Harold Jarche's Select Learning Feeds

"A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words." - L.S. Vygotsky

Had an email last week from someone with a nonverbal learning disability - and he asked us a great question...that given that visual imagery seems to be so important in creative work, was there hope for NLDer's in the Conceptual Age? Of course! We apologize for not giving as much attention to non-visual thinking on this blog (part of the reason is our interest and large clinic population of dyslexics), so we'd like to correct this slight right now.

Verbal thinkers tend to have less trouble than visual thinkers in conventional K-12 school tasks... but if visual perceptual and organization problems also exist (e.g. nonverbal learning disabilities), more struggles await them in their adult years, driving and reading maps, reading the emotions of their co-workers, bosses, and family members, and keeping their home and work life organized.

The two most important factors we have seen in these individuals' success relate to metacognitive ability -an ability to reflect about their own thinking processes, recognizing their strengths and weaknesses (build on strengths, accommodate weaknesses) and external supports (helps when needed from loved ones - parents, siblings, spouses, professionals, business partners) if and when needed.

We know and have learned of many highly (and sometimes exclusively) verbal thinkers working in various diverse occupations - academia / research, law, business, education, writing, science, math, and computers and engineering. Many of the most successful verbal thinkers capitalize on their strong memories, pattern recognition, reasoning and analytical abilities, and eye for detail.

Verbal thinkers tend to wrestle with ideas through talk, debate, or writing. Brainstorming may take place through conscious chains of deductive thinking, word play or conscious manipulation of words (e.g. drawing verbal analogies),or even verbal brainstorms (e.g. freewriting)in which loosely associated words, digressions, phrases, etc. are written down to open ideas up about a problem or question. impression.

How common is it to not be able to make images? A number is hard to generate as a continuum seems to exist in individuals' image-making ability. At least when we have asked, there always seem to be at least a few people who report that they are unable to make images in non-selected groups of 100.

Some people who don't have pictoral visual images also tell us that although they never get "snapshot" pictures, they do have non-visual imagery (auditory, somatic/ kinesthetic) or strong associations (e.g. feelings emotions, spatial / symbolic representations)that are integral to their thinking style.

Interesting, there was once intense debate over whether visual imagery exists and has a functional importance in the brain(for more, see this). Presumably one the most strident advocates of the anti-imagery position, cognitive psychologist Zenon Pylyshyn, did not have pictoral imagery:

"It is argued that an adequate characterization of "what one knows" requires the use of abstract mental structures to which there is no conscious access and which are essentially conceptual and propositional, rather than sensory or pictorial, in nature. Such representations are more accurately referred to as symbolic descriptions than as images in the usual sense. Implications of using an imagery vocabulary are examined, and it is argued that the picture metaphor underlying recent theoretical discussions is seriously misleading, especially as it suggests that the image is an entity to be perceived." (from What the mind's eye tells the mind's brain)

fMRI of causal reasoning
Employment for people with Aspergers Syndrome
Book: How to find work that works for people with Aspergers Syndrome
Book: Choosing the right work for people with autism or aspgergers syndrome

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” - William Butler Yeats, poet, Nobel Prize Winner in Literature

William Butler Yeats is one of the most famous poets of all time, but fewer people know of this quote from Yeats Autobiographies: "My father was angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head."

But lest you get a permanent wrong impression of WB Yeats' father, this was also said of him (from Eileen Simpson's wonderful book Reversals):

"When John Butler Yeats finally realized how useless it was to bully his son to rad aloud, when his son was clearly incapable of doing so, the father took over the reading himself. From the time the boy was nine until he was sixteen, father read to son from Macaulay, Scott, Shakespeare, Shelley, Rossetti, Blake- the narrative verse and prose a poet would need to know when he began to write his own verses."

WB Yeats' own recollection of his father's reading times:

"My father's influence upon my thoughts was at its height. We went to Dublin by train every morning, breakfasting in his studio. He had taken a large room with a beautiful eighteenth-century mantelpiece in a York Street tenement house, and at breakfast he read passages from the poets, and always from the play or poem at its most passionate moment."

Below is a video of Yeats reading some of his poems.



The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

For more stories and videos of famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage.

Does super strategic reasoning sometimes mean super EQ (emotional intelligence) or theory of mind? Yes, but it depends on the game. In this recent fmri-game study, high strategic reasoning (winners) correlated with strong activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, an area important for 'mind reading' of other peoples' intents and behaviors or theory of mind.

Neuroeconomists are interested in studies such as this because many types of business and financial industry success depend upon accurate prediction of others' behaviors (e.g. customer, investor, competitor).

Well, there is a significant body of research to support the importance of emotional intelligence in business as well as classroom environments. And emotional intelligence appears to be much more 'trainable' than IQ...

In our dyslexic population, a surprising number of students we see do seem to have a strong EQ. They are the ones who are talking about the emotions and motivations of every character in the Cookie Thief picture from the Boston Aphasia battery, and exuding leadership qualities in school, and seem to take longer to assess because it is so enjoyable talking to them and listening to the stories. Some of these kids seem destined for future success in business

Strategic Reasoning
Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential pdf
Benefits of Emotional Intelligence pdf

"If you do something no one else has done, you don't have to read very much, you can just write your own stuff." - Jack Horner, one the world's most famous paleontologists, inspiration for Jurassic Park

Many dyslexics excel in spatial problem solving, analytical ability, and science in general - talents well-suited to the field of paleontology.

"I found my first dinosaur bone at the age of eight during a fossil-hunting trip with my father...Kindergarten through eighth grade was extremely difficult for me because my progress in reading, writing, and mathematics was excruciatingly slow. I would never stand to read out loud in class, even if the teachers threatened to give me failing grades...Eventually, I managed to graduate high school, but just barely, having received Ds in all required classes, including English, in which my grade was a D minus, minus, minus. The teacher told me that this was essentially an F, but that he never wanted to see me again. That was indeed the last time I saw him, but I did send him a copy of my first book!

There was, however, one area of school besides P.E. in which I excelled: science projects."

Horner had an eclectic history before becoming a paleontologist - he was a recon Marine, dabbled in astrophysics at Cal Tech, tried college, but never graduated, worked for his father's gravel business, then "began writing letters to every museum in the English speaking world asking if they had any jobs open for anyone ranging from a technician to a director..."

The video below is more about spinosaurus, than Jack Horner's dyslexia, but we wanted to post for all those young dyslexics who love dinosaurs. Find more about Jack's early life and dyslexia here: http://mtprof.msun.edu/Spr2004/horner.html




For more stories and videos of famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage.

Happy Father's Day to the wonderful fathers out there who gift their children with their whimsy, passion, and thoughtfulness.

I lost my Dad 10 years ago, but I'm still enjoying his gifts ever day because he touched so many ways I look at things. My dad was Harry Chao-hung Fang, neurologist, teacher, family storyteller extraordinaire, and great friend. He entered neurology at a time when it was a new field, having trained under Ray Adams (Principles of Neurology, later chairman at Massachusetts General Hospital) when Adams was serving as missionary doctor in China. Dad left China with only "a violin, the Bible, and a copy of Longfellow's poems", intending just to pursue his clinical training in the US, but that move became lifelong when the Communists took power. He was fortunate to train under some of the giants and founding fathers of neurology - Ray Adams, Derek Denny-Brown, and C Miller Fisher.

There so many memories I have of my dad - he definitely inspired me to become a neurologist. I brought a plastic model of the brain to show-and-tell in kindergarten and remember practicing how to say "medulla oblongata", but I loved being able to follow him around on rounds in the hospital, to see how kind he was with patients, how he took time to listen, and solved patient cases like putting together pieces of a complex puzzle.

So a special salute today to the fathers out there who share so much of who they are to help their children become who they are meant to be. One of my favorite quotes about a dad is from Ansel Adams:

"I trace who I am and the direction of my development to those years of growing up in our house by the dunes, propelled especially by an internal spark tenderly kept alive and glowing by my father."

In an Cal Tech fMRI study of self-reported dieters, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) emerged as the important area for self-control. Subjects who exercised poor self-control in the study chose to eat fattening and non-nutritious foods and it correlated with a lack of activation in the DLPFC.

Excerpt: "The vmPFC works during every decision," says Hare. "The DLPFC, on the other hand, is more active when you're employing self-control."

"This, ultimately, is one reason why self-controllers can make better choices," Rangel adds.

Still, the DLPFC can only do so much. For instance, it can't override a truly negative reaction to a food, notes Hare. "We rarely got people to say they'd eat cauliflower if they didn't like cauliflower," he says. "But they would choose not to eat ice cream or candy bars, knowing they could eat the healthier index food instead..."Imagine how much better life could be if we knew how to flex the willpower muscles in the brain and strengthen them with exercises," says Camerer.

How does this all fit with what we know about the development of kids? From Bunge lab, not surprisingly this self control area usually takes quite a while to mature (colored in green at left). In fact in kids, control seems to much more subcortical (caudate) and direct-reward related. With maturity (not surprisingly), additional higher order types of information direct decisions.

Another interesting study that came out re: kid self-control is one from Opposite - Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes task in which kids are supposed to do the opposite of what was asked (kind of like a Stroop interference). The kids who were able to do this task well had the highest achievement scores in reading, vocabulary, and math.

The next obvious question is, would training in self control result in greater achievement? The likely answer is yes. Another self regulation game involves practice doing the opposite game in a back-and-forth ball activity.
Science Daily: Self Control (original scientific article not yet free access)

"I'm not a word man, I'm a picture man." - David Lean, filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, and editor of Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago, A Passage to India, and Ryan's Daughter.

From David Lean: A Biography: "David was sent to kindergarten...here it became apparent that brilliant families do not always produce brilliant children. By the standrads of the time, with their ruthless emphasis on the three Rs, David was dim. By comparison with his brother, who was still only four, he was alarmingly backward.

'I remember my mother coming back one afternoon from a visit to Miss Clayton. She said, 'Dave, Miss Clayton has told me a terrible thing about you. She's afraid you will never be able to read or write.' And she burst into tears...The kindest theory was that perhaps the boy had some brain disease...(his father) decided that the boy was being sluggish on purpose and began to bully him. As for David, he often sat glumly and silently - David Lean's silences would later become legendary in the film industry."

More from Lean's childhood: "David did not enjoy the pursuits he was expected to enjoy. Reading was an effort and he avoided it as much as he could...Boys of low academic ability were forgiven if they shone at sport, but David wasn't much good at this either...He would spend longer and longer gazing into space, actually deep in thought, but to his father, merely confirming his worst suspicions..."

Lean's family history was also a fairly common one for dyslexia - his father was an accountant, and his mother's family was "very artistic with a lot of gift in them. The Tangyes were artists, inventors and engineers."

Lean reminisced, "Horses and trams were an important part of my childhood; the clop-clop-cloop of horses' hooves on cobbles and the noise of tram bells and the tram wheels on the tracks...I can see the cart wheels, bright silver from friction, the metal lining in place of a tire, gleaming, highly polished silver, like a railway line...the exciting flash and crackle as the arm travelled along the wire - I used that in Doctor Zhivago!" One wonders whether today Lean whether someone would have been tempted to diagnose him with Aspergers..

Lean exemplifies many of the common talents seen in gifted dyslexics - strong visual thinking and storytelling, powerful personal memory and an ability to "get into the heads' of others.

More Lean: "I think slowly, and there is nothing unusual about my methods. I envy people who receive sudden flashes of genius, because I don't. I try to work out every possible way to do a scene, and then choose the way that will surprise audiences. I live with my scripts, I live with my characters, and if I seem to be in another world when friends and unit people speak to me, it's because I don't have the scene solved yet. I'm frequently thought to be rude when I'm really in a mental turmoil, struggling with some problem that seems insuperable at the moment."

In the video below watch some Steven Spielberg talk about David Lean and the making of Lawrence of Arabia (there are some great clips selected in the short video), but better yet, take time and watch all of Lean's greatests. We also loved Great Expectations.

For more stories and videos about famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage

More on the evolving story about ADHD biology and reward. Rather than ADHD appearing as a fixed deficit in executive function, increasing evidence suggests that children (and adults) with ADHD behaviors are showing impulsivity mainly in non-reward situations.

In this latest study from Germany, 8-13 year old boys diagnosed with ADHD showed a much greater ability to inhibit impulsive behavior on the go/no-go test if rewards- monetary or social were involved. The differences were striking between the two groups...whereas only 12.5% of the control group slowed down their behaviors and improved their responses in the control group, 43.8% of the ADHD group slowed down their behaviors and exhibited fewer false alarm rates. The implications for findings such as this are significant - if making external or situational changes to a task could eliminate or significantly reduce impulsivity, the impulsivity is not a disease or fixed deficiency, but rather a behavioral response to specific conditions implicit in the task.

The researchers are very careful to not overstate their findings: "given the heterogeneity within the ADHD population,it is arguable that dysregulated reward-seeking behavior alone can account for all cases of ADHD. Nevertheless, reinforcement theories are able to explain most of the ADHD symptoms [44]. ADHD possibly represents the final outcome of diverse and discrete neurodevelopmental
pathways with an 'extreme reward approach pathway' leading to impulsive and overactive behavior."

One might also argue whether the term "extreme" is unduly negative to describe what could be an alternative and not necessarily pathology reward pathway. Why locate the fault in the children? Why not say that 1/4 of the population of children don't respond well in an "understimulated" environment. Why should a child be motivated to perform a meaningless go/no-go task?

So what about the child diagnosed with ADHD whose symptoms are worst with uninteresting (at least to the child) classroom work? Perhaps the rewards of socializing, dodgeball at recess, doodling a design for game, or designing a space ship out of legos are more rewarding (and deserving of focus and care) than Mad Math Minutes? Our prior blog post on fMRI activation patterns for money-induced incentives and ADHD now seem more compelling...



p.s. Data such at this also lend positive support for the use of more extrinsic rewards when tasks are not completed by children with ADHD.

Greater Sensitivity to Social Rewards In Children with ADHD pdf
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Amphetamines Blunt Rewards in Normal Subjects
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Money, Motivation, ADHD, and the Brain

NBC's leading foreign correspondent, Richard Engel was once "a frustrated child (who) got into frequent fistfights and struggled with dyslexia". From the Washington Post: "He was down in the mouth and low on self-confidence...He lived in the shadow of his older brother, Mr. Perfect," who is now a cardiologist. In fact, she had only "a very faint hope" that he would be able to go to college.

When he was 13, Engel asked his parents to send him to a wilderness survival program in Wyoming. Frustrated by his learning disabilities, he was eager to escape the comforts of Upper East Side life and try a tougher environment...When the teenager returned, he told his mother: "I learned a lot about myself...Engel says the experience began a transformation that largely enabled him to overcome his dyslexia and school problems. Despite his learning difficulties, he showed early promise in other ways.

'He was a great writer,' says Ross Peet, who was a classmate at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. "But he struggled with anything that had a number on it...' "

From Engel's recent book War Journal: "I have something of a map problem. Brian Williams ribs me about it all the time. Whenever I want to explain the situation in Iraq, I feel compelled to draw maps....I am dyslexic and I understand things better if they are visual. In middle school, my grades were so bad that one of the school administrators advised my parents to pull me out and enroll me in another school with a more developed 'special learning program.' They never did."

Engel's career highlights many of those other dyslexic talents that receive less attention: strong storytelling, vivid personal memory, and an ability to analyze and distill down a complex situation into a simpler form. We have had college dyslexics tell us that they struggled with research until they realized they were outstanding at projects that required field research - research that went beyond the books, but into the actual places where things were happening...

For more stories and videos about gifted dyslexics, join Dyslexic Advantage. The video below is brief of Richard Engel in the field

How can you design a parabola which can focus sunlight at the focus at different time of the day without tracking?Here is the answer:And a mould for creating the compound parabolic solar cookers

Today on Australian Seven's "Deal or No deal", it is a classic probability case.In the last round, the contestant was left with his and his daughter's cases to open. The board has $4000 and 50cents. The host has been playing up for a mega-guess which would be $10,000. The bank offers $2020, should he accept it? (Answer in white below. Highlight to cheat and see my answer.)No. We can do much

Sue Barry's wonderful book Fixing My Gaze is now in stores, and it's a terrific read for all neurophiles, professionals in the neurorehabilitation field, as well as parents, educators, and other professionals working with children.

10% of children have vision problems and in our learning clinic, almost half have some difficulties that are vision-related. But vision problems are grossly under-recognized because conventional eye chart tests assess vision one eye at-a-time and without movement, and children (and even adults) have difficulty putting into words what problems they have with seeing (for more on this check out Check out Chapter 4 in our book The Mislabeled Child).

Dr. Barry had been "cross-eyed" and stereo-blind since early infancy. She had strabismus surgery to correct the alignment, but she still couldn't coordinate both eyes together for depth perception.

Excerpt: "When I looked down at the letters on the page, they didn't stay in one place. This problem grew worse as the print got smaller...When I was learning to read, my right eye saw letters located to the left of the letters I saw with my left eye. I didn't merge images from the two eyes but rapidly alternated between my left- and right-eye views. Although I am not dyslexic, I distinctly remember being in first grade and trying to figure out whether the word I was reading was 'saw' or 'was'." In fact - Dr. Barry's problem is essentially the same as what some dyslexic students experience - the slipping of gaze fixation - so at one minute it looks like saw, the next, was.

Like many with visual processing disorders, Dr. Barry heard the old saw that she was past the critical period for retraining her vision, and that nothing could be done to recover it, but frustrated by increasing vision problems in her 40's, she went to see a behavioral optometrist.

After some prism corrections and dutiful practice with visual therapy, suddenly one day something happened. Looking at the steering wheel of her car she realized it looked as if it were "popped out" from the dashbooard. Her stereoscopic vision was "delightful": "The leaves didn’t just overlap with each other as I used to see them. I could see the SPACE between the leaves. The same is true for twigs on trees, pebbles on the road, stones in a stone wall. Everything has more texture."

At right, a study showing that 'lazy brain' results from lazy eye. When light is shined into the amblyopic eye, much less fMRI signal is detected in the visual cortex.

p.s. We came across a recent review on visual crowding - a common problem for many students (dyslexics, visual problems of many types) in every classroom. It is a bit technical, but helpful to support the need for more spacing of worksheets or test items in the classroom.

NPR: Going Binocular: Susan's First Snowfall
The Different Ways We See pdf

We've just launched a new social network called Dyslexic Advantage at Ning (http://dyslexicadvantage.ning.com). We recognized a tremendous need for a community that approaches dyslexia from the big picture - recognizing as much (if not more) of the strengths associated with dyslexia as its frustrations and learning obstacles. Dyslexia also changes dramatically through the life span - and needs of an 8 year old are different from a 16 year old, are different from a college student, and an adult at the peak of their career. Dyslexia also runs in families - and there are issues and that affect siblings, spouses, and the whole household dynamic - and we really found little discussion of that aspect of the dyslexic experience. Our site also has videos, podcasts, journals, and discussion forum.

For today's post, we thought we'd talk about the work of Dr. Matt Schneps, Director of the Lab for Visual Learning at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Schneps has become interested in the question of why so many dyslexics are in the field of astrophysics. In fact, he has an NSF grant to study the question and may still be looking for participants here.

One hypothesis is that dyslexics show advantages in visual peripheral processing that allows them to excel at spatial learning and anomaly detection - skills that may be well suited to main domains including astrophysics and scientific image analysis in general.

From an LVL Powerpoint Presentation:





So what makes it harder to focus in on individual words (individual word reading is often very weak) and the center part of words - may make it easier to see the outer edges. This fits with what we see in most dyslexic kids (and adults) and also with Karolyi's work finding that dyslexics excel at global visual processing and the detection of impossible figures.

"It's as if people with dyslexia tend to use a wide-angle lens to take in the world, while others tend to use a telephoto," explains Matthew H. Schneps, the lead author of the study. “It’s not that the close-up lens always makes better photos than the wide-angle. It’s that each is best at revealing different kinds of detail. Schneps adds, "We may be short-changing students who have reading difficulties...These students may have strengths for visual learning that we could be building on.” Such strengths are likely to be of particular significance for fields like science and mathematics, where visual representations are key to instruction…and to discovery.

CFA Harvard press release pdf
Wide and diffuse perceptual modes in dyslexia - auditory and visual
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Diffuse Attention Correlates with Higher Levels of Creative Achievement

Although learning styles experts often mention "visual-spatial"together, a closer look at many of these people reveals distinctions - some who are both visual and spatial, but also other who seem nearly exclusively spatial, but not visual or vice-versa.

Spatial thinkers are more common than most people think (in our clinic, this applies to many children of engineers, physicists, mathematicians, architects, and dyslexic kids in general), but though they may initially think of themselves as visual thinkers, when questioned carefully, they confess that their thinking is not actually pictoral. Rather, thought processing seems to involve space or kinesthetic / bodily sensations or associations. Ideas are located at different positions in space (or associated with the body), or bodily "feelings" give rise to intuitive leaps or non-verbal certainties.

From the Root-Bernstein's (Sparks of Genius): "...Neuroscientist and painter Jacques Mandelbrojt says that "an artist creates signs by an interior muscular identification with the object he wants to represent". Mandelbrojt: "When I painted outdoors I identified myself..either with the simple and pure shapes of trees or with the entangled shapes of bushes. My memory and muscles still retain these internal muscular identifications..."

From the engineer author Eugene Ferguson, writing about the knowledge necessary to make an large machine such as a steam turbine-drive electrical generator: "not only visual but also tactile and muscular knowledge are incorporated into the machine..."

"Such hands know how tight is tight, when one more turn will strip a screw or crack a nut. They know how far they can bend different woods and metals before they crack..." (Root-Bernsteins)

In the figure above, researchers from the University College London add more information to the literature on spatial thinking and expertise. Studying experienced taxi cab drivers, they found not only that the cabbies were better at estimating real distances between London landmarks, but that the expertise did not seem to generalize to spatial recall of visually-placed objects or a complex visual geometric figure.

It would have been interesting if the researchers had interviewed the taxi drivers in more detail. Did they recall distances as a feeling of distances in space or in relationship to the body? Did they use visual imagery to picture places on a map or perhaps recalled by rote memory the distances and fares of previous passengers, etc.

In our clinic, spatial thinkers often tell us it is hard to explain how they recall what they know, but it is not like a clearly detailed photograph. Often they gesture and their recall seems tied to positions or bodily senses which the Root-Bernsteins have referred to as "proprioceptive thinking."

Additional interesting findings in this study - the spatial experts had significantly lower scores on verbal fluency (the ease of generating words) and auditory word learning - other findings quite common among the strong spatial thinkers (and often dyslexic) we see in our clinic.

Spatial expertise, but weaker associative memory pdf
Spatial but not visual
Spatially Gifted, Verbally Inconvenienced pdf

In its drive to flesh out a knowledge-based economy, the Saudi government is giving much needed attention to the education sector. More than a quarter of planned budgetary spending is dedicated to education and capital spending in the sector is expected to rise 34.4% in 2008. The number of universities is also on the rise – from eight to more than 20 since 2004 – but the Kingdom will still have trouble keeping up with the demand emanating from its massive young population.

Amid growing discontent with the public school system, to which over 90% of Saudi students attend, the private school industry is seen as a growth industry, as is the e-learning industry, which was expected to have hit $125m in value in 2008. One private university, Alfaisal University in Riyadh, hopes to cultivate valuable connections to the international scientific world through a new research agreement with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Lack of interest in science and engineering fields among tertiary students contributes to the growing skills gap in the Kingdom, a trend the government is aiming to reverse. In due time, the investment in education is expected to help curb national unemployment and the economy's reliance on foreign labour.

This may come as no great surprise to parents or teachers, but still the implications are significant for the classroom: different brain networks exist for attention depending on whether it is novelty-induced or voluntary. So it should come as no great surprise that a child with strong attention for novelty things or ideas (perplexing puzzle, a strange objects, etc.), may still be seen to thoroughly struggle when trying hard to direct his or her attention (voluntary control). A novel stimulus captures attention passively (whether you want it to or not)while other brain pathways are responsible for attention under voluntary control.

It's those voluntary attention networks that are also more likely to take time to develop in children (including high IQ kids).

If we really appreciate this neurobiological difference, then - the question is... are we doing all we can to help teachers and parents "capture" the attention of novelty-based learners? Talented teachers (and parents) often know how to excite learning and curiosity using a variety of means (invoking wonder / awe - about beautiful things, mysteries / the unknown, puzzles, also funny stories, and the unexpected...), but they may have never been taught...it might have been they were novelty-learners themselves as kids.

As neurobiology increasingly supports the idea of novelty learning and novelty-based attention, however, may be we should think more about the educational expectations. We spend so much time trying to strengthen or speed up the development of voluntary attention, but perhaps we should spend as much time improving our capture of the attention that's already there -

Dissociable intrinsic networks for salience vs. executive control pdf
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Blessings and Burdens of High IQ


We talk more about novelty and attention issues such as this on the DVD of Day 3 of our Webinar: Attention, Sensory Processing, and Social Challenges of Gifted Children

One of my complain of the eBook reader is its display size. They are mostly 6" display, fitting a typical letter size or A4 size document to such a screen means displaying the document in 30% - which is very demanding on the eyes.Other larger format eBook readers are prohibitively expensive. Amazon's Kindle DX is like a fresh air in this dull market. Is there any cause of excitement for

Thisor thisEastern vs Western. You choose!

We've heard it so many times..."He can only do well in a class if he likes the teacher," or "The material has to mean something to her, before she can learn it...", but the link between feeling and personal relevance, and learning and memory has never been clearer for some of these students with this latest study from Johns Hopkins:

When performing an auditory word memory task, lefties (mixed dominance / left-handedness are more in dyslexics, individuals with spatial talent...), activated their emotions (amygdala) and personal relevance (left hippocampus) areas when remembering. This pattern is likely why we see such a personal (i.e. not impersonal or rote memory) preference among dyslexic students in our clinic.

It explains why some students really struggle to learn in classes where they feel their teacher doesn't like them, or why others may become paralyzed with the studying process when they have never been told (or can't understand) how the information presented relates to them. It's not just an unnecessary add-on; it may be essential.

Brain-based studies such also have direct implications for teaching. Not every student is alike, and emotions and personal connectedness may absolute requirements if teachers want to help all their students to learn.


Effect of handedness on fMRI activation in the medial temporal lobe during an auditory verbal memory task
Personal Relevance and Temporal Specificity - Left hippocampus
Eide Neurolearning Blog:The Benefits of Mixed-Dominance...Lefties, Dyslexics, and Gaming
Dyslexic, Left-Handed, and College Drop-Out Entrepreneurs

Over three days, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide held an international webinar for parents, teachers, and other professionals who are some of the leading voices in Gifted / 2E Education today. The webinar was a benefit for Karina Eide's Health fund.

Each DVD contains 2-2 1/2 hours of content, including fascinating lectures (Powerpoint + audio), in-depth discussions, and extensive Question & Answer session.

Praise for the Eides' Gifted / 2E Webinars:

"Exceptionally good! Bravo!!!"

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whether in person or by webinar. The information was extremely
informative and timely. It means so much to have your intuition
validated by the research and experts in the field. Finally, someone addressing written expression. Finally, someone addressing stealth
dyslexics"!

"Outstanding!!" "Thanks a million!" "Drs Eide really rock!!!"

How to Order:

* Webinar sessions are available on DVD for $24.95 + $1.99 s&h

- Understanding Gifted Children
- Dyslexia and Writing Challenges of Gifted Children,
- Attention, Sensory Processing, and Social Challenges of Gifted Children)


* Teacher and Me packs (2 copies of the same DVD) are available for $34.95 + $2.99 s&h

* The 3 DVD Complete Webinar is available for $59.95 (over 8 hours of conference lecture and Q & A) + $2.99 S&H

Webinar Sessions

Understanding Gifted Children $24.95 Dyslexia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Children $24.95 Attention, Sensory Processing & Social Challenges of Gifted $24.95 Complete Webinar Set (3 DVDs) $59.95 Teacher & Me DVDs (2 copies) - Understanding Gifted $34.95 Teacher & Me DVDs - Dyslexia & Writing $34.95 Teacher & Me DVDs - Attention, Sensory, and Social $34.95

You do not need to register with Paypal to pay for the DVDs. If you prefer to pay by regular mail, pay by check to: Eide Neurolearning Clinic Inc. P.S. 6701 139th Pl SW Edmonds WA 98026-3223. Washington state residents must also add 9% sales tax to their order (not including shipping).


Day 1: Understanding Gifted Children

In this opening session the Eides will present a framerk for understanding the strengths, challenges, and development of gifted children. Discussion will include the overlaps of gifted traits and ADHD and Aspergers checklists, gender differences in learning, sensory sensitivities and behaviors, memory and organizational issues, and differences in motivation and temperament (including intensity, perfectionism, and dealing productively with failure). After their talk, the Eides will answer questions and explore issues more deeply with conference participants.

Day 2: Gifted / 2E: Dyslexia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Children

Gifted Dyslexics are amazing, underrecognized, and poorly served in many educational environments. Although the connections between adult creative accomplishment and dyslexia have been widely recognized, both the talents and the dyslexic challenges of gifted dyslexic children often go unrecognized during their school years because their strengths in memory and higher order thinking compensate for their weaknesses in phonology and single word decoding, while their "silly mistakes," "inattentiveness," and "slow work" obscure their abilities. The Eides will explain why these students are often "stealth dyslexics" whose dyslexic challenges and gifted abilities fly under the radar of detection. They will also discuss how dyslexia presents differently in gifted children, the typical pattern of development in gifted dyslexic children, the interventions that are particularly helpful for gifted dyslexic students, and most importantly the very positive talents often seen in gifted dyslexic thinkers. Also in this session the Eides will discuss Dysgraphia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Students. Topics will include causes and types of writing challenges (including sensory-motor challenges, automaticity problems, unrecognized visual issues, and subtle language, organizational, and attentional issues), and effective approaches to overcoming these writing struggles. Following their presentation, the Eides will host an active discussion with conference participants.

Day 3: Attention, Sensory Processing, and Social Challenges of Gifted Children

In this last conference session the Eides will address attention, sensory processing, and social issues among gifted children. Topics covered will include overlaps with ADHD or Aspergers syndrome diagnoses, effective educational and therapeutic means to improve attention, working memory, and motivation, as well as recent advances in our understanding of creativity and attention. The Eides will again host a discussion and question and answer period following their presentation