by Prima Breuer
According to the fifth and latest edition
of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “learning
disorders” as doctors call them, and “learning disabilities” as teachers call
them are classified as neurodevelopmental disorders. Neurodevelopmental
disorders are impairments of the growth, functioning or development of the
brain. Currently in American and many different countries, students with
learning disabilities are considered to be eligible to received special
education. By laws, the schools are also required to create an individualized
educational program (IEP) for students with learning disabilities, in order to
ensure that they are receiving a quality education that will meet their needs
and help them reach their full potential.
Apart from educational interventions,
doctors often treat students with learning disabilities with similar
medications as individuals with attention deficit disorders or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorders. A few common medications are Ritalin, Adderall,
and Concerta. These medications prevent the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine,
which allows more dopamine and norepinephrine to be available for the brain to
use. The idea of giving students with learning disabilities these drugs was to
help increase their brain functioning and attention for learning. However these
household named drugs did come with quite a slew of short and long term side
effects.
There are four major types of learning
disabilities which are dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia. Some
people can even have more than one learning disabilities. Furthermore the
degree of severity and the symptoms of each learning disabilities can be
different from one individual to another. For example, a student with dyslexia,
which is a learning disability in reading, might see only the lower half of the
words on a page, while another student with dyslexia might see only the top
half of the words on a page.
Nowadays, there are many educational
programs and tools that have been created to help students with learning
disabilities overcome academic difficulties. Special education teachers have
more sources and strategies available to them when dealing with students that
have one or more learning disabilities. Parents now are conveniently able to
download applications on their iPad that
are designed to help with specific learning disabilities that way either parent
can work with their children at home. But considering that the degree of
severity and symptoms of learning disabilities varies so much, these brilliant
well-designed educational programs and tools only work for some of the
students. So, how about the rest?
I want to introduce you to a woman
named Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, the author of the book “The Woman Who Changed
Her Brain”. Barbara had severe learning disabilities that made it challenging
for her to understand abstract concepts, three-dimensional space, cause and
effect, grammar, and relationships of things. It was extremely difficult for
her to understand or even have a conversation with others.
In her book, she mentions that after she
comes across research study dealing with neuroplasticity in rats by Mark
Rosenzweig, at the University of California at Berkeley, she had a thought that
if a rat can change its brain through brain stimulation, then maybe humans can
do the same. After analyzing Marks research, Barbara then decided to design her
own cognitive exercises that would stimulate the cortical region or the
junction in the brain of the parietal-occipital-temporal lobes of her brain
that might be related to her learning disabilities. Her first set of exercises
were designed to help the part of her brain that deals with interpreting the
relationships of things. She used flashcards of clocks, because in order to
understand how to read time from clocks, she has to understand the
relationships between the hour hand and the minute hand, which she didn’t at
the time. As the clock-reading exercise started to become easier for her, she
continuously increased the difficulty. Apart from being able to understand the
relationship of the hour hand and minute hand, Barbara also began to realize
that she could now also understand grammar and conversations. This means that
the part of her brain that deals with interpreting relationships was stimulated
by the clock exercises and now working better than before. Barbara can now
understand the relationships and associations of words just as she can read
clocks (Arrowsmith-Young, 2012). You probably would
not be surprise that Barbara ended up starting her own schooling program for
students with learning disabilities. The program stems from the idea of
neuroplasticity and is focused on using cognitive exercises to build
connections in the brain, the program was thus dubbed the Arrowsmith Program.
Considering that Barbara discovered the
potential of neuroplasticity in the year 1978, which means that the idea of
neuroplasticity has been around for at the very least 37 years. Neuroplasticity
refers “to the brain’s ability to rewire itself, rerouting information or
processing functions to different areas of the brain and/or neural networks to
compensate for damaged brain pathways and lost functions (Johnston, 2014).” We
used to believe that our brain was fixed. We all have been told that we had
certain amount of brain cells and if any of them died, there is no getting
those cells back. The idea of neuroplasticity changes everything we used to
think about the brain. This means that the brain over time has the ability to improve,
change, and heal itself, not just degenerate. And guess what, our brain cells
do regenerate, maybe at a slower rate than regular cells in the human body, but
they do regenerate and this knowledge came out in the year 1999, after the
research team at Princeton University discovered that “new neurons are continually
added to the cerebral cortex of adult monkey (Princeton.edu,
2015).”
So for the past 37 years, what have we
really done with this idea of neuroplasticity? How have we tried to apply this
idea in education? The answer is not very much. One of the reason, is that most
people are not even aware of this idea. Scientists are more interested in
applying this idea in the medical field preferably for brain injuries over
students with disabilities. There has not been a lot of research done on
neuroplasticity and neurodevelopmental disorders. Teachers, as well as, special
education teachers, are not really thinking about neuroplasticity when they are
working with students who has learning disabilities. Most special education
teachers have not even heard of Barbara Arrowsmith-Young or the Arrowsmith
Program.
So why is this a problem and how does
that relate to students with learning disabilities? It relates to students
diagnosed with learning disabilities because the root of learning disabilities
stems from the brain. Hint: Remember that it is a neurodevelopmental disorders!
And it is a problem because if we are truly trying to help these students with
learning disabilities overcome their difficulties and reach their full
potential, shouldn’t we try to solve it from the root of the problem? If
cognitive exercises have potential to stimulate certain parts of the brain that
are not working very well, and the exercises are proven to trigger those parts
so that they will work better taking accord that your brain is plastic,
shouldn’t we be using these exercises in school? Barbara has already demonstrated
that these exercises can be easily done even just through the use of
flashcards. So should special education teachers be using these exercises with
their students? You can argue that it’s hard to know which cognitive exercises
stimulate which part of the brain. It is true, but we could easily fix that by
doing more research. We are now living in the era where there are technologies
that allow us to look at the brain and its’ activities without having to cut it
open. We can even pinpoint which type of activity triggers certain parts of the
brain, so that means that through these technologies we can also pinpoint which
cognitive exercise trigger which parts of the brain.
This is a call for action to scientists
and people working in the field of education to aim their research towards
using the idea of neuroplasticity to help students with learning disabilities
better their brain. Questions like: How can neuroplasticity help students
achieve certain learning goals? How do cognitive exercises affect the brain of
students with learning disabilities? Can be answer through research. The
answers to these questions would greatly help educators create a better learning
program to provide a quality education for students with learning disabilities.
Looking at the brain with the idea of neuroplasticity in mind could also be of
great benefits to students with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as
attention deficit disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, and
autism spectrum disorders.
This is also a call for action to
increase the awareness of neuroplasticity to scientists, educators, parents and
students everywhere. People should know that their brains have potential to
improve and even heal itself. Parents should know that the brains of their
children who have learning disabilities are not fixed and they are still able
to change dramatically. Educators should understand and be aware of the
potential in the learning capacity of students with or without learning
disabilities. Brains can be worked with in schools not just in the surgery rooms
anymore. Although educators treat the brain like an untouchable organ that
should be left for the doctors, educators have always been working with the
students’ brains so isn’t it about time that educators are more aware of their
influence and their ability to help improve the students’ brain?
Neuroplasticity also means that the
brain behaves more like a muscle than just another organ. Just like muscles,
the brain can become weak or strong through exercising. If educators adopt this
mindset of looking at the brain as muscles, working with the students’ brain
will not be that intimidating anymore. When we feel that certain muscle in our
body is weak, we can work on getting that muscle to become stronger by starting
with lowers weights and the right exercise that focus on that muscle. As that
muscle gets stronger, we add more weights and make the exercise even harder. We
can easily apply this concept to our brain. When certain part of the brain is
weak, we can choose to work on that part by starting from the most basic level
and choosing the right cognitive exercise that will trigger stimulation in that
specific part of the brain. Once that part starts functioning better, then we
can move on to a harder level and more difficult exercise. The steps of
starting from basic and slowly increasing the difficulty of the exercise is
something that all educators are familiar with when they teach the students.
Now instead of thinking about which content to teach students with learning
disabilities, educators can think of which part of the brain they should work
on with students with learning disabilities.
Neuroplasticity gives new hope to
people with brain impairments, it is about time that we explore it in the realm
of education, in order to provide the right help for students with
neurodevelopment disorders. It is time that we change our mindset about the
limitations of the brain and adopt the thinking that our brain is an amazing
ever changing muscle. It is time that we take neuroplasticity seriously for the
sake of students with learning disabilities.
References:
American Psychiatric Association.
(2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
(5th ed.).
Washington, DC: Author.
Anon, (2015). [online] Available at:
[Accessed 30 Jun.
2015].
Arrowsmith-Young, B. (2012). The
woman who changed her brain. New York City: Free Press.
Johnston, J. (2014). Idiot's Guides
Psychology. 5th ed. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Ldaamerica.org, (2015). Learning
Disabilities and The Law: After High School: An Overview for
Students. [online] Available
at: http://ldaamerica.org/learning-disabilities-and-the-law-after-high-school-an-overview-for-students-2/
[Accessed 30 Jun. 2015].
Nichd.nih.gov, (2015). What are the
treatments for learning disabilities?. [online] Available at:
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/learning/conditioninfo/Pages/treatment.aspx [Accessed 30 Jun.
2015].
Princeton.edu, (2015). Princeton -
News - Scientists Discover Addition of New Brain Cells in
Highest Brain Area. [online] Available
at: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/99/q4/1014-brain.htm [Accessed 30 Jun.
2015].
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