Training the brain: a new program for struggling students.

May 2002 few years ago, two research teams joined forces to develop a new method to reach children who must struggle to learn. One group of researchers at Rutgers University had spent decades studying children who had trouble developing oral language skills (Tallal & Piercy, 1973). These researchers discovered that many children who are exceptionally bright in some areas of learning struggle in other areas because they process information differently. Just as some adults are good visual learners and others are good at physical learning, they found some children have a great deal of difficulty learning by listening to speech. These children may be very skilled musically, physically or visually, but when they have to learn from what others tell them, they process a little too slowly to keep up. Because so much early learning is accomplished through listening, these children are at a disadvantage. Sometimes teachers remark that the child has “poor listening skills. ” A parent may say the child seems to “tune out” at times. It is understandable that if a child has trouble listening, he or she will miss a great deal of what is “taught,” especially in the early years of school. The researchers found that some of these children “fall through the cracks” because they may appear to be unmotivated or to have attentional difficulties. To some adults, “poor listening skills” may seem indistinguishable from “not trying. ” The other research team was at the University of California at San Francisco. They had spent decades studying the ways the brain changes with certain types of learning. This group of neuroscientists was interested in developing techniques that could train a child’s brain to make learning easier. Michael Merzenich, the lead researcher in that center, was struck by the findings from Rutgers and believed, from his earlier research, that children could be trained to process auditory information differently. Dr. Merzenich and a colleague, William Jenkins, had found that the brain of a child or adult is actually plastic and can change processing speed and skill through very structured skill training. What was most exciting is that the neuroscientists found that these changes could occur after relatively short periods of intensive training — 6 to 8 weeks. Thus, a child who prefers to learn visually could be trained to become a rapid auditory learner as well (Merzenich et al., 1996). The programs these researchers developed are the FAST FORWORD family of programs. There are four programs that provide varying levels of language, reading and learning skills necessary for success in school. In just 4 years since their introduction, over 100,000 children nationwide have successfully completed one or more of the Fast ForWord programs. The programs are unique in that they are intensive (100 minutes/five days a week) and train fundamental listening, language and reading skills. They literally address the cause of academic difficulties so that children process information faster and more easily. Early controlled research studies of Fast ForWord programs indicated that children make one-and-one-half years’ growth in language and processing skills after 6 weeks of training. Research conducted since the early studies corroborated those findings in a variety of settings, with thousands of children. Elise Temple and her colleagues at Stanford University have conducted the most exciting new independent research with this program showing actual changes in the brain after completion of the program. The first research conducted at Stanford studied three adults with a history of reading difficulties who underwent brain imaging before and after using the Fast For years, parents, teachers and