It was with great interest that I watched a new public television special the other night. It was called “New Science of Learning: Brain Fitness for Kids”
The hosts of this show were Drs. Michael Merzenich and Paula Tallal, co-founders of Scientific Learning and creators of the BrainSpark™ and Fast ForWord® programs. I was fascinated by this because I am always interested in ways to make my children smarter. I need ways to optimize my children's ability to learn! I want them to do well in school.
These doctors come inventors promise that their programs can dramatically improve every talent and ability that your child might have. I was particularly moved by the first person stories on this documentary, which I do know was created to sell the programs, but which was very telling about human intelligence in general. There were many examples of children on this show who could not learn and then suddenly were able to because they began to learn how to exercise and pattern their brains simply by putting themselves through a kind of brain gym.
This program explores the exciting potential of brain fitness and how parents can use dramatically, and permanently impact the lives of all children. This type of brain fitness program works on children that are not doing too well in school but it works even better on children that want to do really well in school and completely excel at what they do.
For many years the usual wisdom in science and education had been that brain functioning was initially established during the first few years of life. After that you were supposed to be stuck with that brain. The belief that there is nothing you can do to change that or improve your intelligence is being debunked by new research.
Following the old way which basically dictated that if you were born stupid you were going to stay that way doomed many children to a lifetime of dull learning experiences and a deflated sense of self worth. Now that we know that the brain is not that hardwired there is hope for kids that we may have formerly perceived as challenged somehow.
New research has shown us that under the right conditions a child's brain can improve by leaps and bounds. The researchers call this the 'plastic' brain. The plastic brain theory applies to how fast your child can learn, how fast she or he can read, how well they can address a complex problem and how quickly they can respond with the right answer.
If you can catch this show I highly recommend it as it is very encouraging if you have a child that is not doing that well in school.