learning disabilities

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

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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.

Even though bio­log­i­cal fac­tors are wide­ly regard­ed as impor­tant in the devel­op­ment of ADHD, no med­ical or bio­log­i­cal test is rec­om­mend­ed for rou­tine use when diag­nos­ing ADHD. Instead, [Read more…] about Why Being Young for Grade Increas­es Odds of ADHD Diag­no­sis and Stim­u­lant Medication

Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain

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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 the same time. Grow­ing up, I had severe learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties. I lived in a world that was con­fus­ing and incom­pre­hen­si­ble. As I was to lat­er dis­cov­er, a crit­i­cal part of my brain was not work­ing prop­er­ly, the end result being that all lan­guage was expe­ri­enced as for­eign and my trans­la­tor was [Read more…] about Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain

Unlocking Dyslexia in Japanese

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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 Chi­nese, in which char­ac­ters rep­re­sent com­plete words or ideas, than they [Read more…] about Unlock­ing Dyslex­ia in Japanese

The Inner Savant In All of Us

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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 autism and savant syn­drome he has reg­u­lar­ly appeared on pro­grams such as 60 Min­utes, Oprah, Today, CBS Evening News and many oth­ers. Dr. Tre­f­fert was a tech­ni­cal con­sul­tant to the award-win­ning movie Rain Man that made “autis­tic savant” house­hold terms and he main­tains a very pop­u­lar web­site at www.savantsyndrome.com host­ed by the Wis­con­sin Med­ical Society.

Dr. Tre­f­fert was gra­cious enough to have a wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion with me. Over the course of a few days, we had a delight­ful time chat­ting about autism, savan­tism, genius, nature, nur­ture, intel­li­gence, cre­ativ­i­ty, lessons learned, recent advances, and the future.[…] In my view, this inter­view demon­strates quite clear­ly the need for more com­pas­sion and research on all dif­fer­ent kinds of minds and ways of achiev­ing great­ness. In this sev­enth part, we dis­cussed the inner savant in all of us.

SCOTT: A com­mon theme run­ning through­out your books is the idea that hid­den brain poten­tial and mem­o­ry capac­i­ty may lie buried and dor­mant with­in each of us. [Read more…] about The Inner Savant In All of Us

Announcing Sponsors and Partners: 2011 SharpBrains Summit

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We are hon­ored to announce the fol­low­ing Spon­sors and Part­ners of the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tu­ry (March 30th — April 1st, 2011). And we are look­ing for more, so please con­tact us if inter­est­ed! [Read more…] about Announc­ing Spon­sors and Part­ners: 2011 Sharp­Brains Summit

Using Brain Plasticity to help Children with Learning Disabilities

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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 an excerpt from Brain School: Sto­ries of chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and atten­tion dis­or­ders who changed their lives by improv­ing their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing (Novem­ber 2010; $22), a new book from Eaton Arrow­smith School’s (EAS) founder and direc­tor, Howard Eaton. It tells the sto­ry of how chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties (dyslex­ia, ADHD, etc.) can over­come edu­ca­tion­al obsta­cles by reor­ga­niz­ing their brains. An inspir­ing book about how cog­ni­tive pro­grams can result in both aca­d­e­m­ic and social suc­cess.  [Read more…] about Using Brain Plas­tic­i­ty to help Chil­dren with Learn­ing Disabilities