The difficulties with the process of reading and writing

The door to culture and knowledge, without any doubt, goes hand by hand with reading and writing. However, because they are not part of the genetic package, unlike language and calculation, reading and writing depend on interactions with the environment to a better development (Dzib Goodin, 2011a).

The term used to refer to difficulties in the acquisition and development of process of reading and writing, has traditionally been dyslexia. which is a word that Etymologically comes from the Greek  and means difficulty or abnormality in speech or diction (Idiazábal Saperas Aletxa and Rodriguez, 2008) and has been attributed to the impossibility of reading comprehension, and it's applied to the lack of acquisition of writing too (Pallares Artigas, 2002).

It is worth mentioning that the term does not describe anything beyond a professional term, because it can not describe that part of the acquisition or consolidation that is not developing correctly. Traditional education and educational psychology, under the model to describe problems in the student away from working with the difficulties, highlights the problems without recognizing the chain of events involved.

That's why the neurocognitive view, seeks to describe the process, recognizing the necessary chain of events to consolidate the task, either reading or writing. But to speak of the difficulties in acquisition, it's worth a journey through the process.

Acquisition Process

It is a fact that both reading and writing are linked to language, but the difference is that there is no a genetic need of them, so they depend on the environmental shaping (Dzib Goodin, 2011B) and as mentioned Dehaene is linked to the culture (cited in Cook, 2010).

Based on this idea, reading and writing are based on written words, which are the graphical representation of speech sounds (Hickok, Bellugi and Klima, 2007).

The language-specific brain structures have developed from evolutionary processes that begin at least from the first Homo sapiens, while writing, as cultural necessity, has accompanied the man from the caves, drawing representations of events, but it was not until the development of printing which is positioned as a cultural asset. To writing became necessary to learn to reading, which, however, was not a skill available to everybody, until it appeared  school to consolidate it because of this, the brain has not required structures  genetically available  to develop them.

That's the reason reading and writing use part of language structures like the primarily region persilviana at the left hemisphere, area temporoparietooccipital, the set of mirror neurons and the cerebellum (Viñals, Duque Vega and Alvarez, 2003; Idiazábal Saperas Aletxa and Rodriguez, 2008; Hickok, 2010) .

But  there are more regions involved to create the relationship between the sound of a letter, known as phoneme and its graphical representation, called grapheme, for this, since is necessary an identification of speech sounds and recognition of the shapes of each grapheme and differentiation between them (Fisher, 2010; Cook, 2010).

The need for emotional understanding of the writing or reading, involving the corpus callosum in the process, this is because language in itself implies an intention that must be recognized and expressed graphically.

The recognition of sound involved into the language of course give it meaning. This is because the brain analyzes the sound differently (understood as any wave propagation through a medium), identifying differences between language, music and noise (Dzib Goodin, 2011b).

In this sense the words are recognized as a sequence of sounds that can be represented through limited sequences separated by spaces. To this is added the punctuation and all that make the written word (Carboni Roman, Rio Grande, Chapel, Maestu and Ortiz, 2006). Going from sound to meaning implies, however, neural networking to make each sound recognizable, which is why babies go from repeat guttural sounds, sporadic understandable language, words and eventually sentences.

The next step is to convert sounds into letters. This process is inherent in writing and requires two basic principles: first visual analysis of the shape of each letter and make the distinction between them because one p is not equal to a one q, and a v is not equal to one r. And, on the other hand, the motor recognition to process visual (eyes move to recognize the differences in shape) and in the case of writing, is the movement on the line depending on the differential point while performance (Sánchez, Wheel and Orrantia, 1989).

For an adult brain, with sufficient functional neural networks, the statement seems silly, but for a developing brain that gradually creates cognitive frame is a huge challenge. That's why at first, it's normal for the system to have mistakes, that psychologists and teachers call dyslexia, which should not be considered a problem until after the 8 years (Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa and Cohen, 2010).

Once are made the necessary distinctions between letters, and in this case consider that the English alphabet has 26 uppercase and 26 lowercase letters and two ligatures, and it's necessary to make a difference between them properly, so it will pass to the analysis of the sequence of letters. What sounds make up the word?, Are there spaces between them?, and one more addition, some sounds are necessary to writing, for not for reading like Illinois or Lisle.

This is when the auditory, visual and motor processes are integrated into memory (Greene, 2010) which contributes to strengthening the management of differences of graphemes, and always the motivation is usually added, because as a cultural tool, this process must have a practical to implement brain networks because it works on the principle of cognitive economy.

Once that are  acquired and developed at some level all these  processes, it must be added to the equation, something that psychologists call lexical route, this  consists in the recognition of familiar words like mom and dad, and while reading and writing become simple because they are part of the personal dictionary, and on the other hand, the non-lexical route, which are words that have not been in the personal dictionary or nonsense words, however, may be read or written, when the process is already established (Sanchez, Rueda and Orrantia, 1989).

Once it's acquired all neural networks to hear, see and draw the different letters is then passed to the learning of words that open the door to culture. This door, however, should be widely promoted in the childhood.

So far, it has been done a tour of the normal development and needs to acquire the process of reading and writing, however, difficulties sometimes arise from the consolidation of the same, they are mainly due to two situations to consider: problems neural development and problems of cultural deprivation.

The neuronal difficulties

Brain development begins even before birth, and it can determine difficulties in the processes of language, in this sense, we can mention genetic alterations that result in various neurological conditions, for example Down's syndrome, autism spectrum disorders speacially those with more profound side effects (Etchepareborda and Lazaro Lopez, 2005).

Genetic alterations such as those presented in the FOXP2 gene, which cause malfunctions in the language that, will certainly hinder the acquisition of reading and writing process (Haesler, 2007).

To all this must be added prenatal alterations, for example intake of drugs  during pregnancy, poor  nutrition,  intrauterine trauma, fetal distress and of course, after the birth any kind of brain trauma and there is evidence that epileptic focus can damage surrounding neurons (Lozano, Ramirez and Solis Ostrosky, 2001).

Visospatial disturbances may occur in the parieto-occipital area, or alterations of the corpus callosum that will make difficult the relationship between the two cerebral hemispheres (Etchepareborda and Lazaro Lopez, 2005; Carboni Roman, Rio Grande, Chapel, Maestu and Ortiz, 2006).

Traditionally, psychology has seen brain differences as a way to separate into the continuum of learning and find children with normal learning. But neurocognition reminds that the brain is plastic and capable of creating functional neural networks under the right conditions, that is why is so important to work with the neuro modulation from an early age so that children are able to acquire skills that though not be compared with those of a structural brain damage-free, if they allow management of the environment.

It's also important to be mentioned that while neural networks are consolidated, there will be noticed errors that should be considered as part of the development process. This is obvious especially with the language and calculation. Children are not born speaking as adults, even when there is a pre genetic programming; the system has to make functional application that lets you develop the best way language along with speech

An example of this is the called dyslexia, to which has been associated with errors in mirror writing. Recent studies show that mirror in writing or reading is a normal property of the primary visual system, which only indicates a difficulty in writing if it is prolonged beyond 8 or 10 years (Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa and Cohen, 2010).

Difficulties due to cultural deprivation

If  anybody  ask an adult over 60 years old  to get an account in facebook using an Ipad and begin tweeting all his or her activity, probably just give up with trying to turn on the gadget.

Something similar happens to a child who has never been submerged in the sea of reading, maybe has never seen a book or taking a pencil. The difficulties in the acquisition process are reflected in a delay in the development of reading and / or writing.

And, of course, it always will have to be considered the strategies of teaching, because traditional school does not encourage a taste for writing and reading, except as part of the compulsory schooling. Culturally, those nations who see these works as a cultural tool, have been more successful in reducing, and in some cases eliminate illiteracy, even can add the bilingualism as a tool, and this produces the appearance of specific neuronal networks strengthened and brings enhanced cognitive development in general (Joss and Virtue, 2010).

The place  where  people proficient in at least two languages, it's far in the case of some countries, specially in Latin America,  if efforts are few  at  the case of the difficulties of reading and writing, bilingualism is an even more distant goal, although it is clear that scientific and cultural borders can open immediately.

If it is assumed that the brain learns from experience, which creates networks that depend on use and management of information, it is able to learn under the right programs, and enjoy achieving goals, there shouldn't be a way to talk of school problems. But educational psychologists have attributed differences of learning as the standard and deciding who is at one side or the other of normal curve of learning, and this labeling has only damaged and many children.

The brain learns under the right programs, building new knowledge on what it knows and under own resources, different in each person. This idea of the problem of school, it's saying to the students he or she is guilty of not learning correctly, eliminating errors of teaching curriculum. This can be very easy and cheap for a nation to accept that their children are the problem.

Children learn by playing, with motivation, trying something again and again and also from their mistakes, rather than from their successes (Roediger III and Finn, 2010). Effective education is notorious when it benefits those who can not do something and the same time that praises the gotten goals if doesn’t matter if needs little or a lot of support. It is worth investing time and patience to open to a child or an adult, the door of the reading and writing. It not only taught to read and write, gives him a different world for the rest of his life.

Under this principle, when we say that a child or adult has a problem in reading and writing and write, it's not enough information. The question are: what is the problem into the process?, What is the chain of events in the process of acquisition or consolidation failing, is it a problem in the auditory recognition of speech sounds?, Maybe is a particular phoneme?, is it about  the speed of reading or writing?, maybe is the recognition of shapes?, can be recognized all the letters?, does student have enough motor skills to take a pencil?, does it have viso-spatial difficulties?, does student confuse the order of the letters?, does student  know the words?, does student understand what is reading?, does student remember what is reading? ... Every problem into the process is different and of course, it can be solved in different way.

There must be added some cultural mistakes such as bedtime reading, which creates a relationship between reading = to sleep (are you still awake reading this text?) Or, if you do not behave you do 20 pages of something, which implies writing = a punishment.

Every time a psycho-educational intervention is successful, is because the learner is encouraged to try to do something that others said would never amount to, it opens the door to:  YES, you can.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

References

Artigas-Pallares J. (2002) Problemas asociados con la dislexia. Rev Neurol. 34 (Supl 1) S7-S13.

Carboni Román, A., del Rio Grande, D., Capilla, A., Maestú, F. y Ortíz, T. (2006) Bases neurobiológicas de las dificultades del aprendizaje. Rev Neurol. 42 (supl 2):  S171-S175.

Dehaenen S, Nakamura K, Jobert A, Kuroki C, Ogawa S y Cohen L. (2010) Why do children make errors reading? Neural correlates of mirror invariance in the visual word form area. Neuroimage . 49. 1837 – 1848.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011a) La educación como puerta al desarrollo. Disponible en red: http://www.fronterasdelaciencia.com/index.php/comunidad-cientifica/110-la-educacion-como-puerta.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011b) Introducción a los procesos neurocognitivos del aprendizaje: lenguaje, lectura, escritura y matemáticas. Servicios Editoriales Balám. México. En prensa.

Etchepareborda, MC. y López Lázaro, MJ. (2005) Estructura citoarquitectónica de las áreas del lenguaje. Rev Neurol. 40 (Supl 1).  S103-S106.

Fisher, B. (2010) A sensory fix for problems in school. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 32-37.

Greene, AJ. (2010) Making connections: the essence of memory is linking one thought to another. Scientific American Mind. 21 (3) 22-29.

Haesler, S. (2007) Programmed for speech. Scientific American Mind. 18 (3) 67-71.

Hickok G. (2010) The role of mirror neurons in speech perception and action word semantics. Language and cognitive processes. 25 (6): 749-776.

Hickok, G., Bellugi, U. and Klima, E. (2007) Sign language in brain. In Floyd E, Bloom (2007) Best of the brain from Scientific American. Dana Press. USA.

Idiazábal Aletxa, MA y Saperas Rodríguez, M. (2008) Procesamiento auditivo en el trastorno específico del lenguaje. Rev Neurol. 46 (Supl 1) S91- S95.

Joss, LM and Virtue, S. (2010) Hemispheric processing in bilinguals: The role of sharing meanings across languages and sentential constraint. Cognitive Neuroscience.1 (1) 26-32.

Lozano, A., Ramírez, M. y Ostrosky Solis, F. (2001) Neurobiología de la dislexia del desarrollo: una revisión. Rev Neurol. 33 (2): 1-6.

Roediger III, HL. and Finn, B. (2010) The pluses of getting wrong.  Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 38-41.

Sánchez, E., Rueda MI. Y Orrantia, J. (1989) Estrategias de intervenión para la reeducación de niños con dificultades en el aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura. Lenguaje y comunicación. 3- 101-111.

Viñals, F., Vega, O. y Alvarez Duque ME. (2003) Aproximación neurocognitiva de las alteraciones de la lecto-escritura como base de los programas de recuperación en pacientes con daño cerebral. Revista Española de Neuropsicología. 5 (3-4) 227-249.

Chronotype and Learning

Learning process is a complex group of factors that depends of genetic and environmental influences, and one of them seems to be the chronotype, which is defined as a propensity of a person to sleep at a particular time during a circadian period.

Even if is usual to believe that habits can make a difference between students, since they learn to adapt their findings from a chronobiology perspective highlight a deeper molecular accent into how can humans can handle changes of light, from a evolutionary point of view. Life on planet in general is sensible to changes called cycles. One of them is known as Circadian rhythms.

Circadian rhythms are approximate 24-h biological cycles that prepares an organism for daily environmental changes, driven by molecular clocks that basically are a trasncriptional-translational feedback mechanism that involves the core clock genes in mammals and it is present in virtually all cells of an organism ¹.

Roenneberg, Kuehnle, Pramstaller, Ricken, Havel, Guth, and Merrow², explain that chronotype “depends on genetic and environmental factors but also on age”, and at the same that some other authors add gender to the landscape ³.

Chronotype changes with age, and some researchers have found systematical differences between children and adolescents, showing that children are early chronotypes and change slowly but progressively until delay and reaching a maximum of diurnal preferences around the age of 20, which suggests the end of adolescence³. However, the chronotype will change again with increasing age.

Adolescents’ circadian clocks typically run late⁴, they love to sleep until late and it’s easy to believe this is related with a crazy nightlife. However, different studies shows that in fact, these diurnal preferences can be something due circadian timing system. One explanation leads to endocrine factors, since hormones begin to run around adolescents systems for example studies how a time of day dependent of growth hormones which reaches its maximum and cortisol a minimum at around 1 am².

These changes are associated with two different situations, one medical and one related with academic performances.

From a medical perspective, aging is associates with sleep problems, including earlier awakening and a decrease of sleep patterns, mainly finding problems to consolidate sleep during the night⁵.

With this is mind is clear it can be explained an academic situation that many students suffer: sleep difficulties affect the way their learnings are consolidated. For example Pincher and Walters⁷, studied the performance of 44 students who had to complete the Watson-Glaser-Critical Thinking Appraisal after either 24 hours of sleep deprivation or approximately 8 hours of sleep. In this study, after completing the cognitive task, participants with sleep deprivation performed significantly worse than the non-deprived participants. Other studies have found very similar results even using different tests^8-12.

All these studies show a relationship between sleep and academic performance and most of studies have focused on medicine students¹² since they have the worst problems about morningness-eveningness so it’s easy to see the influence on learning, particularly of college students.

However, another issue must be add to this puzzle, It seems there is a relationship between age and activities and how they push to persons to create more and more gaps between sleep timing on workdays and weekends which is knows as social jetlag which can be described as the discrepancy between work and free days, this means a difference between social and biological time, leading to a considerable sleep debt ¹⁴.

The term social jetlag was coined in 2006 by researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, who wanted to know the effects caused by differences between person’s internal biological clocks and the social clock time.

This social jetlag has been of course related with poor academic performances, and some studies like the one conduced by Haraszti, Ella, Gyöngyösi, Roenneberg, and Káldi¹⁵ suggests than circadian misalignment can have a significant negative effect on academic performance and they suggest that this is socially enforced.

Considering all these factors, education has much more to considerate for a successful environment to most of students. Late schedules to   older students based on their chronotype, and of course personal habits that can be broken easily with social activities effect how learning can be performance.

References

1.                Harfmann, BD., Schroder, EA., Esser, KA. (2014) Circadian Rhythms, the molecular clock, and skeletal muscle. Journal of Biological Rhythms. doi: 10.1177/0748730414561638

2.   Roenneberg, T., Kuehnle, T., Pramstaller, PP., Ricken, J., Havel, M., Guth, A., Merrow, M. (2004) A marker for the end of adolescence. Current Biology, 14(24) R1038-R1039.

3.   Randle, C. (2010) Age and gender differences in morningness-eveningness during adolescence. Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 172(3) 302-308.

4.   Van der Vinne, V., Zerbin, G., Siersemat, A., Pieper, A., Merrow, M., Hut, RA., Roenneberg, T., Kantermann, T. (2014) Timing examinations affects school performance differently in early and ate chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms. doi: 10.1177/0748730414564786

5.   Duffy, J., Czeisler, CA. (2002) Age-related change in the relationship between circadian period, circadian phase, and diurnal preference in humans. Neuroscience letters, 318(3) 117-120.

6.   Buboltz, WC., Brown, F., Soper, B. (2001) Sleep habits and patters of college students: A preliminary study. Journal of American College Health, 50(3) 131-135

7.   Pincher, JJ., & Walters, AS. (2007) How sleep deprivation affects psychological variables related to college students’ cognitive performance. Journal of American College Health. 46 (3)121-126.

8.   Curcio, G., Ferrara, M., De Gennaro, L.(2006) Sleep loss, learning capacity and academic performance, Sleep Medicine Reviews.10(5) 323-337.

9.   Woltson, AR., Carskadon, MA. (2003) Understanding adolescent’s sleep patterns and school performance: a critical appraisal. Sleep Medicine Reviews 7(6) 491-506.

10.                Pilcher, J., Ginter, DR., Sadowsky, B. (1997) Sleep quality versus sleep quantity: Relationships between sleep and measures health, well-being and sleepiness in college students.  Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 42(6) 583-596.

11.                Randler, C.,  & Frech, D. (2006) Correlation between morningness-eveningness and final school leaving exams. Biological Rhythm Research, 37(3) 233-239.

12.                Medeiros, ALD., Mendes, DBF., Lima, P., & Araujo, JF. (2001) The relationship between sleep-wake cycle and academic performance in medical students. Biological Rhythm Research, 32(2) 263-270.

13.                Haraszti, RA., Ella, K., Gyöngyösi, N., Roenneberg, T., and Káldi, K. (2014) Social jetlag negatively correlates with academic performance in undergraduates. Chronobiology International, 31(5) 603-612.

14.                Wittman,, M., Dinich, J., Merrow, M., Roenneberg, T. (2006) Social Jetlag: Misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiology international, 23(2) 497-509.

15.                Haraszti, RA., Ella, K., Gyöngyösi, N., Roenneberg, T., and Káldi, K. (2014) Social jetlag negatively correlates with academic performance in undergraduates. Chronobiology International, 31(5) 603-612.

 Note: All images were taken from internet

The search for talent: the Holy Grail

There is a  common idea,  noticeable from psychologists and educational experts, about put  labels to learners and give them a place in an imaginary continuous line that cluster outstanding skills in the right side and educational needs at the left side.

If it's looked the continuum, everybody at the left or right requires special education or supports, and at this case, it must be admitted that not everyone learns the same way. But a second glance, suggests that all who are in the middle of the curve, have no problem.

Certainly there is no more pride for  parents that their child can be declared as gifted, while there is no greater grief than when someone tells them that their child will not be able to learn more than  few skills. The rest of the parents clean the sweat when their stems are declared as normal, not having this any other implication beyond what a psychologist says.

Going deep into this subject, there is much more that experts do not report.

The forward of the book La educación de niños con talento en Iberoamerica (Education of gifted children at Ibero-America) opens saying, "All people are entitled to receive an education that develops their full potential and allow them to build a life plan" (Benavides, Maz, Castro and White, 2004).

With  this idea, then it is clear that those who are at  the left side of the  curve would have the opportunity to develop skills while those who have the right side can not move beyond, since they know more than anybody else, they have reached the maximum their abilities based on scales of talent.

The text describes programs, ideas and notes about  how to work with  talented children in several countries, but if these children are the greatest intellectual achievement, is it possible to teach even more?.

The talent from psychology

In the purest psychometric eagerness has been measured the intelligence and the possible capabilities, searching to find those common features on the continuum of the curve of intelligence. For those who are at the left, it was assumed that lack the intellectual, emotional or social skills to relate with those who are at the center of the continuum (Winner, 1998; Artigas Pallares, 2003, Martos and Help 2004). While those who are at the right have a high intellectual capacities measured with psychometric instruments (Pendarvis, Howley & Howley, 1990; Lohman, 2000; Lohman, Korb and Lakin, 2008). But they lack the emotional skills to adapt to those who have left or center of the continuum (Genovard and Castello, 1990; Freeman, 2005; Freeman, 2008; Freeman, 2010).

But not everything that intelligence tests measure is useful to adapting to the environment: for example there are important aspects of the real-world intelligence that are not considerate. On the other hand there is a debate if that perspective is confusing intelligence with rationality, issues that do not necessarily go hand by hand (Stanovich, 2009). That's why even the smartest people can do things that are considered irrationals. At the same time, psychometric tests forget an important feature of the brain: emotions (Freeman, 2008). This aspect has been widely documented as the primary difficulty in children considered talented.

Stanovich (2009) shows that there are features such as divergent thinking or aspects of the  everyday life that have nothing to do with what psychological tests measure, moreover, when students have the opportunity  to reply  to problems, it may surprise to expertise researchers, for example, when gifted children can talk to  others about science and feel good by providing creative answers, beyond which we have assumed is the only one correct answer ( Freeman, 2003), or when a child, considered with limited capacity, achieved a task for which he or she has worked for several hours. And  those that are supposed are  the differences, actually are the result of the brain architecture, which is molded with repetition and experimenting with  the environment  (Manaut-Gil-Casares Vaquero, Quintero-Gallego, Pérez-Santamaría, Gomez-Gonzalez, 2004).

Thus, from the speech of educational experts that sounds so melodious, the obvious question is: IF "All persons are entitled to receive an education that develops their full potential and allow them to build their project of life", Why is segmented the continuum?, Why can we have only one position?, Why can't be together?, maybe to create an elite education?.

From the standpoint of Renzulli (1978) the differences between the continuum are not only concentrated in one area as many authors propose (Parra, Ferrando, Prieto and Sanchez, 2005; Rogers, 2006; Valadez Sierra, Betancourt Berbena Morejon and Zavala, 2006) they are determined from different skills set out in three areas: high intelligence, creativity and involvement in the task.

Can a child with Down syndrome or Asperger be creative?, If your reply at the speed of light that does not, then please do not continue reading this article,  you are not creative. Creativity involves providing innovative responses to common problems. And it's not a mystery that daily work requires creativity and divergent thinking abilities, however, this is not developed at educational institutions at basic or higher level (Solomon, 2007).

Considering its capacity, each new brain must be trained to grow from environmental stimulation; a process that needs decades and each person must discover for itself all skills needed to be employed on that journey called Life (Tubino, 2004). And it doesn't depend of any curricula or educative legislation.

Accepting that the human brain still evolving (Fox, 2011), depends on synaptic communication, the development of structures and protein exchanges neurotransmitters (Haier, 2009), makes learning a more complex issue than just locate someone on one side or the other of an imaginary line, and open a door to understand that learning is not something that can be X-rayed by a test applied at a specific time.

Neuroscience research suggests that human abilities depend on the neural network architecture, which is related to the space where the brain develops, as it is confined to the skull, shaping each structure in a particular way, some areas can be over-exposed to stimuli preventing the development of other areas, under two assumptions: the law of survival of the fittest and its use related with environmental responses (Roberts, Anderson, Husain, 2010). So that it’s not possible to talk about standardized education and less, support the idea that everyone learns the same way.

And it must be added the fact that there are other actors in education, research showing that success in the case of gifted children, has a big support of maternal scaffolding, that makes the difference between passing from a skill to another (Morrisey, 2011) and the same from mother of children with developmental disorders, since they are who promote socialization skills in their kids, if there is any doubt, it's only needed one question:  who did teach you how keep attention while reading?.

Talent does not equal intelligence

The talent or giftedness refers to that ability or skill set which has a particular facility (Prado Suarez, 2006), but the definition of any author, never says that it is restricted to the fine arts or science or sports. If so, where do entrepreneurial talent, or create or play video games fall?.

Intelligence is adaptation to the environment (Genovard and Castello, 1990; VanTassel-Baska, Xuemei Feng, Brown, Bracken, Stambaugh, French, McGowan, Worley, Quek and Bai, 2008), an action that requires talent. Though not necessarily arrive together, this worth mentioning, for example that as highlighted in the Savant, which is a developmental disorder that is part of the autistic spectrum. Main feature of this syndrome is that people can have a widely talent developed at the same time a profound intellectual difficulty (Winner, 1998).

Thus, it is argued that the provision of skills of each person, although it has a genetic aspect, at the same time depends on environmental stimulation (Willard-Holt, 2008).  Every one can have a special talent for playing the piano in an extraordinary way, but if you never had a piano in front, the talent can not be developed. That's why experience shapes capacities that will be most useful. However, genetic damage as those presented in the development disorders also shape brain structure.

Brain studies reveal that the patterns of gray and white matter and metabolic efficiency may delineate individual differences related to intelligence. That's why the smartest brains work differently (not better) in the strongest areas that has a better domain (Haier, 2009).

What structures will be more developed?, those that are  used more frequently, and that is because of the skills that create, cause more satisfaction in completing tasks. That feeling of: I can do it (Prado Suarez, 2006). However, under the law of the strongest, the strengthened  structures, will push and eventually block the development of the  other less useful  (Haier, 2009) which is why you can not be expert in everything, because the skills will be permeated by the use and management of them.

In the case of arithmetic, it’s found that the frontal lobe is more involved in this activity, and also opens the path to memory processes and analytical thinking (Serra-Grabulosa, Pérez-Pàmies, Lachica, Membrives, 2010), Even though, a good mathematician not necessarily is a good writer of poetry or have social skills. Einstein maybe is a good example.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that the differences in the continuum that psychologists have called intelligence, is simply due to the cytoarchitecture of the brain and that it results from interactions, and this determines the capabilities that each possesses. Starting from the extreme neuronal flexibility that, that which is not known today, can be learned from the appropriate teaching strategy, which may be different for each depending on experience.

Under the motto: “Everyone is entitled to receive an education that develops their full potential and allow them to build their project to life", there shouldn’t be distinction what side of that continuum is, left, right or in the middle, all people have the ability to build a life project, based on their own abilities and who is not able to tie your shoes, you may have the ability to paint pretty colorless pictures.

Academic skills are not the only ones that are valid in life; there are also artistic and sporting activities. There are sports stars, who have not reached higher education, but they have adapted to environmental needs and above all, they are happy.

Under this idea, the separation of the continuum although it may have educational benefits, it makes no sense neuro cognitively, and that all people have the right to find a place in life, a happy childhood and successful adulthood.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

References

Artigas Pallarés, J. (2003) Perfiles cognitivos de la inteligencia límite. Fronteras del retraso mental. Rev Neurol. 36 (supl 1) S161-S167.

Benavides, M., Maz, A., Castro, E. y Blanco, R. (2004) La educación del niños con talento en Iberoamérica. UNESCO/Trineo SA. Chile.

Fox, D. (2011) The limits of intelligence. Scientific American. 305 (1) 36- 43.

Freeman, J. (2010) Worldwide provision to develop gifts and talents: an international survey. CfBT Education Trust. UK.

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How does our brain learn?

This was written with special dedication to Valeria Galván Celis

Everything is in our brain, when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING! From our dreams, our talent, our future, our ideas, our perception of love and pain, and the way we learn. The Brain is the only one item shared by any human being on this planet, no matter the color of our skin, socio-economic condition, culture or age.

The way we walk, understand the world, write, how we learn, our perception of life is regulated by infinite processes based on electric and chemical impulses, effect of proteins, hormones and genes.

While some researches are focus on cure and prevent brain diseases like Parkinson, Alzheimer or understanding the neurodevelopment process, some others are searching how to build a brain, for example the Human Brain Project and the Blue Brain Project leaded by Henry Markham, professor of Neuroscience, whose laboratory is located in the Swiss Federal Institute of Lausanne, who will spend one billion Euros trying to unlock the secrets of consciousness, by using data to trace electronic signals between the neurons (Honigsbaum, 2013).

One of the many goals is using all this knowledge about the brain into schools, creating programs based on brain to help children with or without disabilities to learn better, faster and more effectively. Many authors believe that is possible to “teach” our brain to respond in a particular way, and of course, science fiction has ignited this idea and we can learn everything with a click and finish with the huge differences between gift and mental retarded children.

For good or bad, things are not so easy. Our brain learns in an unknown way. Why can some children understand numbers or science?, why are some children wonderful singers?, what is the difference among talent and passion for learning?

These questions began to bother me some years ago, when I saw children with disabilities. Brain scans showed a perfect brain, but these kids were not capable to speak or follow simple orders. If they have a perfect brain, was there another factor?, where was the problem?

As neuroscientist, I began studying brains; I was capable to explain specific structures related with a particular process (Dzib Goodin, 2013a), if a teacher asks me why a child cannot read, I can explain the process that the brain needs to focus on something so complex, but I could not explain why a specific child does not read.

After some frustrations, my position changed, the brain was the receptor of the stimuli in the environment, all information comes from outside our brain, so what are we putting in it?. The question was not how do we learn? But how did learning process arrived to our brains? (Dzib Goodin, 2013b).

This question takes us to a long and challenged road called evolution. Our brains are the current version of natural prototypes. More time we spend on this planet, new needs must be solved; for example to read these lines, you need eyes and ears.

Reading process is a combination of a sound (identification of sounds of alphabet) and pictures (every letter has a different shape, let’s think that most of alphabets have capital and lowercase letters).

Auditory system is a combination of mechanic and neural impulses; our current prototype has needed to design a perfect relationship between tiny bones and hair cells capable to send information to a nerve and then the brain. We have learned to distinguish between sounds in the environment, music, and language, but not only that, we are efficient to determinate the place of the object of emission, intensity and decide if it's a dangerous/friendly sound. Why? because as specie during long time  humans tried to survive from predators.

Image from: Chitka, L., Brockman, A (2005) Perception Space - The final Frontier. Plos Biology. Available at: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0030137

Let’s think for a second, hearing sounds is not enough to survive in the middle of the night with all kind of hunger creatures, we needed eyes. Let’s keep on mind that during many years we were not humans, we were in the ocean, with not enough light to see, so that eye began needing only systems to see in the dark, and we still need them, or we couldn’t see during the night, those cells are called rods.

Eventually, those primitive eyes had to adapt to light, so those eyes needed new cells, we began to see light, that eye began to see colors, and we needed so much that currently we can see colors between 400 to 650 nanometers and that amazing difference needed maybe few hundred thousands years (Nilsson and Pelger, 1994). Inhuman specie’s case, when the fire was discovered, we had to adapt to a wider range of colors, we add yellow and red to our palette, and this means we were capable to distinguish green fruits to mature fruits.

These two systems, hearing and sight, learned to work together, so when we hear a noise our eyes search that noise…but that’s not all!, we needed a neck to support that movement. Movement is another amazing complex process, because species had to move to survive, some mammals like chipmunks or rabbits have to move fast to avoid to be someone’s dinner, but humans had to move to find a better place to live, find food and care babies. Let's add to all those skills the need of moving  our eyes to focus on an objects.

One more step was necessary to be able to read, maybe I should say another BIG step: after creating a language, based on sounds, we had to learn to recognize those sounds, just like a baby does it, and after that, humans create alphabets, this means we could seethose sounds. That coordination between learning the sounds and see them, is not natural to our brain, because this is a new skill to our specie, and even though it has existed since thousands of years, not all persons had access to reading and writing, this has been a recent addition to our neo cortex. This is the reason many persons, even in college have problems with spelling. Who doesn’t have a spelling mistake now and then? This is because we must coordinate two systems, we write as we hear, but words not always can be written following the sound.

Of course learning process is amazingly complex. I am sure Henry Markham will spend more than a decade trying to build a brain, if we think that nature has needed thousands of years, maybe millions, 10 years is a very optimistic agenda, specially with a system than never stop adapting to new environments. 45 years ago only few had access to computers, and we continue adding features, every 2 or 3 years another update surprises us. Nature has much more updates, now we can walk on a crowdie street, avoiding cars and other persons and check Facebook at the same time. Some of us won’t create a coordinated system fast enough, and others continue trying.

Can we teach to our brains? I don’t think so, I wouldn’t spend time or money in that direction, we must enrich our environments to create new skills, because at the end, our brain was designed to answer to the environment and adapt, creating new and more sophisticated strategies, like the simple act of reading.

References:

Blue Brain Project EPFL. Available at: http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/

Dzib Goodin, A. (2013a) La arquitectura cerebral como responsible del proceso de aprendizaje.  Revista Mexicana de Neurociencia. 14(2): 81-85.

Dzib Goodin, A.  (2013b) La evolución del aprendizaje: más allás de las redes neuronales. Revista Chilena de Neuropsicología. 8(1): 20-25.

Honisgbaum, M. (2013) Human Brain Project: Henry Markram plans to spend €1bn building a perfect model of the human brain.

Human Brain Project. Available at: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/

Lamb, TD. (2011) Evolution of eye. Scientific American. Available at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evolution-of-the-eye/

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Nilsson DE., Pelger, S. (1994) A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Science .256(1345)53-58.