Podcast on Neuroplasticity

Dr. Ginger Campbell does an excellent job reviewing studies conducted on neuroplasticity.  Please see the following link and download Podcast #10 on Neuroplasticity.

http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/1429167

A New Direction

Educators need to open their awareness to studies on the human brain highlighting neurological findings regarding the plasticity of the brain.  It is becoming more apparent that the human brain can improve cognitive capacities through intensive and repetitive cognitive exercises.  If this is possible, children with learning difficulties can begin to improve their cognitive weaknesses that result in school frustrations rather than bypassing them through accommodations or learning strategies.  We are discovering this fact at the Eaton Arrowsmith School. The graduates of the program (Arrowsmith Program) are not requiring all the accommodations and extra support that they previously needed once they transition back into the regular public or private school system.  As well, the founder of the Arrowsmith Program, Barbara Young, has noted this fact for the past 30 years at her school in Toronto.

It is critical that education professors, teachers and researchers begin to incorporate findings of neuroscience into their daily work.  Unfortunately, this is not easy to do, as shifts in thinking can take time due to another fact about the brain.  That is, the brain can get hardwired due to the realities of neuroplasticity.  In other words, the more you think one way, the more difficult it is for the brain to create new neural networks to open the mind to new concepts.  Thinking one way becomes ingrained in the brain, creating a path that is so strong, that deviations from this form of thought is difficult.  In order to change something remarkable or stunning needs to take place, to alter this path of thinking.

Over the next month I will be adding information to this blog that I hope creates this new direction in thinking about the possibilities of the brain and how this can change the field of Learning Disabilities and/or ADHD.