Modeling Healthy Choices: Three Habits for Optimal Brain Health

• November 10, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Isaac Asimov said, “The human brain…is the most complicated organization of matter that we know.”^[i] And it’s true.  Our amazing brains are both a product of biological evolution and a reflection of the world around us.

First, the stuff of the brain – grey matter, white matter, fluids, blood vessels – is made up of nutrients from the plants and animals we consume from the world around us.

Second, in terms of brain function, our interaction with our environment has a major impact on both brain structure and brain health. Extensive and ongoing research into “brain plasticity” has proven that everything we experience, everything we see or touch or hear, creates a perception that changes the wiring of the brain itself.

Given that our brains are a product of evolution (which is outside of our control) and environment (which is only partially under our control, and often less than ideal), how can we keep our brains as healthy as possible, from birth all the way through old age?

The pathway to optimal brain health comes from the small choices we make every day. By making healthy choices on a regular basis, and particularly by turning those choices into habits, we can help our brains stay healthy while also helping the young people in our lives learn positive self-care skills that can last a lifetime.

Here are three important steps everyone can take toward optimal brain health:

• Eating more healthy foods and minimizing unhealthy foods. Eating foods that provide nutrients to build healthy brain tissues is essential. Foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, avocados and nuts, along with foods high in potassium like bananas promote brain function. Also, lowering our intake of sodium can reduce blood pressure, a factor that can, if left unchecked, lead to stroke.
• Engaging in regular physical exercise. Like every other organ and tissue in the body, the brain needs healthy blood flow to function at its highest possible levels. Physical exercise helps improve and maintain cardio vascular health, allowing the body to efficiently and effectively deliver oxygen and nutrients to the brain. But it can do more for us. In students, educators have reported physical exercise resulting in less disruptive behavior, higher self esteem, less anxiety and greater attentiveness. Dr. John Ratey of Harvard University describes exercise as “food for the brain.”
• Giving your brain practice in the activities you want it to be good at. The neural pathways that our brains create over time, as we have said, are a direct result of the stimuli that we receive. That’s why through practice and training, a child can work to shape their brain into that of a great musician or mathematician or martial artist. At the same time, we must remember that negative input also affects our wiring. For example, excessive amounts of watching television and playing video games has been shown to have concerning chemical and biological effects, such as the suppression of melatonin release, elevated blood cholesterol and an increased chance of coronary heart disease – and these effects should be taken into consideration as we make decisions about how we spend our time.

The brain might be the most complicated organization of matter we know of, but that doesn’t make it difficult to keep healthy. By learning to choose the right foods, the right activities, and the right input, we can each take control – at any age – of building the brains we want. 

Children can begin learning to make good choices from the earliest ages, but it is up to parents and teachers to model these healthy habits of mind.  

Yes, that means you.

References:

[i] J. Hooper and D. Teresi. The Three-Pound Universe. Macmillan Publishing Company. 1^st edition 1986.

Related Reading:

Lifelong Learning and the Plastic Brain

5 Paths to Brain Health: Tips from Dr. Paul Nussbaum

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, brain plasticity, brain training, health and well being, nutrition, self-esteem, teacher impact

Kindergarten Math Readiness & The Cardinal Principle

• October 20, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Something very interesting happens in the brains of young children when they reach age four, or thereabouts.  They start to understand “how many” items are in a set—and in particular, they begin to be able to differentiate sets of “four” items or more.  This ability signals that they have discovered “the cardinal principle,” the idea that the last number reached when counting the items in a set represents the entire set.

Of the many challenging concepts that preschoolers need to master for kindergarten math readiness, the cardinal principle is one of the harder ones, and it takes about a year to develop. It is a major milestone in a child’s mathematical development, after which the child is able to demonstrate a good understanding of “how many” in a variety of ways, such as matching sets of unlike items when the number of items in each set is the same.

Most parents believe that their child’s mathematical skills are developed largely by formal schooling, but research indicates that certain kinds of parent-child interactions in the preschool years, commonly referred to as “number talk,” are a primary driver of children’s mathematical ability through at least 5^th grade. Number talk includes activities such as rote counting (counting “one, two, three, four,” as when playing hide and seek), counting tangible objects such as Cheerios (“one, two, three, four Cheerios”), and labeling the number of items in a set (“there are four Cheerios”).

As with verbal literacy, there is wide variation in the math knowledge of four year olds, with a one to two year gap between children who are more mathematically advanced and their less advanced peers.  Children with more exposure to number talk, and specifically to number talk about sets of four or more items, catch on to the cardinal principle faster than those who engage in less number talk or in number talk that focuses mostly on smaller sets of one to three items.

Unfortunately, few parents are informed about how kindergarten math readiness develops, and they tend not to know which math skills are developmentally appropriate for their child in the preschool years.  For example, parents often do not realize that their young child, who can easily count to 10, may not be able to identify a group of 10 objects.  Parents also tend to spend more time engaged in number talk around smaller sets of one to three items instead of larger sets of four and more, while the opposite has been shown to be more beneficial.

How to Encourage Kindergarten Math Readiness

There are simple things that parents and caregivers can do to help preschoolers learn about numbers and prepare for kindergarten math:

• Ask children to count objects they can touch, such as Cheerios, pieces of cheese, or blocks, and objects they can see, like pictures of dogs on a page of the book Go, Dog. Go!
• Label the number of items in sets of objects children use throughout the day.  For example, “You have six crayons.”
• When counting tangible objects, label the number of items in the set, too, to point children toward the crux of the cardinal principle—that the last number counted represents the entire set of objects.  For example, “one, two, three, four crackers; you have four crackers.”
• Talk about larger sets more often.  What children learn about larger sets helps them perform better on tasks involving smaller sets as well.
• Expose children to age-appropriate, educational math games for preschoolers, such as the Eddy’s Number Party!™ game, a new iPad app from Scientific Learning that develops counting, number matching skills, and more.  The game, designed with cognitive scientists and educators, is based on research into how the brain learns.

Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant future, public awareness of the importance of building preschool math literacy will match that of building preschool verbal literacy.  But for now, parents and caregivers who are in the know can begin to engage preschoolers with the right kinds of activities to give them an edge in developing the early childhood math skills needed for success throughout the elementary grades. 

I encourage you to try the some of the tips outlined above if you have young children of your own and to share this article with other parents of preschool-age kids, as we work together to raise our children’s opportunities for future success.

For further reading:

Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., Some types of parent number talk count more than others: relations between parents’ input and children’s cardinal-number knowledge. Developmental science. 14:5 (2011), pp 1021–1032.

Related Reading:

Introducing the Eddy's Number Party! Game - the First iPad App from Scientific Learning

Still the Write Stuff: Why We Must Continue Teaching Handwriting

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: accelerate learning, cognitive skills, early learning, how children learn, learning through play, math, play, toddler

Recognizing Emotions After Brain Injury: Re-Learning a Critical Social Skill

• October 4, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

For most of us, interpreting and expressing emotion is something deeply instinctive. But what happens when that ability to express ourselves or read another’s emotions goes awry? Imagine what can happen to a student’s classroom experience if they can’t make sense of something as simple as their teacher’s facial expression. In the past, these kinds of students have been seen as having behavior problems. So how can we help them succeed?

Research has shown that people with traumatic brain injuries often experience this same inability to interpret and respond to emotions, a condition called "affect recognition."

Barry Willer, professor of psychiatry and specialist in TBI (traumatic brain injury) of the University of Buffalo, tells the story of a man and his wife who came into his office with a problem. The woman had experienced a mild traumatic brain injury. While her husband was supporting her recovery as best he could, she consistently described his attitude as “indifferent. “ He was frustrated, to say the least.

“His wife didn’t know she wasn’t recognizing his emotions,” said Willer, recounting the story in a 2009 interview with Insciences Journal , “and he had no idea what was going on.”

This couple is by no means alone. Nearly fifty percent of all traumatic brain injuries result in problems interpreting and expressing emotion.

As educators, being able to connect with our students at an emotional level is essential to classroom success. Without that connection, the learning process can quite easily come to a halt. Thankfully, Willer has demonstrated that there is hope for this population, and that the human brain is quite capable of re-learning how to understand facial expressions and use that information to interpret emotion.

Willer and his team have developed two specific interventions that have shown positive results:

• Facial Affect Recognition (FAR): Individuals view faces on a computer screen that directs them to concentrate on specific elements of each face. "Look at the eyes. What are the eyes doing? What is the mouth doing?" and asks them to name the emotion.
• Stories of Emotional Inference (SEI): Participants are asked to read stories that describe events, along with character’s beliefs, wants and behaviors. From this information, participants are asked to infer the character’s emotions.

"What was so exciting about our preliminary study," says Willer, "is that someone may lose the ability to recognize emotions, but even 10 years later, they can re–learn the skill if given the right assistance."

As it turns out, the only emotion that traumatic brain injuries do not erase is "happy," which is very hard–wired and has an extensive amount of "redundant circuitry." Says Willer, "I don’t know how that happened, but we all can be glad it did."

For further reading:  Milders, M., Fuchs, S., & Crawford, J. R. Neuropsychological impairments and changes in emotional and social behaviour following severe traumatic brain injury. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25, 2003. 157-172.

Related Reading:

Lifelong Learning and the Plastic Brain

5 Paths to Brain Health: Tips From Dr. Paul Nussbaum

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: adaptivity, behavior, brain plasticity, brain training, cognitive skills, effort, memory, processing

Neural Prostheses: The Melding of Hardware, Software and Wetware

• September 20, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a researcher named Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University Medical Center and his work with a monkey named Aurora. Through placing implants in Aurora’s skull, Nicolelis was able to record Aurora’s motor nerve signals as she used a joystick to play a simple video game. He then used a computer algorithm to convert those signals into code to power a robotic arm. Over time, because of her brain’s ability to adapt and learn, Aurora taught herself how to control the movements of that robotic arm by just thinking about it.

What we see in Nicolelis’s work is the complex interplay of three different elements of a neural prosthetic system: hardware, software, and what has been come to be known as “wetware.”

• Hardware refers to the machine part of the system. This consists of the wires, computers, circuits, implants and manufactured devices that comprise the system.
• Software refers to the set of instructions, data and algorithms – in other words, the set of rules – that govern the function and operation of the hardware.
• Wetware refers to the combination of biological elements involved in the system, generally including muscles, hormones, nerves and the brain.

Through choreographing the delicate dance between these three systemic elements, biomedical professionals are becoming more able to develop neural prosthetics that continue to improve the quality of life for any number of disabilities, substituting motor, sensory or cognitive capabilities that have been damaged as a result of injury or disease.

Today, biomedical research has given rise to any number of neural prostheses. Visual prosthetics stimulate the optic nerve to counter certain types of blindness. Spinal cord stimulators induce sensations to mask and control pain. Pacemakers work with the muscle and nerves of the heart to monitor and regulate the heartbeat and control fibrillation.

One of the most common applications of the neural prosthesis concept is in the cochlear implant. Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus and neuroscientist, was the Principal Investigator back during the development of the first cochlear implants at the University of California, San Francisco. The work showed that in as little as six months, patients were able to develop remarkable speech discrimination abilities. It was found that speech discrimination abilities improved over time due to the brain’s plastic ability to change and adapt to these new inputs.

According to the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders, over 59,000 adults and children have cochlear implants. Just like Aurora’s robotic arm, a cochlear implant involves the integration of hardware, software and wetware. But instead of using motor neurons to articulate robotic fingers, cochlear implants form the technological bridge between the world of sound and the ability to perceive that sound in someone whose ears cannot convert sound vibrations to a nerve impulse. While the ones we developed had a single channel, today’s devices have up to 120, which allows for better input fidelity through stimulating different parts of the auditory nerve.

Of the three elements of the neural prosthetic system, hardware, software and wetware, the only one of them that can be expected – even depended upon – to change over time is the wetware. Both because of normal development and brain plasticity, an individual’s ability to effectively use neural prosthetic will naturally change over time as the individual’s own nervous system adapts to make better use of the hardware and software.

As Dr. Nicolelis demonstrated with Aurora, wetware is an amazingly malleable apparatus. We might imagine these neural prosthetic systems as fantastically complex in terms of their hardware and software. That said, research out of the University of Washington, Seattle, has suggested that, because of brain plasticity, we may be able to use simpler algorithms in the external hardware and software, and depend upon the plasticity of the wetware to make optimal use of these devices.

In the end, we as humans, with our drive to heal and discover, seem to have a limitless ability to develop innovations to remedy our physical ills. And yet, it is the plasticity of our nervous system’s innate ability to adapt that will apparently allow us to make the most of these innovations.

For further reading:

Fallon, J. B., Irvine, D. Shepherd, R. Neural Prostheses and Brain Plasticity. J Neural Eng. 2009 December.

Moritz, C. T., Perlmutter, S. I., Ftez, E. E. Direct Control of Paralysed Muscles by Cortical Neurons. Nature. 2008 December.

Related Reading:

A Gymnast, A Cursor, and A Monkey Named Aurora

Dr. Martha Burns on Brain Plasticity

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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: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: auditory processing, brain plasticity, brain training, cognitive skills, innovation, processing, science

My Son Announced He Was Dropping Out of High School: Mary’s Story

• September 15, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

This post is the fourth in a series aimed at sharing the success stories, both personal and professional, that Scientific Learning employees witness every day.

Mary’s Story:

I was hired at Scientific Learning in 2007 to educate people about the products as an Account Manager in the Midwest.  At the same time that I got the phone call to find out if I had interest in talking to Scientific Learning, our ninth grade son announced to us that he was not going to high school and he was going to drop out.  It took my breath away. Both his father and I have been educators for many years and we both hold advanced degrees. 

I said, “Todd, you have to go to high school,” and he said, “But I don’t want to go.” I said, “But you have to,” and he asked, “Well, what would happen if I didn’t go?” I said, “It’s the law, Todd.” Then he said, “I can’t read.  I can’t keep up with it.  You guys have done everything for me that is possible but I can’t read.  I can’t read at grade level.”

I called my son’s teacher (we convinced him to go to school) and I said, “Here’s the carrot.  My son doesn’t have to do any homework until he finishes this product.  This is his homework at night.”  And every night he came home and did Fast ForWord. 

And what he did is committed to doing 90 minutes a day and he was done is less than 4 weeks, and he did the post test and when I looked up the score my son had gone from seventh grade, one month reading level to tenth grade, two months reading level. He was a year above grade level and for the very first time in his life he said, “I love to read.”

All I can say is thank you to all the scientists that did all the work to bring this product to not only my son but to the parents and kids out there in America who need it so desperately.

Related Reading:

Language Skills Increase 1.8 Years After 30 Days Using Fast ForWord

Implementation Fidelity: Maximizing Your Fast ForWord® or Reading Assistant™ Investment

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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: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, below grade level, employee stories, high school learning, improving reading skills, increased test scores, reading comprehension, self-esteem, struggling readers, student growth, success stories, technology in education, video

Improving Auditory Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

• September 8, 2011 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

Summary:  A recent study by Nicole Russo of Northwestern University and her colleagues, published in Behavioral and Brain Functions in 2010, evaluates whether auditory training programs such as Fast ForWord® can alleviate the auditory processing deficits so frequently seen in ASD children.

Russo’s study examines how effectively Fast ForWord could strengthen the auditory processing of speech sounds in similar ASD children. Her team hypothesized that such training would modify the neural processing of sound in children with ASD, and that such children “would show improvement in the neural encoding of speech syllables, including faster response timing, greater fidelity of the response relative to the stimulus, and more accurate pitch encoding over time.” (p. 3)

Results showed that training appeared to have benefited all participants in the experimental group, affecting their neural transcription of speech. According to Russo and her team, “each of the five children who underwent FFW training improved on at least one measure of cortical speech processing relative to the control group, with response timing improving in both quiet and noise for some children.” (p. 13)

Russo and her team were able to conclude that directed auditory training using Fast ForWord shows great promise for improving auditory processing in children with ASD – specifically, those high-functioning children who have hearing in the typical range. 

 

Content:  This study was published in Behavioral and Brain Functions in 2010 and was done at Northwestern University by Dr. Nicole Russo and her colleagues.   It evaluates whether auditory training programs, such as Fast ForWord, can alleviate the auditory processing deficits so frequently seen in children with autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism spectrum disorders or ASD demonstrate impairments in their use of language for social and communicative purposes.  These impairments are typically apparent prior to three years of age.

There is emerging evidence that the neural encoding of speech sounds may be impaired in some children with autism spectrum disorders leading to atypical auditory brainstem responses to speech sounds and difficulties processing speech-specific stimuli such as detecting speech in background noise. 

Since the Fast ForWord products provide auditory training including listening and sound-sequencing exercises, as well as exercises on auditory attention, auditory discrimination, phoneme discrimination, and memory, Dr Russo and her colleagues were interested in investigating the impact of the products on children with ASD.

High-functioning children with ASD who had participated in an earlier study were invited to partake in this one.   The children all had a formal diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.  They had typical peripheral hearing, average mental abilities and average or near-average language scores.

Eleven boys with an average age of 9.2 completed the entire testing protocol and met the criteria.   The children were then given the option of taking part in the intensive auditory training. Five children opted for the training and formed the experimental group.  The other six children who opted not to take part in the training were willing to take part in the post-test and formed the control group. There was not a significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, IQ, or language ability.

Students in the experimental group used the intense intervention: the Fast ForWord Language Series which entailed the Fast ForWord Language product for an average for 20 days followed by Fast ForWord Language to Reading for an average of 32 days.

Auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) and Event-Related Potentials (ERP’s) were recorded from both groups.  These tests measure the size and the timing of electrical activity that occurs in the brainstem and brain in response to a sound.  In this case, the sounds were synthesized vowels that were heard in the presence of background noise, as well as in quiet.  Auditory brainstem responses are subcortical events occurring less than 10 ms after the stimuli is presented while  event-related potentials are cortical events occurring a few hundred milliseconds after the stimuli is presented.  Both ABR’s and ERP’s measure the aggregate response of neurons and neither requires active involvement by the participant. 

Due to the small number of participants, and the variations between them, the analysis involved defining a “typical change” as the average change for students in the control group plus one standard deviation, and defining a “significant change” for one of the participants as a change that was more than the control’s change plus one standard deviation. 

The researchers were particularly interested in subjects that had two or more measures with significant change.  All five students improved more than one standard deviation on at least two tests. The researchers concluded that there is Initial evidence that directed auditory training may improve auditory processing in a specific population of children with ASD – specifically high-functioning children with ASD who have hearing in the typical range.

They also concluded that computer-based training may benefit some children with ASD by acting on biological processes.

Read the complete report on this research at the link below:

Nicole M Russo, N., Hornickel, J., Nicol, T. Zeckler, S. Kraus, N. Biological changes in auditory function following training in children with autism spectrum disorders. Behavioral and Brain Functions 2010, 6:60.

Related Reading:

Understanding Autism in Children

Language Skills Increase 1.8 Years After 30 Days Using Fast ForWord

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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: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: auditory processing, autism, brain training, learning disabilities, processing rate, video

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

Ben’s Story: Intensive Intervention Helps a Young Boy on the Autism Spectrum Succeed

• July 14, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

Ben was just over two when his mother brought him to my office for a speech and language evaluation. She was a speech pathologist herself and knew he was late to start talking. She had seen another speech language professional before me but wanted a second opinion; that professional had told her she thought Ben might be developmentally delayed.

Both mom and I sat on the floor with a few toys, a car and a truck, trying to entice Ben to play with us. Ben ran around the room, very anxious, probably because of the unfamiliar environment and a new stranger, me, to contend with. He threw the car against the wall and began to cry uncontrollably. I suggested that I leave the room for a few minutes to let Ben settle down and acclimate to the surroundings with his mother. Waiting outside I could hear her attempts to calm him down being frustrated by Ben's increasing agitation.

Finally I reentered the room and mom told me sometimes Ben would settle down in new places if he could have some place to hide for awhile. I opened the door to my materials closet and in he ran, slamming the door behind him. While Ben was "hiding" I asked mom to recount his history. I had heard very similar stories many times before. Ben was a first child, a beautiful responsive baby. He began smiling when a few weeks old and sat and crawled by six months. But sometime around his first birthday he began to change. He resisted being held, threw frequent temper tantrums, and his early first words disappeared. He had several ear infections so mom and his pediatrician thought these might account for his delayed speech so he had an operation at 20 months to place tubes in his ears to reduce the fluid in his middle ear.  But when he still wasn't talking by his second birthday mom began to worry. She also noticed he had started rocking and biting his right hand when he became frustrated and screamed if she tried to take him shopping with her.

He loved riding in the car in his car seat but the second she unstrapped him and he recognized and unfamiliar locale, his back arched and he would thrash and yell. One day, she recounted, a woman who had apparently overseen such a display in the store parking lot, came over to her and told her she needed some parenting lessons. Devastated, Ben's mom said she called her pediatrician who recommended a local social worker who specialized in helping parents deal with problem toddlers. It was the social worker who recommended mom bring Ben to me.

Ben eventually emerged from hiding after I enticed him with his favorite toy from home,  Thomas the Tank Engine. He sat in the floor staring at the toy train car and quietly spun the wheels for several minutes. Mom and I sat silently because if either of us spoke Ben would cover his ears and start rocking.

I enrolled Ben in speech therapy sessions three times a week and recommended that he also receive Occupational Therapy to provide sensory integration therapy to help Ben learn ways to calm himself. After about six months of therapy Ben was talking some but most of his speech was repetitive. "Teeze an kako" was one of his favorite repeated phrases as a request for cheese and crackers that we used in therapy to reinforce his good behavior. Mom said she had stopped trying to take Ben out to dinner or to the store because everyone stared at him, and she felt, blamed her as a bad mother when he yelled or threw things.

By three and one -half Ben was very hyperactive, not yet potty trained, and walked on his toes with his hands flapping in the air. He was speaking in short sentences but his speech was still repetitive and sing-song like. A typical phrase was, "You Ben friend? You Ben Friend?" and, "Ben want Tom Tom! Ben want Tom Tom!"  At this time Ben was diagnosed with autism by a well regarded psychologist in the area.

For many years mom rejected the autism diagnosis. She and her physician husband felt Ben was very bright and that his behaviors and speech problems masked his other strengths. For example, by four years of age Ben had memorized many nursery songs, word for word.  By five Ben could name all the major dinosaurs and tell you the era in which they lived and whether they were plant or animal eaters. But Ben's parents were crushed when the expensive private school they enrolled him in for kindergarten rejected him for first grade.

By the time Ben was seven his parents had invested thousands of dollars in private therapies, private schools, parent counseling, and ABA (applied behavioral analysis) interventions. Ben's mother had hired several different daytime babysitters to help her when a new baby girl arrived, but all would quit after a few months because Ben was so difficult to manage. They had tried ADHD medications which helped calm Ben down during the day but then he could not sleep at night, so either mom or dad ended up, night after sleepless night, trying to supervise Ben as he ran around the house at two a.m.

I have worked with many children like Ben and their parents. These children are dear and very smart in many ways. Yet these children are often locked in a mental prison that keeps them in a perpetual internal turmoil when they are young. As they age and receive therapy they usually emerge, finding solace and relief in their passionate interests. But their unique interests and strengths are rarely as comforting for the parents who see their child stop being invited to birthday parties and play-dates. Parents watch with constant anguish as other adults stare as their child rocks, spins, or obsessively recites favorite poems or perhaps counts windows or red shirts, on planes, in restaurants, at the park.  As Ben's mother explained, "If Ben had a visual sign of impairment others would show compassion, I'm sure. But he looks normal, just acts oddly, so I know people think I did something wrong as a mother."

As we learn more about Autism Spectrum Disorders, we are able to identify signs earlier, and our therapy can begin sooner and have more profound effects. Ben (which is not his real name), I am happy to say, was one of an early group of children to go through an experimental computerized language program out of Rutgers University in 1996, shortly after his seventh birthday which is now available to parents as part of the BrainPro Autism service from Scientific Learning. The first change Ben’s mother and I noticed after he completed six weeks of the program was that Ben began speaking in full sentences and started to initiate conversations. One day shortly after the program ended, he told me that his sister had “opened his lose tooth,” meaning that she had knocked out a wobbly baby tooth.  His intonational contour also changed dramatically, from being rather stereotyped to emotional and natural. Within a month or so he began relaying other stories about home and for the first time started enjoying games that involved pretending. On a standardized language test administered before and after the program, he had gained almost two years growth in receptive language skills. Some of the growth on the test appeared to be attributable as much to his ability to pay attention to test questions as well as new language skills he had acquired from the language tasks within the program.

A few years ago Ben’s mother informed me that he attended a junior college program in computer technology and, as of my last communication with her, was working as a computer technician for a local computer retail outlet.  He lived at home then but had friends at work and a hobby, not surprisingly, of building dinosaur models. Mom said, Ben “seems happy now" and his parents did as well. They were encouraged by his job, circle of friends, and hobby. With the years of anguish they were trying to help other parents cope with the fears and pain that surround an autism diagnosis in the early years, but inform on the hope emanating from new research on early identification and new technological intensive interventions that can supplement therapies.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: attention, auditory processing, autism, cognitive skills, emotions in learning, health and well being, intervention, learning disabilities, oral language skills, phonemic awareness, self-esteem

5 Paths To Brain Health: Tips From Dr. Paul Nussbaum

• July 5, 2011 by Carrie Gajowski

As the webinar coordinator here at Scientific Learning, I hosted yet another fascinating webinar about brain health with Dr. Paul Nussbaum in early May called “Brain Health Across the Lifespan”.  Dr. Nussbaum combined humor with interesting facts about the brain and the webinar ended up being one of our best sessions to date.  He provided a simple yet comprehensive look at the brain and how it functions. 

One interesting story Dr. Nussbaum shared was about the development and eventual delaying of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease based on lifestyle choices.  He cited research that has been done at autopsy that shows that there can be evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain that has never manifested in memory problems during a person’s life.   

Dr. Nussbaum concluded that if you look at the individual’s life, you might find that they had a higher education level or more demanding occupation or participated in complex and varied activities throughout life, building up a stronger and more “fit” brain and delaying the onset of the disease.

He then covered 5 important aspects to brain health and suggested some activities that can keep your brain fit and healthy throughout your lifetime:

1. Nutrition:  Eat more “good” fats including Omega-3 fatty acids, more fruits and vegetables, and fewer “bad” fats and processed foods. 
2. Socialization:  Stay involved with life and develop a personal mission and hobbies along with building networks of family and friendships.
3. Physical Activity: Be mobile and active.  Walk, play, run, garden, exercise, bike, hike.  These activities can help reduce the risk of dementia later on in life.
4. Mental Stimulation:  Learn a second language, learn sign language, travel, play board games, and either play or listen to music.
5. Spirituality:  Slow down, meditate, and learn relaxation procedures.  Identify what your stressors are and how they affect you and then identify ways to handle them.

To find out more about Brain Health, watch our previously recorded webinar or visit Dr. Nussbaum’s website.

Related Reading:

Lifelong Leaning and the Plastic Brain

Educating Kids about Nutrition and the Brain

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Reading & Learning

Tags: brain training, cognitive skills, effort, exercise, health and well being, language learning, memory, musical training, play, Scientific Learning events, webinar

Fast ForWord Featured on ABC 7 News

• June 17, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

For those of you who missed the ABC 7 News spot last night, here's another chance to hear the success story of students at Korematsu Discovery Academy in Oakland, CA, who have seen reading test gains of 1.5 years, on average, since beginning the Fast ForWord program earlier this year. 

"You don't normally see that kind of gains," said the school's principal, Charles Wilson. "And it's not the kids fault, it's the system's fault for not providing the interventions that they need."

Wilson made the program available to his students for the first time this year with a $30,000 tech grant he received from the district.  He is now working on getting another grant to extend the program to all students at his school next year.

Scientific Learning's own Dr. Bill Jenkins is featured as well, discussing the science behind the program.

For parents interested in home use, learn about our BrainPro service which provides Fast ForWord software and an online tutor.

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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: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, brain training, child reading development, cognitive skills, improving reading skills, increased test scores, student reading growth, technology in education, reading test gains