This book is well worth the read as it describes multiple casestudies and tackles a wide range of learning deficits. Yet thirtyyears of practical application still puts this body of empiricism inthe early days of both acceptance and general application.
Listen to what I mean here. It is obvious to tackle the clearlylearning deficient. It is not obvious to evaluate every individualfor learning deficits. What is clear here is that the brainnaturally favors what works best and empowers that against otherskills. Thus application of enhancement protocols are useful foreveryone including the so called smartest.
These enhancement protocols are not onerous so much as timeabsorbing. They need to be worked at in the same way we work toimprove muscle tone and strength.
The work suggests that there are a fair number of target areas thatneed to be attended to. As well the protocols are likely helpful forthose areas already strong. Thuys rthese methods need to come intocommon usage.
The Woman WhoChanged Her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young: Review
Published on SaturdayMay 26, 2012
Laura Eggertson
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/1180979--the-woman-who-changed-her-brain-by-barbara-arrowsmith-young-review
People with learningdisabilities have long been told they must learn to compensate fortheir deficits, because they will never improve. In The WomanWho Changed Her Brain, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young offers her own story,and those of her students, to refute that conventional wisdom.
It's a fascinatingbook that speaks to the lag between exciting developments in brainscience, and existing educational practices.
Arrowsmith-Young wasborn in 1951 with serious learning disabilities. She could notunderstand logic, cause and effect, or events in real time. She couldnot tell time on a clock with hands. Basic math was a mystery. Shecould not fully grasp what she heard or read. She was aself-described klutz beause she wasn't aware of the left side of herbody. She describes her life as being “enveloped in a fog thatnever cleared.”
Arrowsmith-Young'sphenomenal memory and determination got her through school. But shefelt alone — different; stupid, with few friends. At 14, she cuther wrists with a razor blade, hoping to die. Then she woke up andcastigated herself for failing to get even that right.
At 25,Arrowsmith-Young encountered, while in graduate school, the work ofAleksandr Luria, a Russian doctor and psychologist who helpedbrain-damaged soldiers overcome their dysfunction. She also read thework of an American researcher who proved that rats' brainsphysically changed in response to stimulation.
Based on thisresearch, Arrowsmith-Young created flash cards to simulate themovement of a clock's hands. She spent hours on this and otherexercises, persisting until she rewired the parts of her brain thathad not been working.
Arrowsmith-Young's foglifted — for good, she says. She had stumbled across thefoundations of the science of neuroplasticity. That science refutesthe idea that the brain is fixed after a certain age. Essentially,neuroplasticity is the concept that cognitive exercises andexperience can change the brain's very structures — forming newneural pathways at any age.
As Arrowsmith-Youngdescribes, she has for more than 30 years harnessed the ongoingdiscoveries in neuroplasticity to create an educational program toaddress deficits in learning. She now runs the Arrowsmith School inToronto. She has created a program by which children, young peopleand adults can change their own brains, by performing her repetitiveexercises.
Arrowsmith-Youngrecounts the stories of about 30 children and adults who havecorrected learning disabilities by performing her cognitiveexercises, either at her school or other private schools in Canada orthe United States who use her program. It's an exciting and hopefulbook for anyone who has struggled with learning disorders, for theirfamily members or for the educators, social workers, psychologistsand physicians who have tried to help them and have witnessed thetoll these disabilities exact.
The book is alsofrustrating, however. There are children struggling across Canadawith the same deficits that Arrowsmith-Young and all of her studentsfaced. But this science — and these programs, which have beenevaluated — are not available to them. According to the ArrowsmithSchool website, the Toronto Catholic District School Board is theonly public board in Canada that has offered the Arrowsmith program,at four schools. The board's continued use of the program has beencontentious — largely because of cost.
Dr. Norman Doidge is aToronto psychiatrist who has written about both Arrowsmith-Young andneuroplasticity, first in a magazine article and then in TheBrain That Changes Itself (Penguin Books, 2007). He also wrotethe forward to The Woman Who Changed Her Brain. He's clearlybothered that so few people know about Arrowsmith's methods, giventhe need.
Unfortunately, accessis the issue — not just lack of knowledge. The majority of Canadianfamilies can't afford tuition at the private schools where theArrowsmith program is primarily offered. Until this knowledge andthese programs make it into mainstream public schools, children andyouth with learning disabilities will continue to be disadvantaged.
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