Brain training is a growing and exciting new area in scientific research. In particular, there is a lot of evidence of the brain’s plasticity: that it can actually change-shrink or grow-depending on what we do. I wanted to investigate whether students with learning disabilities can also benefit from brain training.
I recently completed a study together with Dyslexia Scotland and the Autistic Treatment Trust on the impact of brain training. A group of students aged between 8 to 16 years old took part. They completed some tests of IQ and working memory and then participated in an 8-week training programme called Jungle Memory.
The findings were very exciting! The students who used the Jungle Memory training programme regularly (4x a week for 30 minutes) had higher IQ and working memory scores, compared to those who only trained 1x a week and those who didn’t train at all. By training your brain you will be able to improve your child’s prospects in classroom and beyond.
If you would like further details on this study, please contact me.
Do you ever have days when you wake up and everything seems wrong with the world? Hopefully for most of these types of days are not the norm but the exception. However, there are some people who see everything as ‘half-empty’ instead of ‘half-full. Using cutting-edge psychological research, I am interested in finding out if it really matters–Does it matter if we see the glass as half-empty?
We are on the cusp of a new revolution in intelligence that affects every aspect of our lives from work and relationships, to our childhood, education, and old age. Working Memory, the ability to remember and mentally process information, is so important that without it we could not function as a society or as individuals. One way to visualise working memory is as the brain’s “Post-it Note”: we make mental scribbles of bits of information we need to remember and work with. For example, we use working memory to remember directions while driving or someone’s name and phone number. Without it, we would be literally lost; we wouldn’t know how to get to that important meeting and would forget important contacts. Working memory is critical for many activities at school, from complex subjects such as reading comprehension, mental arithmetic, and word problems to simple tasks like copying from the board and navigating the halls.
Working memory makes a difference beyond the classroom walls as well. People with superior working memory tend to have better jobs, better relationships, and more happy and fulfilling lives. People with poor working memory struggle in their work, their personal lives, and are more likely to experience trouble with the law. More recently, a growing number of studies demonstrate that working memory is also important for our mental health. In a recent study that I conducted with 20-year-olds, I found that people who view the glass as half-empty but have good working memory are less likely to suffer depression compared to those who view the glass as half-empty and have low working memory. So while we may think that seeing the glass as half-empty, having good working memory acts like a buffer to protect our mental health.
What about you? What does your working memory tell you about your world-view? Why not find out by participating in an online study. Here is what you will have to do:
Take some memory tests: Don’t worry, I don’t want to know how often you forget where you left your car keys or if you can remember your loved one’s birthday. You will have to do something much easier. You will see some shapes and just have to remember where you saw them on a grid.
Next, tell me your views about different sentences, like “I felt hopeful about the future”; or ”I was bothered by things that don’t usually bother me”.
There is also a Memory board where you can tell more me more different strategies that you use to keep your memory alert.
PARTICIPATE NOW
Read these sentences and decide if they are true or false:
1. Bananas live in water: True or False
2. Flowers smell nice: True or False
3. Dogs have four legs: True or False
Now, without looking at those sentences, can you remember the last word in each sentence in the correct order? If you were able to remember them, congratulate yourself. Your working memory is like an average 10 year old. This test is an example of the Listening Recall test from the Automated Working Memory Assessment. It measures verbal (auditory) working memory.
Brain imaging has confirmed that when we perform working memory tests, like the one above, there is electrical activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex. We use different parts of the brain to remember verbal and visual-spatial information. Scientists suggest that the lower area of the prefrontal cortex (ventrolateral) is responsible for verbal working memory, while the higher area (dorsolateral) is linked to spatial working memory. These two areas are also linked to the different processes in performing a working memory task: the ventrolateral areas are engaged with keeping information active and the dorsolateral areas are involved in processing or managing information. Other areas of the brain are also activated during working memory tasks. When we engage in visual-spatial tasks, parts of the right-hemisphere and the hippocampus are also activated. In verbal working memory tasks, there is activation in the left-hemisphere, particularly in the ‘language centers’ such as Broca’s area. What is the take home message? Protect your head, you will need it for the rest of your life!
Adapted from Improing Working Memory: Supporting Students’ Learning (Sage Publication, 2010)
A group of psychologists in London* were interested in the brains of taxi drivers. In particular, they wanted to know whether their visual-spatial memory was better than the rest of us.
There are many reasons why this would be the case. For starters, directions are taxi drivers’ lifeblood - they need to know their way inside and out of a city like London. They also have to take an extensive test called the Knowledge which requires drivers to know over 400 routes. It is such a demanding course that 75% of people drop out. Yet, there are fantastic gains for those who do stick with it. Of course, there is a financial incentive - drivers stand to make significantly more money once passing the test.
However, there is a surprise bonus as the psychologists discovered: taxi drivers have bigger brains! Yes, it is true. The part of brain associated with directions (visual-spatial memory) is actually larger is experienced taxi drivers compared to the average individual. The brain changes to accommodate the increasingly amount of information on navigating and directions that taxi drivers have to take in.
This is an exciting study because it demonstrates that our brain has a certain amount of flexibility and can expand in response to certain information. Previously, psychologists found brain changes only in patients who had sustained a brain injury, but in the case of the taxi drivers we see that all of us can benefit from working our memory muscles.
From TRAINING YOUR BRAIN for Dummies (due Dec 2010)
*E. Maguire et al. (2000) Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Psychologists were interested in how language skills impact Alzheimer’s*. They looked at a group of nuns in their study, as they didn’t smoke, drink, and had a similar lifestyle. They found that language skills in early adulthood were linked to Alzheimer’s in old age. Those nuns who kept a diary in their twenties were less likely to experience memory loss when they were older. More importantly, those who used very descriptive words to talk about their day had better language and memory skills than those who didn’t. What was even more fascinating is that although some of the nuns’ brains showed signs of Alzheimer’s, their cognitive skills, such as their language and memory, demonstrated no weakness! Some of these nuns were over 100 years old and were articulate and could engage in conversation. The nursing staff who were caring from them didn’t even know that they had Alzheimer’s. This is such an exciting study because it reveals that good language skills in early adulthood make a huge difference in decreasing our risk of getting Alzheimer’s and dementia. So grab a pencil and a book and start writing!
From TRAINING YOUR BRAIN FOR DUMMIES (due Dec 2010)
*Riley et al. (2005). Neurobiology of Aging.
Students with ADHD often have average or even high IQ. Yet they struggle with learning. I was quite puzzled by this for some time. Then I noticed a similar pattern of behavior problems, such as fidgeting, highly distractible, and lacking motivation, coupled with high IQ in an entirely different group—gifted students. Although their behavioral profile is similar between these two groups, they are driven by different reasons. The ADHD student has difficulty controlling their behavior and inhibiting inappropriate actions, while gifted students ‘act up’ out of boredom or being insufficiently challenged. )
Here is a case study of a boy from my research collaboration with the National Association of Gifted Children in the UK.
Joseph was very articulate and our assessment with him took longer than usual as he asked questions frequently. He loves English and History and tried to begin many debates and discussions with us during the assessment. His mother says that he spends hours and hours researching topics that he finds interesting – these might not be related to school. However, his pattern of behavior on the Conners Rating Scale indicated a very high ADHD. When asked about his motivation levels, he was very apathetic and negative about his school and learning in general.
These two groups of students—ADHD and gifted ones—had similar behavioral patterns and IQ scores. Yet they had very different learning outcomes. Why? When I looked more closely at their scores, I found their working memory profiles were very different. As you would expect, the gifted students had excellent working memory, which was linked to their above average academic outcomes. In contrast, the ADHD students’ poor working memory was linked to low achievement. Average IQ does not suggest average grades. If a student has a working memory problem, they will struggle academically even though they have average IQ ability.
EXCERPT FROM Improving Working Memory
You may already know that working memory is important to academic success. But did you know that working memory is one of the most important skills that predict learning outcomes. Working memory is even more important than IQ. Let’s take a step back. Before we get to working memory in the classroom, let’s look at how environmental factors, such as financial background, can impact working memory
Think of a classroom in rural Brazil. There is so much working against these kids. Less than 15% will finish elementary school. Most leave without learning to read. Schools can’t afford to pay their teachers much and those teachers that do stick around don’t always have the skills and training to do their job. But could these students have the same ability and potential of their richer urban peers? My colleagues decided to test this theory*. They compared rural low-income kids with those from wealthy urban areas in Brazil in IQ and working memory tests. You would expect that the rural kids struggled behind their urban peers. Indeed, that was the case with the vocabulary test used to measure IQ. The urban students excelled in matching words with the correct definitions. They far superseded their rural counterparts in their knowledge, because they had more experience using the words on the test.
But here is the surprising finding: they were no better than the rural students on the working memory tests. It boils down to one thing-opportunity. The urban children had more opportunity to learn-at home, their parents have the skill and time to teach them, at school they receive more attention from teachers. They have had a rich base of knowledge cultivated over the years. But the exciting news is that students from deprived backgrounds have the same ability to succeed. Their working memory skills are no different from their urban peers. It is not an issue of IQ. It is a matter of giving these students the same opportunity to unlock their working memory potential.
Excerpt from IMPROVING WORKING MEMORY
*Engel et al (2008). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can display amazing abilities well beyond their age, yet struggle in simple, everyday tasks. A teacher told me of a 13 year boy who loved going to the principal’s office to work on math and science exams for 17 year olds, but could not dress himself. A fascinating aspect of this polarity is the “special abilities” displayed by some autistic individuals. These abilities far exceed expectations based on their IQ, and in some cases, their special ability exceeds the level reached by experts in the same field. Special abilities are generally found in the domains of music, memorization of lists, three-dimensional drawing, reading (hyperlexia), and calendar and mental calculation.
Of interest is whether their working memory reflects their extraordinary skills. It seems that the memory profile of an autistic savant is much like an individual with ASD without special abilities. If a memory test uses material that is related to their area of expertise, then savants outperform individuals with ASD without special abilities. For example, a savant calculator has a much higher score than ASD non-experts in number-based working memory tasks. Both ASD groups perform similarly in other working memory tasks. When compared with experts, we see a similar pattern. Both savants and experts show superior memory skills compared to their peers with the same IQ level when tested using material from their area of expertise. Studies that have compared memory skills for music in savant musicians with typical musicians reveal that they demonstrate the same sensitivity and awareness of musical dimensions such as rhythm and pitch. Their similar performance in a music memory test suggests that autistic savant musicians and typical musicians use the working memory in a comparable way.
Autistic savants have built up a huge knowledge base that can be used to increase working memory performance in the area of their expertise. In some cases, their expertise and training in one area can also enhance their scores in another area. For example, calendar calculators and savant calculators can achieve phenomenal scores in memory tests using nonsense words. They are able to apply their training in remembering one type of abstract material (dates and numbers) to related things. One explanation is that dates, numbers, and nonsense words are all abstract material and we use similar mechanisms to remember information that is not connected to semantic memory. The bottom line is that autistic savants have superior memory in the area of their expertise, and in some cases in related areas. This enhanced memory performance far exceeds what is expected of their IQ levels. We see that working memory is very different from IQ.
LISTEN TO A PODCAST ON AUTISM
Have you ever caught a student doodling in the middle of a lesson? Well now scientific research supports their efforts to stave off boredom. A recent study compared the working memory of two groups of people: doodlers and non-doodlers. Both groups were asked to listen to a pre-recorded phone message about a birthday party and asked to remember the names of the people coming. The doodling group more names and places mentioned in the phone message compared to the non-doodlers. Doodling while listening can be beneficial because it helps the individual focus and maintain attention instead of tuning out altogether. It is not a demanding activity and acts like a buffer that prevents other activities like daydreaming to interfere with what you have to remember. So if you are worried that a student will start ‘zoning out’ during class, hand them a pencil!
J Andrade (2009) Applied Cognitive Psychology
When my research team interviewed Robert, a 10 year old, he was pleased to report that his memory for numbers is very good and he “can do 2, 5 and 10 times tables but 4 and 6 times tables are hard.” He said that if he can’t see the numbers he can’t remember them: “I need to have them written down because they don’t stay in my head.”
Like Robert, the student with dyscalculia has clear working memory deficits. However, the link between working memory and math skills depends on the age of the child as well as the type of math task. Verbal working memory plays a strong role in math skills in 7-year olds and is a reliable indicator of dyscalculia in the first year of formal schooling. Once children reach adolescence, verbal working memory is no longer significantly linked to mathematical skills. One explanation for this change is that verbal working memory plays a crucial role for basic arithmetic skills like learning arithmetic rules and retaining relevant data such as carried digits when they are young. However, as children get older other factors such as number knowledge and strategies play a greater role.
Visual-spatial working memory problems are also linked to dyscalculia. It has been suggested that visual-spatial memory functions as a mental blackboard to support number representation, such as place value and alignment in columns in counting and arithmetic tasks. We also use visual-spatial memory to solve multi-digit operations and problems presented visually, including those using blocks. Poor working memory is thought to be one explanation for dyscalculia because it limits their ability to remember mathematical rules, from basic concepts like counting in ascending and descending order, to more complicated algebraic functions.
