Why Being Young for Grade Increases Odds of ADHD Diagnosis and Stimulant Medication

ADHD is the most com­mon­ly diag­nosed neu­robe­hav­ioral dis­or­der in chil­dren and sub­stan­tial evi­dence indi­cates that bio­log­i­cal fac­tors play an impor­tant role in its devel­op­ment. For exam­ple, although the exact mech­a­nism by which genet­ic fac­tors con­vey increased risk for ADHD remains unclear, the impor­tance of genet­ic trans­mis­sion has been doc­u­ment­ed in a num­ber of pub­lished studies.…

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Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain

We have always thought that “our brain shapes us.” I wrote my new book, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain (May 2012; Free Press, Fore­word by Nor­man Doidge), to prove that the reverse is equal­ly true. I want­ed to demon­strate how “we can shape our brains.” Imag­ine hav­ing a brain that is capa­ble and inca­pable at…

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Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese

Great arti­cle in the Wall Street Jour­nal today: Unlock­ing Dyslex­ia in Japan­ese. Quotes: — “Expe­ri­ences like that of the Lun­days are pro­vid­ing sci­en­tists and edu­ca­tors with clues about how peo­ple with dyslex­ia learn and how best to teach them. Researchers have long observed that some dyslex­i­cs have an eas­i­er time with lan­guages like Japan­ese and…

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The Inner Savant In All of Us

Darold Tre­f­fert, M.D. is con­sid­ered one of the fore­most experts on savan­tism in the world. Dr. Tre­f­fert has pub­lished two books on savant syn­drome: “Extra­or­di­nary Peo­ple: Under­stand­ing Savant Syn­drome” in 2006 and “Islands of Genius: The Boun­ti­ful Mind of the Autis­tic, Acquired and Sud­den Savant” in 2010. […] In his efforts to raise pub­lic under­stand­ing about…

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Using Brain Plasticity to help Children with Learning Disabilities

Did you read The Brain That Changes Itself: Sto­ries of Per­son­al Tri­umph from the Fron­tiers of Brain Sci­ence, the great book on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty by Nor­man Doidge? If  so, you will have heard about the Arrow­smith School/ Pro­gram, which was also one of the Top Ten Final­ists in 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.  The fol­low­ing is…

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