Neuroplasticity - implications for education

As Norman Doidge, M.D., author of The Brain That Changes Itself points out, for 400 years clinicians were taught that the brain was like a machine with parts. "An electronic version of this metaphor is still with us when we think of the brain as a computer and are told it is 'hardwired ', as though its circuits are finalised in childhood."

Over 30 years ago a number of major neuroscience experiments overthrew this view of the unchanging brain. They showed that the brain is neuroplastic-changeable-and that mental experience and mental exercise could alter its very structure.

Our neuroplastic brains all develop differently, based on our genetics and our experience. Neuroplasticity has huge implications for education, because some educators appear to be still under the sway of the doctrine of the unchanging brain and much teaching and learning practice doesn't incorporate key findings, despite the abundance of new evidence about learning.

The implications are not just those with learning disabilities. A better understanding by all educators of the general principles and specific practices of brain plasticity will assist all learners strengthen cognitive capacities. 

The DIY pioneer in cognitive development

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young- The woman who changed her brain

About thirty years ago Toronto-based Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, who was born with a number of serious learning disabilities, began applying neuroplastic principles, via mental exercises she developed, first to herself and then to students.

As she outlined in her book The woman who changed her brain these were eventually incorporated, with new developments, into the Arrowsmith Programme, which uses the principles of neuroplasticity to rewire the brain of children and adults with cognitive learning challenges. The brain responds to exercise and specific brain exercises stimulate new cognitive pathways.

The programme has proved effective for many students having difficulty with reading, writing and mathematics, comprehension, logical reasoning, problem solving, visual and auditory memory, non-verbal learning, attention, processing speed and dyslexia.