Working memory training improves fluid intelligence

A common question from parents who are considering a program like Fast ForWord or Cogmed to improve foundational cognitive skills centers around when they might see improvements in their children. While parents frequently observe immediate improvements in skills like attention, comprehension, and general ease of reading, sometimes these gains are not immediately apparent. This is because the programs are developing cognitive skills (such as working memory and processing speed) that are critical for developing learning, attention and reading skills. The programs support the development of more complex learning and reading skills, but don’t directly train them.

A 2008 study from the University of Michigan, which looked at measures of fluid intelligence before and after Cogmed training, supports this idea. The LA Times recently reported on the study:

When the children were tested at the end of the month of training, the Michigan researchers at first found scant differences between the group that got the working-memory training and the general knowledge group. Although those who had received working-memory training were better at holding several items in mind for a short while, on a test of abstract reasoning — fluid intelligence — they were, as a group, no smarter than the control group.

But then the researchers took a closer look and noticed a clear pattern: The children who had improved the most on the memory-training task did indeed perform better on the fluid intelligence test. And three months later, they still did better as a group than both the control group and the children who hadn’t improved.

The University of Michigan study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Be Amazing Learning client featured on ABC News

Be Amazing Learning client Sami Merit was featured on San Francisco Bay Area ABC 7 News, as part of a story that looked at Fast ForWord use at home and at an Oakland elementary school.

Hooray Sami!

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=8195812

Brain Fitness Program for Traumatic Brain Injury

Today’s NY Times reports on a planned study of the effectiveness of Posit Science’s Brain Fitness Program on veterans who suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in combat. Posit Science was founded by Dr. Michael Merzenich, whose research into neuroplasticity forms the basis for the Fast ForWord programs.

Dr. Merzenich’s core claim is that brain structure is always changing, based on what people do and what they pay attention to. By doing specific brain exercises that focus and refine attention, he says, you can adjust the underlying structure of your brain. It is well established that this happens when we learn a new skill, like dancing. The question is, Can the same processes be employed to correct for brain damage?

Psychologists and others observing the study range from the cautiously optimistic (quoted in the Times, Gary Abrams, director of neurorehabilitation at U.C.S.F. and head of the T.B.I. support clinic at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, says “It is theoretically reasonable, but will it actually work to help veterans?”) to the skeptical (also cited, in the Times, Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a Duke University psychiatrist, is “not convinced that gains translate into long-term benefits that can be generalized to daily challenges like remembering where the car is parked”).

The study will involve 132 veterans suffering from TBI. They’ll undergo a battery of cognitive tests before the program, and again 3 and 6 months after the program.

The Times article also makes a critical point that we frequently make about the neuroplasticity-based programs (Fast ForWord and Cogmed) that we use with struggling learners: the programs are different because they address the underlying cognitive deficits, rather than compensatory strategies.

Cognitive development improves problem solving for rising 3rd graders

Parents of students who are wrapping up second grade rejoice! New research suggests that changes in the brain that occur between 2nd and 3rd grades lead to improved problem solving.

Researchers gave 2nd and 3rd graders both a simple math calculation task (addition, where one of the numbers is 1) and a more difficult calculation task (adding a number between 2 and 5 to a number between 2 and 9). That the third graders performed better on the calculation tasks isn’t surprising, but researchers also discovered that while the second graders used the same basic neurological function for both the simple and more difficult tasks, third graders showed distinct brain responses for the simple and more difficult calculations.

From a CNN blog post on the research:

The older children showed greater engagement in a brain system related to quantity representation, and in another related to working memory.

The third graders’ brains also showed greater “cross-talk,” or signal transfer, along pathways that deal with information between those two regions, and help with more efficient numerical problem solving.

How could the research direct educational planning and decisions? Study author Vinod Menon, neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine, quoted in the CNN blog post says “hopefully at some point we’ll be able to translate and use this information to examine children with dyscalculia and related learning disabilities.”

There’s not enough evidence for specifics yet, but the idea is that brain imaging could inform educational interventions for these children. Understanding the parts of the brain involved in children’s math skill development could lead to tutoring or other cognitive paradigms for children with learning disabilities, Menon said.

Menon’s research was published in the journal Neuroimage.