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Education needs practice and good coaches too.

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I TRY and TRY, but I just DON’T get it…

Sweat was dripping down his face, as he worked on getting the rickety little boat out of the dock. But, it wasn’t moving. The man who let us take the fishing boat out began to laugh with the realization that the anchor was still in place. We weren’t going anywhere until it was released.

We had never taken a rowboat out on water and the motion was very different from a kayak. Getting the paddles to move at the same fluid pace was far more difficult than it looked. Others made it look so easy, why was it so hard?

Then we realized that it was something that we had to practice and to learn. It was a new motion, a new challenge, and it would take time to develop. As parents and educators we often expect our kids or students to get it and get on with their education without realizing the steps involved to get to that place of understanding or skill. The brain needs to be trained. It is an amazing organ that continues to grow as you build more connections and try new things.  As you practice, observe and try new things, your brain is expanding and being challenged.

When a child struggles in school, they often wonder why it is so hard for them and not for others? The brain develops at different rates and needs to be trained. Here at the Therapeutic Literacy Center we work on retraining the brain and creating new pathways that will allow your child to develop auditory, visual, and even attention skills that they may not have.

The amazing thing about our brain is that it changes and can be retrained.  Albert Einstein’s quote “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” reveals the importance of understanding that we have a brilliant mind that can be trained. In schools, the focus is on content and academic learning, and basic academic skills and not on developing skills in executive function, processing, or core learning. We work to figure out what is going on behind the scenes and how we can make it better.

If your child feels like they are struggling in school and can’t keep up with the other kids, it is something that we can work on and improve. Building confidence toward their education and training the brain to process quicker is something that we do here. Our programs are specifically tailored to meet your child where he/she is at and allow them to grow.

Call or contact us today to talk about your child’s needs and how we can help them overcome the challenges they are facing!

No matter how hard you work, you still need good coaching

The Role of Sleep in Learning, Memory, and Health

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“I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.” ― David Benioff, City of Thieves

Recent findings in research studies related to sleep and learning lend support to some long-held hypotheses about why we sleep, what happens in the brain during sleep, and why it’s important; especially for learning. In one area of research, the findings provide evidence for a long-held hypothesis that during sleep, the brain cleans itself (1).  Another series of reports illustrate why sleep is so much more important for a child’s learning than it is for an adult.  The findings add a compelling new dimension to our current understanding of how sleep helps the brain reprocess newly learned information thus securing memories and learning (2).

Seminal studies about sleep and learning have shown unequivocally that people trained to complete a procedural memory-based task showed improved performance when a period of sleep followed the training (3).  Even a nap in the middle of the day could benefit some learning.  But to understand what is actually happening in the brain when we sleep we’ve had to wait on the right technological applications to allow us to peer into the brain and accurately measure activities and events during sleep.

Sleep is critically important to a child's learningIn the most recent report, regarding the brain’s self-cleaning mechanism, the research group provides direct evidence of specific cells active in clearing the brain of toxic metabolic byproducts – but only during sleep. Earlier work by the same group showed that the brain anatomy included a network of microscopic, fluid-filled channels that removed toxins from the brain; much like a waste-transport system for the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Many questions remained about how and when these channels were regulated.  The most recent studies showed quite elegantly that during sleep, the channels increased in size and flow of CSF.  Relatively large amounts of CSF were flowing through the brain during sleep, but not when awake.   They even demonstrated that certain waste product proteins, known to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease were cleared twice as quickly during sleep.  Although these studies were performed in mice, they results certainly fit with the long-standing view that sleep is for recovery.  The results are tantalizing for their possible implications for sleep disorders as related to Alzheimer’s or other neurological or neuro-developmental diseases in humans.

The other series of reports from behavioral neurobiology labs present exciting and compelling data regarding just how important sleep is for your child.   We all know that children are happier tend to behave better when they’re well-rested.  And the relationship between neurodevelopmental disorders and sleep-related problems has long been recognized.   Specifically, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD) or combined ADHD/LD, have a much higher rate of sleep-related difficulties and it is likely that the sleep difficulties contribute to and/or exacerbate the behavioral manifestation of these disorders (4).  But what about children not specifically diagnosed with a neuro-developmental disorder or a sleep-related problem?  How important is sleep beyond just resting the body for the next busy day of school and play?

Recent studies are showing that sleep is even more important for children than it is for adults when it comes to learning.  Dr. Ines Wilhelm at the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology has shown that when sleep followed training, children showed greater gains in the specific training knowledge than adults. The studies indicate that there is enhanced processing of memory during sleep in children compared to adults.  The children benefitted more from sleep when challenged with recall of specific learned tasks.

This may come as no surprise when one considers that during development of humans, as with most species, most of the basic lessons of life and survival need to occur in childhood.  Children sleep longer and deeper, and they must take on enormous amounts of information every day. And the children’s ability to excel at recall of specific learned information is linked with the large amount of deep sleep they get at night. In other types of memory, the children benefitted only as much as the adults; not more so.

If your child/student is not performing to his potential academically, you really need to look at the whole picture: healthy eating, positive social experiences, and quality, deep, undisturbed sleep at night.  If they are having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, this could be undermining all the other measures you’re taking to try to help them and ensure their success in school and beyond.

Therapeutic Literacy Center in Solana Beach offers assessments for learning disabilities as well programs and exercises using state of the art methods and technologies for developing underlying “mental tools” needed for success.

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

(1) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373  Science 18 October 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6156 pp. 373-377
(2) http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n4/abs/nn.3343.html Nature Neuroscience 16 391–393 (2013)
(3) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5544/1048.full Science 294, 1048 (2001); Pierre Maquet, et al.
(4) http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1998-04437-005   Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Vol 19(3), Jun 1998, 178-186.

7 Things Every Parent Should Know About Learning Challenges

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Does your child have learning challenges? Here are 7 things you need to know in order to understand them, help them, and create a better future for them.

1. Attention problems are often a symptom, not the real issue…
In her book, Why Our Children Can’t Read Dr. Diane McGuinness says, “The worse you are at something, the more brain cells you need to do it, the harder it is to keep doing it, and the harder it is to keep your attention focused on what you’re doing” When it takes more effort to do something, the brain burns more glucose, using energy, which can eventually lead to exhaustion. In order for the brain to efficiently process information, it has to regulate levels of attention.The two major attention control systems in the brain involve:

  • attending for a certain amount of time
  • being able to keep out distractions in the surrounding environment

Learning things that are difficult makes holding attention to that task, over a considerable span of time a struggle. When learning is difficult, the ability to block out distracting background or peripheral noises is stressed or decreased.

When new things are learned, or concepts are still a novelty, more energy is required from the brain to pay attention. Over time, with an efficient processing system, this effort to pay attention diminishes as tasks become more innate and automatic. However, if a student’s processing system is not working efficiently, it may take longer for skills to get to that comfortable, automatic level, increasing the likelihood of attention challenges .

The inability to pay attention is very often a symptom of inefficient information processing.

2. “Try harder” is a dirty term… 
Believe it or not, trying too hard can be counter-productive.In order to be an efficient learner of anything, we need to be able to use all of our mental resources. Our two hemispheres in the brain each have unique thinking capabilities which compliment each other and work best in cooperation.The right side of our brain let’s us experience the whole or the “big picture.” It is more intuitive and less structured.The left side is logical, orderly, and verbal. It allows us to break information into small bits in order to learn new things and communicate.When both hemispheres of brain work together, learning can be easier and more fun. Telling a struggling learner to “try harder” may actually cause him to “over focus” with the left side of the brain. He will try and try to make sense of the pieces, but without the “big picture” support of the right brain, he will become more confused and frustrated. Dr. Paul Dennison of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation calls this “switching off.”The cycle of being stuck can often be broken by movement. Integrating movements for this purpose can be found in Brain Gym activities.
(www.braingym.com ) Our words can also help trigger clearer thinking for learning. Instead of saying, “Try harder,” try saying something like, “You got this part exactly right. Now let’s take a look at this.”

3. Respect the effort… 
Being smart but having to work harder and longer than anyone else in your class, or trying hard and failing anyway is painful for both the individuals with the learning challenges and their families.As we work with our children or our students with learning difficulties, we first need to respect the great amount of extra effort that is needed for them to perform. Constantly reinforcing that effort and celebrating each small success encourages them to keep going.

4. Coping is NOT the final answer… 
All of us have both stronger and weaker areas of ability, talent, and interest. WE naturally gravitate toward those things that are our strengths, and often find ways to get around the weaker areas.As an adult, if you am terrible at playing tennis, you may choose to cope with that by not playing tennis. But what if the area that is weakest for you is reading? “Getting around” it or just coping with a reading disorder is not easy or comfortable in today’s society.Those of us who work with the “learning disability” / dyslexic population, do them a great disservice if we do not seek to understand and address the underlying skills and differences in thinking that cause the learning challenges. Teaching them compensations and coping strategies is simply not enough. 

5. Look at the whole child… 
If your child/student is not performing to his potential academically, you may want to ask these questions to understand the variety of factors that affect a child’s academic performance.:

  1. Does my child enjoy learning?
  2. Is my child eating a variety of healthy foods?
  3. Is my child getting enough sleep and maintaining good sleep patterns?
  4. Does my child independently complete homework and follow through on responsibilities?
  5. Is it easy for my child to communicate what he needs and wants?
  6. Is my child able to be kind, considerate and compassionate in social situations?
  7. Does my child have self-confidence and experience social acceptance?
  8. In general, does my child feel safe and protected at home and school?
  9. Do I know my child’s strengths and weaknesses? Does my child lack skills to perform successfully at school?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, take a look at what piece of the learning puzzle they affect. If it’s a matter of changing dietary habits or improving sleeping patterns, these are things that can be worked out in the home.

However, if communicating is difficult for your child, or if s/he has low self-confidence, low social acceptance, or struggles to independently complete his work, there could be underlying factors to your child’s difficulties in school that need consideration.

6. Underlying processing skills MUST be addressed in order to make lasting changes 
The most common cause of learning challenges is inefficient mental tools, or processing skills.In order to have good information to learn with, individuals must be able to:

  1. Pay attention
  2. Remember
  3. Quickly and accurately process what they see and hear

When any underlying processing skills are weak, the individual will be a less efficient learner than she/he could be.

A person has a learning problem if he makes more mistakes than the average person or has to work longer or harder than the average person. Only by addressing the underlying issues can the individual become a truly independent learner. Underlying processing skills that affect learning are memory, attention, processing speed, auditory and language processing, visual processing, and logic and reasoning.

7. The brain can change… 
Recent brain research tells us that the brain has plasticity , or the ability to change with training. Through intensive training that “stretches” an individual’s thinking, chemical and physical changes can occur in the brain. Because we know this kind of “neuro-rehabilitation” is possible, we also know that with the right tools and strategies, new, higher functioning neuropathways can be developed to enhance a student’s overall processing and performance.Our brains are continually modified by our experiences. This implies that programs which target processing and motor skills can improve those areas in students with brain injuries or motor or learning disabilities.  (More about Plasticity)