14 August 2006:
Neuroscience Holds the Key to Learning and Reading Difficulties
Children with reading and language difficulties have been found to have problems activating key neurotransmitter pathways in the brain. However, this ‘bad wiring’ can be corrected using targeted stimulation, according to a visiting academic.
Dr Martha Burns, a US expert in treating learning difficulties, is in Australia for the ‘Brain-Based Learning Conference’. She will be discussing how discoveries in neuroscience can help us better understand, and treat children with language and literacy difficulties.
“Our understanding of brain function has greatly improved in recent years. The brain has great ‘plasticity’ and the ability to learn and change at any age,” Dr Burns said.
Problems arise when children do not learn to distinguish sounds correctly in their early development. This may occur if children have not had enough one-on-one interaction with adults or have had ear infections or other hearing problems at critical stages.
The brain activity of children who struggle with reading has been shown to stay primarily in the frontal lobe, whereas brain activity in children who do not struggle is balanced between the frontal and the temporal lobes, as well as the angular gyrus, which is responsible for discriminating between sounds with a short duration.
The research of scientists at The University of California
, San Francisco, and Rutgers University, New Jersey, led to key breakthroughs in the way language difficulties such as dyslexia are understood. They established that the core cognitive and linguistic learning principles (Memory, Attention, Processing and Sequencing) can be successfully improved through intensive intervention using advanced technologies. This research led to the development of the Fast ForWord suite of programs.
“Using acoustically modified speech technology, in the form of fun computer games, the program has the ability to build a wide range of critical language and reading skills such as phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, syntax and grammar. This achieves what a teacher can’t: slowing down words and drawing out syllables until a child can distinguish the sounds, then gradually speeding them up again.This process "rewires" the brain so students can avoid neural ‘interruptions’ in decoding e.g. confusion between the words ‘stay’ and ‘say’,” Dr Burns said.
The Fast ForWord suite of programs is used in 20 countries including in over 3,500 schools across the USA. Australian speech pathologist, Devon Barnes has used the program for the past seven years with over 200 children.
“MRI scans have shown that the technology targets the part of the brain that influences speech and language and improves brain function. Using prescribed protocols, children can achieve a 1 to 2-year gain in reading skills in six to eight weeks,” Devon said.
“In a study conducted at my clinic a group of 8 - 13 year old children improved their language skills from below average to mid-range average in 8 weeks of treatment. This improvement produces a huge change in a child’s ability and personal confidence. It is the difference between not understanding schoolwork, to being able to participate normally in class and successfully learn. Once this technology has laid the foundations for literacy, a child’s language skills continue to grow long after the treatment has finished,” Devon said.
“Ten per cent of Year 5 (10 – 11 years) Australian school children are failing to reach benchmark reading standards (http://cms.curriculum.edu.au/anr2004/). This is a minimum level of reading competence considered necessary to make academic progress. I would like to see the widespread adoption of these scientific advances as a valuable tool to support remedial reading programs,” Devon Barnes said.