When a normal child tries to read or concentrate, he increases the amount of beta waves in certain parts of his brain. ADHD children don’t do this. Instead of increasing beta waves, they increase theta waves, the daydreaming brain wave. That means that where other children are concentrating harder to complete a certain task, ADHD children are drifting off. (source)

The machine I was hooked up to measured my brain waves and presented me with a video screen with an airplane on it. When I was concentrating well and producing beta waves, the plane would go faster. If I lost focus, the plane would slow down. I marveled at the idea and wondered whether someone could simply exercise their brain until they were no longer prone to ADD type behaviors. Of course the equipment involved made it difficult to find a location that could provide this sort of treatment, and the costs were rather higher.

Interestingly, now it seems to be available as a home game. With a Star Wars theme.

Yes I’m serious.

ThinkGeek.com has put up for sale the Star Wars Force Trainer, for about $120. As a Star Wars fan, I felt obligated to check it out. I stopped dead in my tracks when I got midway through the description.

Using dry sensor technology, the Force Trainer can determine the differences between the alpha, beta, gamma and delta waves present in your brain. You can control these different brain ‘states’ by using your ability to focus and to concentrate. A micro-chip inside the Force Trainer then uses an algorithm to figure out which brain state you are in and then decides how to raise or lower the ball based on that state.

Sound familiar? I don’t know for certain what makes the ball go up or down, but if it’s keying in on beta waves, then isn’t it doing the exact same thing that I tried out in at the SMART workshop?? And if that’s the case… could this actually be a home version that ADD students could use to help train them to focus their concentration on demand?

I know it sounds crazy, but this just might be the most valuable toy a parent could buy for their ADD inclined student.

Now… when will we see a Bluetooth version that hooks into an iPhone?

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Direct link to the show

Accompanying blog entry:
I feel really foolish right now.

I have always had a hard time remembering faces. They just seem to slip away from me. Consequently, I’m horrible with people’s names. It is a tremendous challenge for me to remember a person’s name, in particular someone I don’t know very well. However, even with people that I do know fairly well, I do have problems associating a name with their face.

I found out about 10 years ago that I actually have what they call a processing deficiency in my visual memory. Basically, I have trouble holding images in my mind. It’s why I have trouble describing people. I could meet somebody, talk to them for 20 minutes and five minutes later I would be unable to remember if they had blonde or black hair. Even right now, I have trouble picturing people very close to me. I know what they look like, but it’s a difficult to hold an image of them in my mind.

It can really be embarrassing at times though. I thought that the presenter we had this morning was the same one we had yesterday for NeuroTechnology. After lunch, I pulled her aside and asked her if she normally taught that session because I saw a dramatic difference between the way she presented yesterday versus today. After a moment of confusion, she informed me that it was a completely different person doing that session yesterday. I felt like a complete moron. She pointed out that they don’t even have the same color hair. Really, the only two things they have in common was a semi-similar body type and they both wear glasses. I ran into the presenter from yesterday a few minutes ago and they really do look completely different.

It completely drives me crazy. After a day and a half of this workshop, I wonder whether some of these exercises might help me some. I would love to be able to remember images better, in particular the faces of people I’ve met.

Situations like what just occurred really make me feel like a moron. It’s not that I don’t want to remember people’s names and faces, I just seem unable to be able to. However, even knowing that it’s a problem, I have never made any effort specifically to address it. I wonder if there’s something I could be doing to ‘correct’ this problem. Perhaps there’s been a breakthrough in this area and I never knew because I never took the time to look.

It really makes me think about just how many subtle, elusive problems our students could have that might influence their education. My eyesight is 20/20, but there’s no question that I have a very real problem. Perhaps something I learn here may help. Either way, I’m going to have to pursue this. I’m tired of being embarrassed and feeling foolish for something that I can’t control.

Someone in the class just pointed out a Montessori activity that was similar to the one on the screen. It isn’t just me that noticed how similar some aspects of the programs are.

The main difference is that Montessori tools have been carefully defined over time and are all created to address very specific needs. This program is using every day tools as suggestions, but you can always substitute your own manipulatives or create your own variations. So far as I know, Montessori schools don’t believe in substitutions under any circumstances!

I’ll be really curious to revisit this program in five years and see if they have standardized any of their activates for the sake of effectiveness and consistency, to ensure that teachers are doing it appropriately in a manner that promoters optimal development. I’m still surprised that they aren’t offering us the opportunity to buy official “S.M.A.R.T.” gear, manipulatives and gross motor equipment that have been created in accordance to S.M.A.R.T.’s rigorous standards for excellence. Something like that Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they aren’t trying to push their own branded items off on us. The fact that they aren’t doing it lends just a touch of credence to their program. (Side note: I really wanted to double check to see if credence was the right word there and couldn’t get to Google: Definitions. This lack of Wifi is really cramping my style. Thank goodness for Word’s thesaurus.) If they were just trying to make a buck, there would be a sales pitch during every session.

So kudos to S.M.A.R.T. on that front. We’ll have to revisit this one in a few years!

To put it simply, a child with a mild auditory processing problem has a strike against them before they ever step in to a classroom. They may have perfect hearing, but have difficulty processing auditory input. Simple, everyday tasks may be a serious challenge to these children. If you have to exert a tremendous amount of effort just deciphering the directions, then how much energy will you have to complete the task at hand? The problem may be something as simple as a pathway in the brain being slightly underdeveloped that with practice could be developed full?

Without question, there are other sorts of issues that children can have. This is not a miracle cure all. I file it in the same category as social emotional development in kindergarten; children may learn to compensate for poor social emotional development in time, but if they learn those skills during early childhood, they will be naturally internalized for life. A child that learns to empathize with others in Kindergarten will probably not become a bully in middle school. In contrast, a child that never learns to consider other student’s feelings won’t even realize when they are engaging in bullying behavior.

Similarly, a child that learns internalizes these auditory and visual skills as well as the reflexs described, will have a distinct advantage in the educational environment over students who haven’t developed them yet. Let me put that a different way. They won’t be disadvantaged when they step into the classroom. It’s not about providing them with any sort of advantage, it’s ensuring that they don’t have a disadvantage. That doesn’t sound quite as sexy, but it’s closer to the truth.

Of course, buying into the theory is a completely different matter than buying into the system to address it. The system seems pretty well designed and I’m looking forward to implementing it. I do wonder if there are better ways to address these issues out there. If this program ever gets nationwide recognition and becomes mainstream, I wonder if people will come up with more efficient exercises for developing these skills. How were these skills created? I’m assuming that some activities are more effective than others, perhaps there are ways that the same goals could be achieved in a shorter time span (this program recommends 80 hours).

So where does this leave me? I feel like I’ve gained some valuable insight into my students that will help me better address their needs as individuals. I look forward to putting these theories into practice and seeing just how much of an impact they really have. I will continue to question it though. The day I stop questioning the way we do things is the day I should probably leave the field of education. More information is always more better though

People who teach PreK-3 may want to look further into it. If anyone has any questions or want to hear more about specific aspects of the program, leave me a comment and I’ll try to fill you in.

She attached four electrodes to my head and then asked me if I wanted the airplane game or the dolphin game. Being a typical American male, I chose the airplane. There were two computer monitors, one that I was looking at and one that Becky was looking at (I couldn’t see that one from where I was sitting). After a minute, the airplane came on the screen along with some really cheesy MIDI music. Sounded like a really bad ring tone! The airplane chugged along with the music and every once in a while it would fly through a coin. When it did, my score would go up by 10 points. Every once in a while, the airplane and music would pause for a second or two and then resume. At first, I actually thought that it was just computer lag. I quickly discovered that it was brain lag of sorts instead!

Whenever I was exerting conscious brain activity by concentrating on something really hard or by moving around, the music would pause. I could keep it going only by relaxing and sort of semi-focusing on the airplane. Whenever I shifted in the seat, the airplane would pause and when I concentrated too hard on trying to make the airplane keep going it would pause as well. I also found that it would pause whenever I blinked which caused me a fair amount of anxiety! I think it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. After a while, I expect it to pause whenever I blinked, so I would concentrate on not blinking as much as possible, but when I did blink, it was a significant event and of course the airplane paused.

I definitely had a hard time keeping the airplane continue on without pause. At one point, I stopped watching the airplane and instead stared at the stuffed animal on top of the TV. This did seem to work at first, but then I found watching the airplane in a relaxed state was actually more effective.

Midway through the test, Becky asked me to try to recite the alphabet backwards. I think I would have trouble doing this on the best of days, but considering that I was really tired this morning I found it very challenging. To be honest, I don’t really remember whether the airplane kept going because I was concentrating so hard on the reciting the backwards alphabet. I have to assume that the airplane was on pause most of the time, but it will be interesting to see the video that Charlotte took to verify that.

When I finished up, the first thing Becky asked me was how I slept last night. After disconnecting me and turning the other monitor so I could see it, she showed me how she knew that one already. The screen looked sort of like a stereo equalizer, but the bouncing bars represented different types of brainwaves instead. It was immediately obvious that the bars along the bottom were signfificantly longer than the others. She pointed out that those were theta waves (I’m pretty sure that’s the right term, I’d double check if I had WiFi). Those waves were the sleepy kind, the type that are longer when someone has more of when they’re tired. She also mentioned that they’re the type you would expect to see more of in someone diagnosed with ADD. Hmm… Double whammy, eh? Tired & ADD. Those waves probably should have stretched from Minneapolis to Chicago! Oh yeah, for the record, just in case I was going to be able to try the EEG for myself, I didn’t take any Ritalin or drink any coffee this morning. I wasn’t surprised at all to see those waves stretching out so far at all.

Becky also pointed out where the beta waves were (do I have those two terms confused?). She said that those were the waves that they wanted to train better. Ideally, they would be even with the theta waves. When that happens, a person is in a relaxed state of mind and yet actively ready to learn. Essentially, they’re a perfect model of the student sitting at the desk, pencil in hand, ready for the teacher to begin the lesson. No anxiety, no distraction, just relaxed but on task. When someone has decreased their theta waves and has an appropriate amount of beta waves, the airplane keeps moving along. I believe she said at one point a couple of days ago that someone who was really good at getting in that frame of mind could make the airplane go faster. Not sure about that one though.

We talked briefly about my blinking issue and she said that it’s a fairly common problem. She said that after a while, you just get used to it and stop being distracted by it. Obviously I never got to that point, but I was only hooked up for around five minutes.

I bet you’re waiting for me to answer the million dollar question; is this just a fad solution to a nationwide problem? I was much more impressed with this machine than I was with the AVE. One of my main issues with the AVE was that the person using it was basically a passive receptor. There was no conscious learning or training involved and I have a problem believing in completely passive solutions. That’s why I don’t believe mediation alone is really a solution for any problem along the lines of ADD. Behavior modification and awareness is just as important, if not more important, than medication in my own experiences. This EEG machine involved a person consciously training themselves to adjust their brain activity to create an increased sense of readiness. I wasn’t able to get into that frame of mind, but I did see how I could get to that point. It reminded me of a batting cage. If you keep swinging that bat again and again and again, when it comes time to be in front of a live picture you’ll feel calm, cool and ready for action.

A peroson who trains with this machine could certainly get to the point where they can put themselves into that frame of mind at will, but whether they could put themselves into that state on a continuous basis is questionable. They touted that this could in some cases ‘cure’ an ADD child without the use of medication. I want to know if children eventually can maintain that mind state without it being a conscious decision. In other words, does the child need to constantly be reminding himself to concentrate like they learned when hooked up to the machine, or does it just come naturally? I remember a device that I tried out way back in the day that was supposed to help students with ADD. It was basically a pager that vibrated every few minutes. The idea was that every three or four minutes, an ADD child’s mind would start to wander. By providing an aritificial reminder, it was thought that ADD children would be able to constantly jolt themselves back into a state of readiness. In other words, it didn’t eliminate the distractibility of the child, but it helped to get them back on task. The EEG machine seems to help to eliminate the distractibility, but does it need something like the pager to help remind them to put themselves in that frame of mind? Ideally, you want it to just come naturally, to train the brain to put itself into that state whenever it needs to be ready for learning.

I definitely see the benefit of this machine though. The ability to concretely measure brainwaves in real time and then training children to increase desirable waves while decreasing undesirable waves is incredibly valuable. I would love to spend a month or two with that machine on a daily basis and see what kind of impact it has on me. Would it eliminate the need for Ritalin? Or would it simply allow me to function more effectively when I’m not using medication?

The podcast I did with David Warlick also makes me wonder whether the persons personality, creativity, and thought processes change in any way when a person trains their brain in this way. David has said that he never takes medication when he’s writing, but he usually does before presenting. Writing is a creative activity, whereas presenting is more logical, analytic and requires a different frame of mind. Would this sort of training affect his writing in any way? In other words, he sort of turns his ADD on and off through his use of medication. I wonder if this sort of training would have a detrimental effect on his writing, if he wasn’t able to ‘turn it off’ and get back into his natural frame of mind.

Regardless, I definitely see merit in the exercise. I’m going to have to check out whether there’s a similar set up somewhere nearby in Chicago to find out more.

It was extremely relaxing. I caught myself falling asleep a few times. I happen to snore and there were a few times where I sort of heard myself start to snore and snapped back awake. Unfortunately, I had already taken Ritalin this afternoon. Otherwise, I’d be curious to know if it put me in the same frame of mind that medication does but in a completely natural way. Since I’d already taken it, there’s no way for me to know.

I’m still very skeptical though. I trust that there are positive results from doing this sort of therapy on a regular basis. What I’m not sure about is that there benefit is any greater than simply turning on some Pink Floyd, a psychedelics light, and taking a 20 minute power nap. Would there be any significant difference? I’m not certain. Or even without the lights and music, would just mediating for 20 minutes on a daily basis make a significant difference to a child with ADD?

I’m pretty sure that Sharper Image sells a set of glasses that just flashes lights in different patterns. Do you really need to get the official AVE glasses in order to have a significant effect or will any set of dark sunglasses with Christmas lights taped to them be comparable?

I wish I had some answers to go along with all these questions. Tomorrow morning I’m going to be meeting one of the presenters a bit early and she’s going to give me a tour of the EEG Neurofeedback machine. Maybe I’ll badger her with some of these things I’m wondering about and see if I can get some answers.

Some vision skills that children need are visual efficiency, visual analysis/perception and integration. Visual efficiency is comprised of eye movements, ey teaming, and accommodation (focusing). Visual analysis is comprised of form perception, visual closure, sequential memory, and laterality. Integration is comprised of eye-hand coordination and auditory-visual integration.

Children with eye movement problems have difficulty maintaining eye contact during a conversation, they lose their place when reading and they often turn their head while reading. Their eyes just don’t move smoothly.

This one is interesting. Typical kindergarten activity. A few shapes on a piece of paper with dotted outlines around their edges. The student is supposed to cut the shapes out along the lines. The worksheet that we have though, has two sets of dotted lines, spaced about a quarter of an inche apart. The idea is that this is what a student with a vision problem might be seeing. Which dotted line should they cut along? I know I’ve seen students in this exact situation who instead of cutting on the dotted line, they cut just outside of it all the way around, so the shape has a border of sorts. Naturally, I’ve always assumed that it was a fine motor issue. However, it could very easily be a vision problem instead. That’s definitely something to keep in mind. Fine motor problems could quite possibly be vision problems.

Side thought: This stuff is pretty intense. Auditory issues, brain development issues, reflex issues, vision issues, all of which should have developed a certain way during the child’s formative years, but for one reason or another might not have. These people have acquired quite a collection of these issues. I wonder how many have yet to be discovered? Just for a completely outrageous example, what if it is discovered that the liver actually aids in logical thought. Children who don’t probably develop their liver before age 7 will have issues with logical thought from then on out until they get these things addressed. Exercises would need to be created to develop your liver to a specific point. I know it’s a terrible example, but you see what I mean, right? I wonder just how complete these things are and just how much is being ignored because we don’t even know that we need to address it yet.

One more side thought: During lunch I asked someone who worked for the program just how long we are supposed to do these exercises for. I don’t mean, what duration of time should we do them in a given day, week or month. What I mean is, once a child develops a skill to a specific optimal level, is there a reason to continue the exercises? Quite simply, the answer was no. It’s like riding a bike, once you’ve acquired the skill you have it for life. Most of these should have been acquired naturally before age seven. This is to address any that weren’t acquired or that the child didn’t learn fully. Once they’ve got it, they don’t need to do it anymore.

Here we go! Auditory processing refers to the skills we use to interpret and organize auditory stimulus that we hear. Typically developed between 7-8 years of age. Auditory processing disorder is defined as a difficulty listening to or comprehending auditory information despite having normal peripheral hearing sensitivity. Reduced or impaired ability to discriminate, recognize or comprehend auditory information.

This isn’t children who have difficulty hearing, it’s children who have the ability to hear fine, but just can’t process the information that’s coming in. It’s easy to see how this sort of thing could be overlooked in a school. A typical hearing test just won’t pick up on this.

Children with this disorder typically misunderstand oral instructions/questions, or it there is a obvious delay between the question and the response. They have a lot of difficulty listening when background noise is present.

HSAS is non-verbal stimulation (music) to enhance auditory skills. Used with children who have learning difficulties, especially reading. Interestingly, the CD’s that they use are individually made. After testing, they customize the content based on the child’s deviation from the optimal hearing curve. They do this by amplifying frequencies below the curve and attenuating frequencies above the curve. Children listen to the CD for 15 minutes a day for several months. Then they come back in, get retested and get a new CD created. After a certain point, they get a maintenance CD that they do a few days a week for up to a year.

I always wonder how effective these passive devices actually are. It almost sounds like learning by osmosis. You know, just put your textbook under your pillow and the answers will just come to you! Or those exercise devices where you don’t have to do anything at all, electrical stimuli will exercise your muscles for you and the fat will just disappear. Does passive absorption of this nature really make a difference or does there need to be some sort of conscious action as well? I’d love to see some of the research, how this compares to a ‘placebo CD’, someone who does the exact same program but with a normal CD. Is there really a difference? I’d imagine that there must be, but I’d love to find out for certain.

Anatomy 101: The Ear. I’m flashing back to elementary/high school science, when we learned all about the hearing system and the inner ear. You know, the three bones in the ear that allow you to hear. Good to know that it all seems familiar still after all these years.

The auditory system is responsible for phonemic awareness skills. It’s a fundamental skill for reading and if there are auditory issues, then students will have trouble identifying the individual phonemes in words. Auditory discrimination is the ability to discriminate differences in individual letter sounds in words. One activity for this is to introduce three words daily, 12 weekly. Point out similar sounding words. “Launch, lunch” Don’t let kids see your lips though, because you want it to be just off of auditory cues.

Interesting study on the screen right now by Hart and Risley. Children from professional families had 2153 words per hour spoken to the child, and the child’s vocabulary was about 1116 words. Children from low income families had 653 words spoken to them per hour and had vocabularies of around 500 words. No surprise, I’d love to hear more from the study.

They’re recommending that you have music playing 30% of the time in the classroom and also that you turn down the bass so you stimulate the development of the higher frequencies. It also allows students to hear the lyrics better. Wouldn’t have thought of that one. Going to try that one later in the car.

There are two tactile systems that work in balance to process information. The first is discriminative, which allows us to determine when, where and what is touching us. It measures temperature, pressure and vibration. The protective system is fight or flight. It tells us when were in danger. Our skin is the largest sense organ, considered discriminative. The protective system is connected to the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Creates emotional sensations.

We’ve got a nice list of brain chemicals that influence behavior here. Serotonin (ahhhhh), dopamine (yahoo!), adrenaline (Yikes!) and cortisol ( Uh Oh).

Basically, if a child has an overdeveloped sense of tactile stimulation or an underdeveloped one, there can be problems. A child with an overdeveloped sense may avoid touching, become irritable, cranky or try to stay away from situations where they may become overwhelmed in a tactile way. Those with an underdeveloped sense tend to want to wrestle a lot, they always have their hands on other kids, rubbing them along the walls, and basically they constantly seek out stimulation.

Because of this, they have a list of activities that provide tactile experiences for kids in the classroom. Such as hiding toys in a sand table and having the kids try to find them. I like this one, if you’re studying the letter “B”, to create an oversized “B” out of yarn, string, sand, buttons, cotton, etc…. Then students can trace the letter again and again but receive different tactile sensations.

To be honest, I’m pretty tired this morning, so some of this information is just washing right over me. But I can definitely see where this is tying in to the greater picture. We’re still just getting background right now. Learning about the different systems in the body and how they can influence the child, especially if they are under or over developed. Then, the program itself is addressing these issues through a series of activities that develop these systems to a significantly higher level. The idea is that if this is done, the ramifications can be felt for years.

Looks like this session is wrapping up. Once again, I’m dwelling on just how huge a difference it makes when material is presented well versus when it isn’t. There’s no question, Powerpoint can really get in the way of a good presentation sometimes. This was a good one. Yesterday was not. Perhaps she didn’t normally present yesterday’s content and was put on the spot or perhaps problems with the presentation were throwing her off.. Who knows? It really impresses upon me the need to ensure that students know how to present material well. You could have the greatest material in the world, but if you can’t share it with people in an effective way, then it’s essentially useless. It’s about more than just catchy slides.

That was a really quick session and to be honest, it was just a typical health presentation. The usual. Nothing really new, nothing really significant. I just don’t get the feeling like it has too much to do with the SMART program, short of keeping in mind that if a child isn’t well nourished, then it may contribute to problems they’re having in school. It isn’t really apparent how this fits into the rest of the program. Almost seems like filler. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this because I don’t think this stuff is valuable. There’s no question that it’s valuable. But learning about looking both ways before crossing the street is also valuable and we aren’t talking about that. Positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement is valuable to discuss, but it doesn’t have a place here either. I guess my point is, if it doesn’t directly tie in to the rest of the program, then why are we spending 45 minutes on it?

Am I just overly critical or a complainer? Sometimes I think I am. I do tend to criticize things quite often. The first thing I do upon leaving a movie is point out every part of it that I had an issue with. I suppose I just have very high expectations for how things should be and if something doesn’t meet my expectations I tend to share that observation.

Onwards yet again. This time we’re getting into NeuroTechnology! I’ve been waiting for this one. Just sounds like a good topic to me. Yes, I’m judging the book by its cover. Not a good start though. She’s started off by saying that some students don’t get ‘fixed’ by SMART and this is a way to address them. Once again, I’m going to jump to a conclusion and say that offhand it sounds like filler. I hope not.

“NeuroTechnology may improve the symptoms associated with an unregulated brain such as : behavior challenges, inattention, hyperactivity, depression, sleep problems, impulsivity, headaches, etc…”

NT basically gets the brain in shape. It’s brain exercise. Can relax the state of mind, improve academics and possibly even athletic performance.

All brain waves are always available, but certain ones are more predominant depending on activity. Children often have high theta brain waves, sleepy drowsy ones. It causes kids to seek stimulation because they’re trying to wake up that part of the brain.

There’s good stress and bad stress. Good stress occurs during sports, complex mental tasks, performances and public speaking. Harmful stress occurs with over stimulation, anxiety, fear, inadequate diets, allergies and overwhelming concerns.

Side note, this presenter is reading her notes most of the time. A few times, she’s gone off her notes and just talked. When she does, she’s actually quite a good presenter. She has a great personality and it shows through, very dynamic. However, when she’s reading her notes she becomes dry and almost boring. Right now there’s a full paragraph on the screen. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s actually reading the entire paragraph. What’s even worse than that is that I’ve seen it before in an email that friends have forwarded to me on a few occasions. Do a search for “email cow dolphin stress” and you’ll find it I’m sure. I’d provide a link but I have no wifi.

Back to the presentation, there are two tools used in NeuroTechnology primarily. The first is EEG Neurofeedback. A person wears two sensors on their head and two on their ears. They’re like microphones for listening to raw electrical activity in the brain. The person seems an image or a game, where the person is rewarded when they reduce theta waves. In other words, when the person is zoning out, the game stops. When they’re active and in the optimal thinking zone, the game moves forward.

The other tool is AVE, Audio Visual Entrainment. It’s portable, basically a set of glasses and headphones. The audio is relaxing music and variable heartbeats. The visual is pulsing lights inside glasses. Entrainment sounds like it’s basically a zone that you get into, like when you stare into a fire for quite a while, or someone is so into a TV show that they block out external stimuli. So we have a device that flickers lights and plays music, and a person is supposed to veg out and just absorb this for twenty minutes. Hmm… Sounds suspiciously like the way I spent the better part of my undergrad years! Pink Floyd and a lava lamp just might be an AVE! But seriously folks…

Sounds like the audio is not just music, but may have academic content as well. Test answers, Spanish words, vocabulary and so on. Sounds like hypnotic learning of sorts. She’s saying that you can use this to alleviate test anxiety. Put the device on, and imagine yourself getting ready to take a test. Then imagine how you want to feel while you’re doing it. Run that through your head again and again. Then when you go to actually take a test, you’ll put yourself in that same frame of mind. This really does sound a lot like self-hypnosis. I wonder if there have been any studies that compare this device to actual hypnotherapy. I’d also be REALLY curious to see how it would compare to Pink Floyd and a lava lamp. Totally serious, I wonder if it would have a similar effect.

This also vaguely reminds me of that headphone device that I blogged about some months back, just without the visual. Basically they’re both trying to use audio stimulation to influence brain waves.

Once again, this seems to have little to do with the SMART program directly. I really hope we come back to this at some point in the workshop. If we don’t, then this afternoon was largely a disappointment. Not that the information wasn’t interesting, but it just doesn’t seem to apply to what we’re here to learn! I hope I’m wrong. If I do, I will issue an apology and retraction, highlighted and bolded!

This is going to drive me nuts. There is an obvious problem with the remote control that the presenters are using to go through their power point presentation. After every slide, they either go way too far forward or backwards. They are standing no more than seven feet away from the laptop that they are using the remote control on! However, instead of simply walking up to the computer and hitting the space bar, they keep trying to use the remote again and again and again. End result? After every slide we have a 1 minute frustration break as the presenter goes all the way back to the beginning of the presentation and then tries to find their place again. Another member of the team finally walked up to try to help and I thought she was going to just click on the laptop for him, but instead she’s trying to use the remote control too! Same result! And a USB mouse is about a foot in front of her on the table. Which is more rude, me knowing that they can just use the mouse or arrow keys and not speaking up or interrupting the presentation to show them how to use their own technology? I’m choosing to just let them do what they’re doing and being passive aggressive by writing about it here. Personality flaw? Perhaps. Subject for another day. For the record, my guess is that the battery is going on the remote.

Ok, back to the presentation (I think I missed four or five slides). We’re still talking about different learning styles that students have. He’s saying that some students need to be eating, drinking or chewing while learning. That stimulation does help some students. I chew on pens constantly or shake a leg. Perhaps if I chewed gum, it would help to release some of the energy I have.

More types. Day learners vs. night learners, learners who like to move around vs. those who stay sitting down for hours, global vs. analytic, impulsive vs. reflective, etc.etc. No surprise, I’m very analytic. I like things sequential, step by step. I’m very methodical and a big believer in planning before a project. I’m not very artistic, in some ways I’m not very creative.

Ok, done with Learning Styles. It was chock full of traditional stereotypes. Some people like sitting at a desk, others like lying on a sofa. I would love to see the presentation updated for the 21st century. Some students like going to one web site and reading it through before clicking on a link, others open 15 browser windows and read pieces from each before jumping to the next site. Some prefer reading through the help menu while others like clicking on each function just to see what happens. I think it would be fascinating to update the usual learning styles shtick to take advantage of 21st century skills. I’d be curious to how many variations there really are. Do students have iTunes open? Do they have AIM on? Do they chat with one person or 30 people? Lots to consider along those avenues.

Reflexes control our movements. Obviously we want our students to be in control of their bodies. First the body needs to experience things in order to build a storehouse of knowledge, then the body will be able to apply that learning to situations and use it to perform tasks.

Some skills are automatic (or should be) such as sitting in a chair, handwriting, listening, and so on. But for many students, they aren’t.

Reflexes are god given, “pre-fabricated” movements. Their purpose is to provide a learning experience for the brain. They may not seem like they have an obvious purpose, but they often do. They can be integrated, learned or matured. They become internal, occur automatically.

Most primitive reflexes should be integrated in the first year of life.

First is the ATNR reflex, Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex. Basically, it’s when the child’s head is turned to one side, the muscle receptors in the neck have the same arm straighten and the opposite arm flex or bend. It helps babies roll from stomach to the back. Typically occurs from 4-6 months.

Here’s one thing that wasn’t immediately apparent to me (and a few others). We want these reflexes to be completely internalized in our students. For example, when on their knees with their arms straight out (so they are almost in a crawling position), they should be able to turn their head all the way towards their shoulder and hold it without having any bend in their elbows. If there’s a bend in their elbows, it could be that they haven’t internalized the ATNR reflex and need to do some exercises to properly internalize it.

Just finished a lunch break and soon we’ll be continuing on reflexes. It has been a pretty productive morning and I’m starting to get a good feel for what the program is about. It seems to take the same principals that I’m always harping about with respects to the importance of social and emotional development occurring in students’ early school years, and applying it to brain development. In other words, if the students’ brains haven’t developed properly between ages 1 and 6, then they already have a strike against them in future years. A student who hasn’t properly developed the pathway that transmits data between the eye and the brain may have issues skipping words and/or letters when they’re reading. It definitely seems to make sense. I’m starting to buy in to the idea at least.

Onwards with reflexes! They have a ton of activities to address ways to exercise these reflexes in a variety of situations. Maybe I’ll try to take some video, or photos of these exercises so I can provide a visual for you.

Next reflex is the STNR: Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex. Position of the head and neck affect the position of the trunk and limbs. When the neck is extended, the arms go into extension and the knees are contracted. When the head goes down (chin to chest), the arms naturally bend and the legs extend.

TLR: Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex. Stimulates the labyrinthine of the inner ear by the position of the head in space and the position of the body. Basically, it looks like the entire body is bent. Arms, legs, feet, neck and so on. Babies start off like this and quickly learn to extend different areas. Exercise to test this involves laying on the belly and trying to get their arms, legs and head fully extended and off the floor.

Quick tangent. We just saw a video of a student who has trouble with retained reflexes. He was supposed to be drawing a counter clockwise circle between two pieces of tape. He was doing it clockwise instead of counter and seemed to be having a problem. The presenter told us to watch carefully what he did at the end of the activity. When he finished, he looked up to see what his neighbor had done or whether the teacher had seen what he had done. She claimed that he looked up like this because he was so used to have problems due to retained reflexes that he was used to doing things wrong and being criticized. Right there is where she lost me. Retained reflexes may cause some problems, but that doesn’t mean that every problem will be solved by fixing the reflex issue! Could it simply be that he has a self-confidence issue brought on by overbearing parenting or teaching? Or perhaps he wants to go to the playground and is checking to see if he has done the task well enough to be released. Who knows? This may very well be a tremendous boon to the educational environment. It could help students to be better prepared to learn. But please don’t try to fool me into thinking that this is going to solve all of our educational problems, or that every problem can be solved through these exercises.

He’s having us look at a graph right now that charts the growth of the brain over the first six years of life and what is developing when in various areas like vision, tactile, auditory, mobility, language and manual.

The basic idea is that during the formation of these various areas of the brain, this program is meant to provide extra stimulation so that they develop fully. If the brain is well stimulated as it is being formed during the early years, the students will be better prepared for education and for life.

Recommending a book called “Magic Trees of the Mind” by Marion Diamond. If you take two groups of rats from the same litter and put one half of them in a stimulating environment and one in a dull environment, the rats in the more stimulating environment developed larger brains. This book goes through all the brain research that has occurred since that experiment. The point of her book are that the magic trees are the dendrites in the brain and that if they aren’t stimulated, they shrivel up and ‘die’.

Here’s a decent analogy. In the past, if you wanted to create an interstate highway, you’d start off with a small pathway through the forest, then pave it, then expand it and so on. This is helping students to develop six lane super highways from the very beginning. They’re helping to develop the automatic skills that can make a significant difference in learning.

Sensory pathways: Visual, auditory and tactile. Motor pathways: Mobility, language and manual function.

I really wish this chart were online somewhere. It’s pretty interesting. I’ll have to ask if they’d mind me scanning it in or sending me a digital copy to upload.

“The language of the brain stem is crawling and creeping.” The program doesn’t have kids crawling around to practice crawling skills, it’s to help build connections that may not have been properly formed in the early years.

The brain stem controls the coordination of unconscious motor activity. SMART activities activate the brain stem where learning readiness skills are developed. Function produces structure.

A few principles:
* The brain grows fastest during the early years. That means it’s smart to take advantage of that window of opportunity with proper exposure
* Stimulation produces beneficial electrical activity. Increases connections to other cells.
* The brain’s plasticity is influenced by sensory experience. A great way to grow a better brain is through the senses. SMART activities are designed to improve reading, writing and attention through sensory stimulation.
* If the environment is complex with new and unexpected positive events, the brain remains active and stimulated. If the environment is routine, the brain merely adapts and then operates automatically using the cells which have been wired for adequacy without a need for increasing growth.
* The brain can be stimulated for increased neural growth at any age. Connections can be made throughout lives.
* The brain is stimulated through inputs not outputs. The only thing that stimulates the brain is visual, auditory or kinesthetic input.