Neuron Learning

No Mind Left Behind Conference

We will be exhibiting at the No Mind Left Behind Conference at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall from 29-30 March. We will be highlighting our Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant software programs

Simon Baron-Cohen and Professor Pierre Magistretti will head a list of 52 world-leading learning difficulty experts at Mindroom's international conference, No Mind Left Behind: Social Brain 3.

The conference will be chaired by Christopher Gillberg and will present the latest thinking on autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other early onset neurodevelopmental disorders. Among the highlights will be Simon's discussion on the influence and presence of testosterone in a brain with autism, while Pierre, from the Brain Mind Institute in Lausanne, will present uplifting new evidence that the brain is ever-changing.

Click here to see the confererence website

Smart Talk -- Brain-Building Opportunities - Great New Blog

Her blog is for and about you and your children. It is designed to help you raise successful children without hovering or creating pressure on yourself or your children to "do well".   She will be explaining how you can easily apply new research on how the brain learns to your daily routines with your children. But, to get started, the most important fact for you to understand is that children are not "born" smart. The brain of your child is building itself every time your child moves, plays with toys, or listens to people talk. A child's brain is a learning machine from the second the baby is born.

Martha Burns is a Speech-Language Pathologist, a Fellow of the American Speech Language Hearing Association, currently serving as a Director at a neuroscience company, Scientific Learning Corporation. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Northwestern University where she currently teach courses in Traumatic Brain Injury and Right Hemisphere Dysfunction. She lectures around the world on neuroscience applications to education and clinical intervention for children and adults with communication/cognitive disorders.

Great Blog please click here

How Vision Problems Can Affect Learning

Keith Holland is an optometrist - not a teacher, but works mostly with children with learning difficulties,  and for many years has been in the vanguard of those working on the visual issues that affect learning.  They are running a series of information evenings for teachers at their practice in Cheltenham.

Anyone with an interest in this area is welcome to come and find out more about how vision problems can affect learning - and what can be done to help. This is not a 'commercial event', merely a chance to share some of their knowledge with those in the field.

This year the events are on
Thursday 17th Feb
Monday 28th March
Monday 4th April.

All are welcome - the evenings start with coffee at 5.45 and a one hour talk at 6.15, with time for questions after.  If you are interested, please e-mail [email protected] to express an interest in attending and they will send more details.

Contact Details:

Keith C Holland
BSc, FCOptom, FBABO, FCOVD, FAAO, DipCLP

Keith Holland & Associates Ltd 27 St George's Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 3DT
Tel:  +44  1242 233500 Fax:  +44 1242 227686

www.keithholland.co.uk <http://www.keithholland.co.uk/>

Neuron Learning Offers Fast ForWord Program with Web Access

These new programs provide scalable, web-enabled applications for improved performance to save schools time and money, and accelerate learning for more students.

In these tough economic times, schools are seeking innovative ways to lower their total cost of ownership for cutting-edge technologies, while expanding access to these technologies to a broader range of students. With the release of the new SciLEARN™ Enterprise application, Neuron Learning is helping budget-conscious schools save time and money while achieving results faster, with more students.

Fast ForWord is a family of educational software products that accelerate learning by applying proven research on how the brain learns. The products can improve student achievement by one- to two-years in as little as eight to 12 weeks.

SciLEARN Enterprise application provides web-based access to all of the Fast ForWord Series. With the new browser capabilities of SciLEARN Enterprise platform, schools no longer need to install the Fast ForWord software at each student station. Instead, SciLEARN Enterprise application can be deployed as a web-based product from a single server, eliminating overheads at every school and lowering the total cost of ownership.

Using the web-enabled application, schools can instantly and concurrently deploy the Fast ForWord software. By building brain fitness in the areas of areas of memory, attention, processing, and sequencing, students can realize significant achievement gains and maintain an accelerated rate of learning even after the programs end.

"Meeting Kids on their Own Technological Turf"

Another program gaining momentum quickly is Fast ForWord. Used in more than 1500 school districts across the country, Fast ForWord has become one of the most impressive reading teaching techniques anywhere. To quote Matt Richtel of The New York Times, "It's meeting kids on their own technological turf." This computer-based program uses exercises and games that kids of all ages enjoy playing, and it takes those games to a whole new level of learning and goal attainment. In 2006, the Everett Mass. Public Schools implemented Fast ForWord "which accelerates learning by training the brain to process more efficiently, the way physical workouts train the body," said Margaret Blake, Title I Director. Regardless of a student's socio-economic background, he/she can positively benefit from Fast ForWord. "Students go back to their classes and tell other students about their progress. Kids at the top of their classes see these students moving up and are requesting permission to be a part of the lab programs!" Reading specialists and remedial teachers are finding that Fast ForWord is particularly helpful to the high school student. Giant steps forward are being reported in vocabulary and comprehension skill levels. More details, including statistics and remedial lesson planning tips are available at www.FastForWord.com. "It's such a joy to observe," says Ms. Blake. "The neuroscience behind this program's products is absolutely on target for training our students to be successful in all learning situations."

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/99092.aspx#ixzz185OTUohI

A Superhero who Changes Schools

Dr. Donald Aguillard: Improving Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) Scores in St. Mary Parish Schools by Terri Zezula

 

Superman is here… is more powerful than a locomotive and can leap tall buildings while raising district scores in a single bound, the Superhero the education world has been waiting for.
Who is this Superman? It’s the School District leader who makes failure not an option; who sees opportunities and possibilities where others see roadblocks and status quo. The Superintendent who takes risks to make progress and the teacher who knows all students have dreams and unique learning capabilities. The Superheroes are among us – saving and enriching the lives of students every day.

Take one such Superhero, Dr. Donald Aguillard, Superintendent of Schools at St. Mary Parish Public School System. His story is like many great district leaders – he saw a need, he embraced the challenge and he took measures to take his schools from failing to proficient in just a few years.

In the mid-2000s, after years of struggling, St. Mary Parish Public School System knew powerful change was needed. The rural district’s high stakes test scores lagged behind the state average, and there were large disparities between the reading proficiency of student subgroups. The state of Louisiana had placed several of the district’s schools in Academic Assistance, a designation for schools that fail to grow sufficiently — and some had remained there for nearly 10 years.

Dr. Aguillard and his leadership team took charge – they invested in a program that builds brain fitness and accelerates learnng for all students. During the 2006-07 school year, St. Mary Parish started school-wide use of Fast ForWord® software at eight elementary schools that were in Academic Assistance. “One of the things I was excited about was that the Fast ForWord program is based on the science of how the brain learns and retains information,” said Dr. Aguillard. “Our challenge wasn’t necessarily that our programs were ineffective. It was that we weren’t meeting the individual needs of students. We realized that to make the most of our programs, we needed to develop and strengthen thecognitive skills essential for learning and reading success.”

As a result of building students’ brain fitness, the district saw a marked increase in student performance in these eight schools and adopted the program district-wide. “This built tremendous momentum because there were so many more students reaching the proficiency bars set in high stakes testing,” said Aguillard. The results are evident across the district. In fact, from 2006 to 2010, the percentage of fourth graders performing at or above Basic on the initial LEAP test rose from 59 to 79 percent in Math, from 53 to 69 percent in Science, and from 59 to 72 percent in Social Studies.

Dr. Aguillard has a wonderfully supportive staff that enthusiastically promotes the Fast ForWord program and strives for excellence in education; a community that rallies behind his efforts and students who see the future as a world of open doors. Lead on Dr. A., the world loves a Superhero!

The Reading Brain

Interesting Article in Scientific American magazine about reading, cognitive skill development and brain plasticity.

The article talks about the need for specific instruction on phonemic awareness for students who have difficulty reading. It goes on to emphasise orthographic, phonological, semantic, morphological, and syntactic knowledge necessary for fluent reading in an integrated, systematic, and fun fashion. Finally they identify semantic development, (more about this key function later in the blog).

We certainly "tick all the boxes" in their reading strategy using Fast ForWord.

Here is an extract..
.......The story of reading's development is a complex tale of equal parts human invention and neural plasticity. The human mind created reading, but that skill could only come about because of the brain's unique capacity to form new circuits. Scientists have long known that reading depends on an intricate set of neural circuits in the brain, but the exact operation of these circuits remains an area of ongoing investigation. Now, a study  by cognitive neuroscientists Laurent Cohen, Stanislas Deaene and their colleagues in the March 1st issue of the journal Neuroimage gives us some new insights into the reading brain.

Click here for the full article

Learning disabilities linked to later language problems

A Chicago university has suggested that a degenerative condition that affects language is linked with learning disabilities.

Scientists at Northwestern University found that people who suffer with primary progressive aphasia, a neurodegenerative condition affecting language, are more likely to have had a history of learning disabilities. People who have the condition experience deterioration in their language capabilities as they get older. The signs of aphasia include struggling to speak expressively, trouble understanding speech, and difficulty with writing and reading. In the report, the scientists state: "This relationship may exist in only a small subgroup of persons with dyslexia without necessarily implying that the entire population with dyslexia or their family members are at higher risk of primary progressive aphasia." The effects of aphasia differ depending on the individual and the symptoms can sometimes be eased by working with a speech therapist. Northwestern University's study has been published in the February edition of Archives of Neurology.

Court Ruling that Dyslexia is a Disability

The Times 26 July 2007

A Metropolitan Police officer has won a test legal victory that dyslexia is a disability in the eyes of the law.

Chief Inspector David Paterson – who gained promotion despite his condition – won a ruling from the Employment Appeal Tribunal that he is “a disabled person”.

Mr Paterson joined the police in Epsom in 1983, became a sergeant in 1989 and was made a chief inspector in Vauxhall in 1999. But in 2004 he discovered that he suffered from dyslexia and accused the Met of discriminating against him. He claimed that the force failed to make reasonable adjustments, particularly in the processes for deciding whether he might be promoted to superintendent.

An employment tribunal had ruled earlier that Mr Paterson was not disabled within the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1996. It found that dyslexia did not have a “substantial adverse effect on his ability to carry out day-to-day activities”.

But the Employment Appeal Tribunal, headed by Mr Justice Elias, one of the country’s senior High Court judges, has now ruled that, as his professional advancement depended upon his sitting examinations, the dyslexia did constitute a “substantial” impairment.

In its decision just made public, Mr Justice Elias said: “In our view, carrying out an assessment or examination is properly to be described as a normal, day-to-day activity. Moreover, in our view the act of reading and comprehension is itself a normal, day-to-day activity.

He said that the evidence, which the tribunal accepted, was that Mr Paterson was “disadvantaged to the extent of requiring 25 per cent extra time to do an assessment”. As a result, he said that it “inevitably followed that there was a substantial adverse effect on normal, day-to-day activities”.

The case now goes back to the tribunal to decide if Mr Paterson’s claim for discrimination should succeed.

Mohini Bharania, Mr Paterson’s solicitor at Russell Jones & Walker, said: “This is a landmark judgment, which has the potential to benefit the millions of dyslexia sufferers in the UK who are perfectly capable employees, but who may struggle with exams.”

Class Divide and Learning Disadvantage

By the age of three, children from disadvantaged families are already lagging a full year behind their middle-class contemporaries in social and educational development, pioneering research by a London university reveals today.

In a series of vocabulary tests, the three-year-old sons and daughters of graduate parents were found to be 10 months ahead of those from families with few educational qualifications; they were 12 months ahead in their understanding of colours, letters, numbers, sizes and shapes.

Researchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education in the University of London found girls were three months ahead of boys on both measures.

from The Guardian