Can’t attend one of our live Brain Fitness Seminars? Then join us for a Virtual Brain Fitness Seminar instead! These short, online sessions will review the new science of learning and how it can help schools close the achievement gap.

Register today for one of six exclusive upcoming sessions:

• Monday, 2/28/11 – 2 sessions: 8am or 1pm (PT)
  
• Wednesday, 3/9/11 – 2 sessions: 8am or 1pm (PT)
  
• Wednesday, 4/27/11 – 2 sessions: 8am or 1pm (PT)
  

Within the past seven years, researchers have discovered why some children struggle to learn math and reading skills. In general, studies show that the brain architecture—the pre-wired pathways for processing information—that children need to succeed in school is weak or underdeveloped in struggling learners. Studies have also proven that this architecture can be quickly and efficiently developed and fortified through brain fitness exercises that supplement curriculum. 

Presenters for these exclusive Scientific Learning webinars will be Dr. Martha S. Burns, Director of the Clinical Specialist Market, and Sherrelle Walker, Chief Education Officer. Each session will include district results presented by long-time Scientific Learning customers, as well as a designated period for presenters to respond to your questions and answers. 

Our agenda for each session will be as follows:

• 20 min. – Dr. Martha S. Burns, The New Science of Learning: Brain Fitness for all Ages
  What does the latest research tell us about how the brain learns? This session summarizes the latest neuroscience and developments from the field. Dr. Burns brings over 40 years of experience as a practicing speech and language pathologist. She has authored over 100 journal articles on the neuroscience of language and communication, as well as three books on language difficulties associated with neurological disorders. She is also the creator of the “Burns Brief Inventory of Communication and Cognition,” an evaluation of cognitive deficits resulting from neurological injury.
• 30 min. – Sherrelle Walker, Changing Lives through Application of Research
  During this information-packed half-hour, Ms. Walker will discuss concrete, useful strategies for integrating Brain Fitness into district instructional plans, with the goal of accelerating learning and delivering results. Walker brings more than 30 years experience in public education to her work as Chief Education Officer of Scientific Learning. In this capacity, she strives to expand awareness among educators nationwide about how Scientific Learning’s products and services have been proven capable of significantly improving student learning and achievement.
  
• 10 min. – Customer: District Results
  
• 5 min. – All: Questions and Answers

Space is limited, so register today! We look forward to meeting you online.

Related Reading:

What Makes Superman So Great? Closing the Achievement Gap

5 Insights from our Recent Brain Fitness Webinars

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, achievement gap, brain development, brain plasticity, brain training, child reading development, education conference, how children learn, math, Scientific Learning events, struggling readers, struggling students, technology in education, webinar