Maggie was a vivacious 3rd grader that captured the hearts of those around her, but could not capture the necessary score to pass the FCAT. A sensory processing issue and reading difficulty put her in danger of retention. Now Maggie is the same vivacious little girl but is capturing A’s and B’s in her new 4th grade classroom.
Phillip struggled with attention and learning, he wasn’t expected to graduate from high school. His dream of being a college graduate was diminishing. Now he proudly holds a degree from the University of Florida and is working on his Maters.
Robin was a gifted high achiever with a startling secret. She had always struggled to read and was now struggling to keep up with the younger competition in her workplace. Now Robin remains at the top of her professional game and keeps up with her friends and their discussions of the latest best sellers.
What made the difference? These lives were touched by the power of brain training, which changes your capacity to think and learn. If these skills such as auditory processing, memory, and attention are strong, learning comes easily and naturally. If skill weaknesses remain hidden, a student will face occasional or chronic learning, reading, and performance struggles.
Research shows that over 80% of learning and reading problems are due to weak cognitive skills– Not due to poor instruction, vision, hearing or motivation. Cognitive skills (also called processing skills or intelligence) determine how easy, fast and well we learn and perform. They are the mental tools required to process information, and the better the tool, the better the performance. Unfortunately, these skills are often ignored. Instead, we just ask our students to work harder or try again.
Tutoring often fails because symptoms are targeted rather than causes. In a 2005 study of 56,000 students using 36 different tutoring programs, the average result after one year of tutoring was less than 2 weeks net reading gain, even less in math. But another 2005 study showed that when reading instruction was followed by cognitive training, the average net gain in reading was over 3 years.
Studies show that mental skills can be changed. Studies show that six months of brain training intervention can dramatically raise these cognitive skills about 30 percentile points. Brain scans show physical proof of the results of just seven weeks of cognitive training intervention. Dr. John J. Ratey, Harvard Medical School, says in A User’s Guide to the Brain, “The brain responds to use and disuse by either growing and remaining vital or decaying, and thus, for the first time, we are learning to see mental weaknesses as physical systems in need of training and practice.”
Mental skills can be improved – not by teaching, but by practice and training. Activities such as golfing, skiing or playing piano require training, not teaching. It is the same with building mental skills, Cognitive skills can’t be taught – they require training, practice and drill. Fifteen hours of lecture about playing piano will get you minimal improvement compared to 13 hours of practice; the same is true of cognitive skills.
Determine the real cause of learning struggles – A Cognitive Skills Assessment will eliminate guesswork. You can know the exact cause for most learning, reading or performance struggles. Avoid wasting money, time and effort pursuing wrong treatment choices. A cognitive assessment helps you understand what skills need to change in order to improve learning performance – by targeting the cause rather than just the symptoms. This assessment will provide a baseline measurement of mental strengths and weaknesses. After the consultation you will clearly know what gaps there are between your present mental abilities and the abilities you want or need.
Success tomorrow depends on good choices today. If you or someone you love has difficulty learning or has a reading problem, and you want to do something about it, please take the first step – find the cause.