Academic achievement is highly valued in our society. Parents often invest a great
deal of time and emotional energy into ensuring their children’s academic success,
but it can be extremely upsetting when a child with no obvious intellectual deficits
does not achieve as expected. Cognitive dysfunction in reading, mathematics, and
written expression are characterized by performance that is substantially below what
would be expected given the person’s age, intelligence quotient (IQ) score and education.
Cognitive dysfunction symptoms
Children with cognitive dysfunction may also have short attention spans and problems
with concentration. Other symptoms include:
No motivation to study
Slow to respond to questions
Fail in examinations despite remedial and tuition
Difficulty in completing homework
However, some may be conscientious and hard working yet unable to attain satisfactory
Cognitive dysfunction biochemistry
Theories about the causes of cognitive dysfunctions include genetic, neurobiological,
and environmental factors. Many research indicated that the following factors affect
our cognitive ability:
Acidity due to oxalates
Heavy metal accumulation
Excessive organic acids due to yeast and bacteria overgrowth.
Poor digestion of certain proteins from diary, wheat and soy products
Cognitive dysfunction intervention
Mercury exposure can cause behavioural problems such as inattentiveness and memory
loss while high level of cadmium is correlated with low academic achievements. A
high copper/zinc ratio has also been found to cause behavioural and learning difficulties.
Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis test is an inexpensive yet effective method of identifying
mineral levels and toxicity in the body. Intervention through supplementation and
dietary habits could be designed to overcome the imbalances and toxicity.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning has been used previously to
compare how children with and without reading disorders processed simple tasks
(Temple et al., 2003). After 8 weeks of intensive training on a computer program
that help them to work on their and language processing skills, these dysfunctional
children not only improve their reading skills, but their brains started functioning
way similar to the brains of their peers who were good readers.
With the QEEG brain mapping, similar brain imaging can be done. Many cognitive
dysfunctional children have shown cortical fatigue or exhaustion. Poor arousal level
has also been found at all parts of the brain and in many cases, their crucial parts
of the brain shuts down whenever they try to study.
Neurofeedback is non-drug alternative intervention for cognitive dysfunction.
Neurofeedback intervention aims at exercising specific parts of the brain. With
brain exercise, the neural activities at these specific locations of the brain can
directly regulated. For those with cognitive dysfunction, neurofeedback can help
reduce Theta brain wave to increase arousal and to regulate Beta brain wave at
specific regions to enhance cognitive functions. Finally, these regulations will
Improvement in concentration
Improvement academic performance as reflected by their grades