Eaton Arrowsmith School

Growing Up With Dyslexia

The Human Brain/Neuroplasticity1.6% of our body weight,

3 pounds, 100,000,000,000 Brain Cells, 1,000,000,000,000 Glial Cells

Brain Neurons and Glia Cells

Connectome: Sebastian Seung, MIT

"If we have a wiring diagram of the brain, that could help us understand how it works." Sebastian Seung, Computational Neuroscientist, MIT

Neuroplasticity Defined

• Neuroplasticity: the ability of brain neurons and glial cells to physically change in response to stimulus and activity

– Neuro: the nervous system/the brain

– Plasticity: the capability of being molded, modified, changed

Brief History: Neuroplasticity

• 1783 – Michele Malacarne, Anatomist – trained dogs and birds had more folds in their cerebelums than untrained ones.

• 1890’s – William James and Santiago Ramon y Cajal – brain’s neural functions as malleable proposed.

• 1940’s - Jerzy Konorski and Donald Hebb – theories of neuroplasticity

• Late 1950’s – Mark Rosenzweig

Barbara Arrowsmith Young

Two Lines of Research

• Alexandra Luria (Identification of Function - WWII) – Russian neuropsychologist

• Mark Rosenzweig (Stimulation of Function) – American Research Psychologist – Ph.D. (Harvard)

Brain Activity while Reading Out Loud(Lassen et. al. 1978)

Functional system (neural network) as postulated by A. R. Luria

Neuroplasticity: The work of Professor Mark R. Rosenzweig

University of California, Berkley

Stimulated (Enriched) rats - improved performance on mazes (better learners) - increased levels of neurotransmitters - more glia cells - enlarged capillaries (better blood supply) - more dendrite branching (more synaptic connections)

No Special Toys for StimulationStimulation (Enriched)

Principles of Arrowsmith Program

• Design a task that works a specific cognitive area (targeted/differential stimulation)

• Start the level of task difficulty just above the level of current functioning of the area (effortful processing)

• Remove the support of areas that could compensate for weaker functioning (effortful processing)

• Build in performance mastery criteria that is rewarded (attention/active engagement)

19 Learning Dysfunctions• Every student has a different learning profile.

• Every student is on a different cognitive remediation program.

• The 19 types of learning dysfunctions identified by Barbara Young are noted on the brochure and on the website for your review. This is not exhaustive list.

• Ongoing research occurs in order to refine current methodology.

• The Learning Dysfunctions combined to form reading problems, mathematical thinking difficulties, written output weaknesses, reasoning problems and language processing weaknesses.

• The exercises that have been designed so far reflect the most common academic and social problems that typical students deal with either at school or in life.

Arrowsmith Program

Addresses 19 cognitive areas encompassing such problems as– Dyslexia/Dyscalculia– Auditory processing– Non-verbal learning– Fine motor/Dysgraphia– Executive Function (thinking/planning/problem solving)– Spatial Reasoning– Expressive/Reception Language– Visual Memory – Symbols/Objects– Attention Disorders

Developing Reasoning:Symbol Relations (Clocks)

Reasoning or Problem Solving:The Arrowsmith Program

• In the LDA Canada definition:

– Learning Disabilities refer to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information.  These disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning.  As such, learning disabilities are distinct from global intellectual deficiency.

– Learning disabilities are lifelong. 

Fluid Intelligence

• Matrix Reasoning (IQ testing), Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI), Raven’s Progressive Matrixes

What is Fluid Intelligence?

• Fluid intelligence to the ability to reason quickly and to think abstractly.

• Fluid intelligence along with its counterpart, crystallized intelligence, are both factors of what psychologist Raymond Cattel described as general intelligence. While fluid intelligence involves our current ability to reason and deal with complex information around us, crystallized intelligence involves learning, knowledge and skills that are acquired over a lifetime. (http://psychology.about.com/od/findex/g/def_fluidintell.htm)

• Fluid intelligence includes such abilities as problem-solving, learning, and pattern recognition.

• People with a high capacity of Gf tend to acquire more Gc knowledge and at faster rates.

What is Fluid Intelligence - continued

• In the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC IV) the Perceptual Reasoning Index contains two subtests that assess Gf: Matrix Reasoning, which involves induction and deduction, and Picture Concepts, which involves induction. In the Picture Concepts task, children are presented a series of pictures on two or three rows and asked which pictures (one from each row) belong together based on some common characteristic. This task assesses the child's ability to discover the underlying characteristic (e.g. rule, concept, trend, class membership) that governs a set of materials. Matrix Reasoning also tests this ability as well as the ability to start with stated rules, premises, or conditions and to engage in one or more steps to reach a solution to a novel problem (deduction). In the Matrix Reasoning test, children are presented a series or sequence of pictures with one picture missing. Their task is to choose the picture that fits the series or sequence from an array of five options. Since Matrix Reasoning and Picture Concepts involve the use of visual stimuli and do not require expressive language they are considered to be non-verbal tests of Gf.

Wechsler, D. (2003). WISC-IV technical and interpretive manual. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation

Flanagan, D. P. & Kaufman, A. S. (2004). Essentials of WISC-IV assessment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley

Fluid Intelligence: Where in the Brain?

• “Multiple regression analysis indicated that lateral prefrontal and parietal regions may mediate the relation between ability (gF) and performance.” J.R. Gray, C.F. Chabris, and T.S. Braver, “Neural Mechanisms of General Fluid Intelligence,” Nature Neuroscience 6 (2003), 316-322

• “...our results demonstrated that the posterior parietal regions including bilateral SPL and right IPS could be the neural correlates for superior general intelligence. These findings would be the early step toward the development of biological measures of [general intelligence] which leads to a new perspectives for behaviour interventions improving general cognitive ability.” K.H. Lee, Y.Y. Choi, J.R. Gray, S.H. Cho, J. Chae, S. Lee, and K. Kim, “Neural Correlates ofSuperior Intelligence: Stronger Recruitment of Posterior Parietal Cortex,” Neuroimage 29 (2005), 578–586.

Back to: Symbol Relations: Clocks

• Developing ability to read a clock; improving the capacity necessary for understanding relationships between concepts necessary for logical and mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension; affecting all aspects of curriculum and life.

Processing Clocks: Where In the Brain?

• “The most striking results of our two experiments demonstrated that cortical activation (as measured by an increase of the fMRI BOLD signal) during the mental clock test was the most prominent in the posterior parietal lobes of both hemispheres.” L. Trojan, Dario Grossi, E.J. Linden, E. Formisano, H. Hacker, E.F. Zanella, R. Goebel, and D. Di Salle, “Matching Two Imagined Clocks: the Functional Anatomy of Spatial Analysis in the Absence of Visual Stimulation,” Cerebral Cortex 10 (2000), 473–481.

• ...while the brain utilizes numerous neural pathways for drawing a clock face, the most strongly activated pathway was between the posterior parietal cortex and the dorsal premotor area.” T. Ino, T. Asada, J. Ito, T. Kimura, and H. Fukuyama, “Parieto-frontal Networks for Clock

• Drawing Revealed with fMRI,” Neuroscience Research 45 (2003), 71–77.

Cognitive Functions: Clocks

• Working Memory –numerical, spatial

• Visual-Spatial Processing

• Executive functioning (pre-frontal)

• Symbol Recognition

• Sequencing

• Visual-Motor Processing

EAS DATA and Independent Psychologists

• Psycho-Educational Assessments– Matrix Reasoning

(WISC)

– Fluid Reasoning (Woodcock-Johnson)

– Picture Concepts (WISC)

Claudia’s Main Cognitive and Achievement Changes(measured in percentiles)

(BEFORE: red = 2004; AFTER: green = 2007)

Joshua’s Main Cognitive Changes (measured in percentiles) (BEFORE: red = 2005; AFTER: green = 2008)

Case Studies: Neurological Change After Arrowsmith Intervention

Yale – 16 years old Matthew – 15 years old

Before

2004

After

2007

WISC Coding

5th %ile

WISC Coding

75th %ile

WJ Reasoning

5th %ile

WJ Reasoning

67th %ile

TONI-3

34th %ile

TONI-3

91st %ile

BEERY

45th %ile

BEERY

92nd %ile

WISC Vocabulary

68th %ile

WISC Vocabulary

93rd %ile

Before

2004

After

2007

WISC Coding

5th %ile

WISC Coding

75th %ile

BEERY

6th %ile

BEERY

34th %ile

TONI-3

50th %ile

TONI-3

88th %ile

WJ Verbal Ability

67th %ile

WJ Verbal Ability

94th %ile

WISC Vocabulary

63rd %ile

WISC Vocabulary

91st %ile

Non-Verbal Learning Disability

Artifactual Thinking: Common Features

• Problem interpreting non-verbal information such as body language, facial expression and voice tone

• Weak social skills

• Difficulty thinking, planning, problem solving non-verbally, in non-verbal situations

Artifactual Thinking

Non-Verbal Improvements

• Ability to perceive and interpret non-verbal cues

• Ability to plan and initiate social interactions

• Ability to problem solve in social situations

Lancee Study 2001

• In 2001, the Donner Canadian Foundation funded a three year study that was designed to follow a sample of 79 learning disabled students attending the Arrowsmith School in Toronto. The study was prepared by Dr. William J. Lancee, Ph.D. who is Head of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital and Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.

TCSB STUDY

• The Arrowsmith Program was first implemented in the TCDSB in 1997 at St. Patrick Catholic Secondary School and currently is implemented in seven elementary schools in the TCDSB.

• This report tracks the progress of students in the Arrowsmith Program in the TCDSB on standardized achievement measures, on the amount of resource support needed pre Arrowsmith Program and post Arrowsmith Program, on reports from parents, teachers and students of specific observable cognitive and academic gains, and on reports from teachers, students and parents of the success these students have attained in high school and post secondary programs.

Books On Neuroplasticity