Arrowsmith-Young’s disabilities, aspects of which persist, included dyslexia and dyscalculia as well as difficulties with expressive language, “spatial reasoning”, logic, “kinaesthetic perception”, and incoordination ( Arrowsmith-Young, 2013). As Castles and McArthur (2013) comment, the term brain training is somewhat tautological, as all learning happens in the brain. Referring to Luria’s and Rosenzweig’s work, in 1977–78 Arrowsmith-Young fashioned a program of intensive, graduated, and strenuous ‘cognitive exercises’, sometimes called ‘brain training’, intended to remediate her own multiple, severe learning disabilities, which she claimed “changed her brain” when self-administered ( Brainex Corporation, 2015). These interpretations are not supported by Luria’s findings, though, and oversimplify Rosenzweig’s research (see Alferink & Farmer-Dougan, 2010 for discussion of the misapplication, in education curricula, of neuroscience research). Luria (1902–1977) in brain-function localisation theory, neuroplasticity, veterans’ recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI), and investigations by American research psychologist Mark Rosenzweig (1922–2009), who demonstrated that neuroplasticity is lifelong. Arrowsmith emanated from its founder’s interpretations of the work of Russian neuropsychologist A.R. Initiated as a tutoring service in Toronto in the late 1970s by Canadian author, entrepreneur, lecturer, and program director Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, The Arrowsmith Program (Arrowsmith) is promoted as a remedial methodology for specific learning disabilities (SLD) based on neuroscience research and almost four decades’ experience of administering its threefold system of “specific cognitive exercises”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |