Norman Doidge from his book website
I was lucky enough to be invited to a lecture for a small group of people organised by Scottish Enterprise and held in Anniesland College. I found the talk incredibly thought provoking and have been considering it ever since. The talk was given by Norman Doidge, a psychologist and psychiatrist who is developing an interest in neuroscience. His specific interest is in the relatively young area of neuroplasticity. Dr Doidge presented a number of case studies illustrating the ability of the human brain to heal itself when given some new stimulus or even targeted exercises. Dr Doidge asserts that manyof our therapeutic interventions are based on a belief that the brain once damaged or if not functioning correctly, will remain in this state. Our therapies therefore become palliative and provide support, not cure. The evidence presented was dramatic. He showed videos of people learning to “see” using cameras linked to sensor arrays on their tongues, people with chronic balance disorders learning to stand upright without falling after a training intervention using position sensors (accelerometers) linked to a similar tongue electrode, and most interestingly for educators, young people learning to read and write who were previously considered deficient. If you want to know more about this exciting work, then you should check out the Arrowsmith School in Canada. Have a look at the video on the page.
The exciting thing about the work of Barbara Arrowsmith, is that it is diagnostic and targeted with the intention of fixing the young persons problem. As Dr Doidge points out, a task like reading is not simple. It may involve a number of brain functions, motor movement of the eye, language recognition through a visual processing area, use of the speech area even if you are not actually speaking aloud, presumably a comprehension or higher processing area. Some of these functions may be problematic only in one side of the brain! If any one of these links in the chain are not functioning well, then the young learner will seem “deficient” and may find themselves on the receiving end of an education system that attempts to help them within their learning disability, but not to fix them! Barbara Arrowsmith’s school attempts to diagnose the problem, and then runs a short programme of training for the brain to repair that function if at all possible. There are a number of real successes that fundamentally challenge the morality of just helping young people to cope, but not repairing their cognitive function so that they can actually thrive again with all the life opportunities that that implies.
I don’t pretend to be an expert in this area, but I saw enough of interest to convince me that some of our educators who specialise in the area of “Additional Support Needs” should learn what is happening at the Arrowsmith school. I have a real sense that much of our learning support is too primitive; perhaps its time we challenged the assumptions that underpin many of the low expectations that learners who are struggling in schools experience.
The book that Norman Doidge has written is called “The Brain that Changes Itself”. Could be worth a read?
Hi
I make frequent use of your resource The Learning File, so thank you for that.
I, too, have blogged about Doidge’s work here: http://hileryjane.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/compensation-or-intervention/
As someone who has worked in ASN for many years, I agree that we need to consider this research. However, your use of the word ‘primitive’ to describe ‘much of learning support’ is somewhat patronising and ill-informed.
This is what I wrote in my blog post on Doidge’s work:
I do take issue with Doidge’s contention that compensatory interventions are to be deplored. He used the example of students with poor memory tape recording lectures. As I tapped away on my netbook knowing all would disappear into the ether otherwise, he declared that because such strategies do not address the aetiology of the problem they were to be discouraged.
I was distressed by the a clip of little children with poor motor control whose good arms were encased in plaster all day so as to re-train damaged limbs. Doidge stressed the necessity of incremental concentrated practice to enable new neurons to take over lost functions.
There can be no argument that such interventions must have a profound and positive effect upon the nervous system and that eventually re-generation is possible.
However, Doidge seems to ignore the impact on a child’s need to belong, to feel as much like his or her peers as possible. I still shudder at the memory of the patch I had to wear to correct a lazy eye and the ostracism I endured. Had I been of a piractical disposition I might have got away with it.
While Doidge’s talk focused principally on neurological difficulties that result in physical symptoms, he also appeared to say that teachers of children with learning difficulties were working inappropriately unless they acted to ‘re-programme’ the brain.
This is a concern many of us have for much of our working life. But realistically – and for the sake of learners’ sense of self worth – is is also our job to provide alternative strategies and resources if children are failing to learn at the pace of their peers or their own intellectual capacity. The balance between spending time improving memory skills and teaching a child to use an electronic word bank, for example, is one that we need to examine regularly.
This may mean that the learner will always have difficulty in some areas – but then, don’t we all?
I wish to add that our job – the job of all teachers – is to support learners; not to make them fit into an antiquated and creaking 19th century system. We cannot ‘cure’ dyslexia, for example, but we can embrace the strengths that learners with dyslexia bring to learning and even try to emulate them rather than place them in ghettos of failure.
‘Re-programming’ our smokestack schooling may be a more creative and worthwhile use of our energies if we wish to enable all learners to develop exponentially.
Thanks for the blog link and your thoughts on the brain plasticity stuff. I had no desire to be patronising, only to provoke the kind of useful thinking and input that you as an expert have provided. I’m not sure that every support for learning professional will be as clued up as you seem to be however. The Learning File, eh! Blast from the past Hilery.