Media Release
June 7, 2007
Rewiring the Brain for Academic Gain
Children with reading and language difficulties have been found to have problems activating key neural pathways in the brain.
However US research has found that the ‘bad wiring’ can be corrected using targeted stimulation with some students achieving a one to two year gain in reading skills in just six to eight weeks.
At a key educational conference, ‘Rewiring The Brain For Academic Gain’ to be held in Sydney and Melbourne in August, a US expert in treating learning difficulties, Dr Martha Burns, will address the implications of the research and how both parents and educators can help children with learning difficulties achieve much better results.
Dr Burns, a speech pathologist at Evanston and St Francis hospitals in Illinois and a faculty member of both Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, said that new educational programs are now based on the fact that the brain doesn’t stop learning.
“Our understanding of brain function has greatly improved in recent years. In particular we know that the brain has great ‘plasticity’ and the ability to learn and change at any age,” Dr Burns said.
“This is changing the way in which we structure learning programs and the education environment for those with learning difficulties.
“Many children need one-on-one learning. They need step-by-step programs which enable them to make progress and take encouragement from that progress and they need to learn with programs which use all areas of their brain, not simply those involved in rote learning.
“The old saying ’use it or lose it’ is to a surprising degree true of neurological activity.”
The brain activity of children who struggle with reading has been shown to take place primarily in the frontal lobe, whereas brain activity in children who do not struggle is balanced between the frontal and temporal lobes, as well as the angular gyrus situated at the back of the brain. This is responsible for discriminating between sounds with a short duration.
Using the power of computers, programs have now been developed that stimulate and address the learning capacity of all areas of the brain.
The core cognitive and learning principles of Memory, Attention, Processing and Sequencing, can all be successfully improved through intensive intervention using advanced technologies.
Using acoustically modified speech technology in the form of computer games an internationally used program, ‘Fast ForWord’ has been proven to have 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.
By slowing down words and drawing out syllables until a child can distinguish the sounds, then gradually speeding them up again, ‘FastForWord’ ‘rewires’ the brain so that the student can avoid neural ‘interruptions’ in decoding e.g. confusion between the words ‘Stay’ and ‘Say’.
In Australia during a 10 week trial last year with 144 students aged 5 to14 at four primary schools in Western Australia, the reading ability of the test students on average doubled and their receptive language skills improved by two thirds.
According to Barry Hancock, principal at Samson Primary School in Fremantle, one of the participating schools, “It’s the greatest thing I’ve found in 40 years of teaching.”
According to studies by the Federal Department of Education 16% of all Australian school students have learning difficulties and of these 4% have specific and long term problems (according to the National Health and Medical Research Council).
This means that potentially, there are more than 150,000 Australian school children who could possibly benefit from new scientifically based learning programs.
Australian speech pathologist Devon Barnes, who will also speak at the ‘Rewiring’ conference, has also successfully used Fast ForWord for more than 300 children.
“With a huge investment in education each year by both the federal and state governments of more than $35 billion there is an immediate need to ensure that programs are effective,” she said.
Dr Martha Burns and Devon Barnes are available for interview.
Further information and case studies are also available. Please contact Sarah Peattie or Casey Walton at 02 9487 6555.
About Fast ForWord (http://www.fastforword.com.au)
Fast ForWord is a scientifically based learning program now being used by one million children worldwide. More than 85 research studies have been conducted showing academic gains for 35,000 participants. The program is also in use at more than 5,000 schools.