Barbara is one of Malcolm Gladwell`s outliers.In spite of having the scientific community dead against her,she marches on believing without a doubt that what she is doing is extremely important and valuable.

I was reading on a post from the Canadian Literacy Network yesterday that according to their stats10 percent of the population has learning disabilities and of the 10 percent,80 percent have a difficulty in language processing difficulties that affects a cluster of one or more of this list,dysgraphia,auditory processing,dyslexia..these affect both reading and spelling.

Seeing as we know that a half a billion dollar gold standard study by the NICHD has stated the optimal ways of conquering these difficulties,Dr.Sally Shaywitz even did MRI imaging at Yale to show pictures of the brain before and after phonological awareness training,it seems she is going against the grain of the research community.
http://www.eatonarrowsmithschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Eaton-Review-of-Siegel-2003-Arrowsmith-Program-Evaluation.pdf

Barbara is either a hero or someone fiercely invested
in her own legacy and success.

It takes a little more for some children to learn than what public educational institutions are willing to offer…

The Arrowsmith School

http://www.arrowsmithschool.org/arrowsmithschool-toronto/index.html

Very interesting indeed.

I recently met a person who prior to being in a catastrophic car accident had a eidetic memory and extraordinary visualization and logic capabilities. Here job was as a software architect.  After the accident, for 24 months she had severe motor difficulties as well as not being able to speak. Like Barbara Arrowsmith, the person was provided with a diagnostic that defined a likely future that would not include speaking or normal mobility.

Today, this person walks and talks very well though the eidetic memory is lost. To an observer, one would never know this person was had any handicaps. To this day, this person has taught their brain to discretely control speech and movement on a deliberate basis.  Neuro-plasticity is hardly understood outside the laboratory environment.  From Barbara’s experience, it is clearly an approach which could fit very nicely withing the normal learning context if the human resources were applied to it.

The Arrowsmith program is meant to improve the cognitive weaknesses of children to adults, so learning becomes easier. A byproduct of it, learning to read, write and do numeracy becomes easier for both students and teachers. Working memory improves, ergo - learning improves. All of a sudden, a child with low phonemic awareness has an easier time to remembered the sounds, and is more capable of sounding out words. I leave it to Scientific American to explain - http://projects.ecfs.org/pchurch/ATBiology/Papers2012/WhyWeCheat.pdf

Starting on page 39 - Calisthenics For The Mind and other articles of interest in relationship to learning.

“The extent to which children can overcome
intellectual deficits or raise their IQ through mental calisthenics is largely unknown. Although data suggest that the training can be useful, it does not
always work. In addition, researchers are only now beginning to explore whether the measured gains in their thinking skills translate into academic achievement.
Still, many scientists and educators now believe that with the proper tools, students can increase their intellectual capacity—an idea that could transform lives.”

“School….. It does not do these things in part because people assumed those basics of the brain were immovable.”

“One critical lever on intellect is working memory. Various cognitive skills depend on this mental scratchpad. Attention, in particular, entails mentally taking note of important information. “If you can’t hold a plan in mind, you’ll get distracted,” says cognitive neuroscientist Torkel Klingberg of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.”

As you can see, much of the research is still in its infancy. A child with reading difficulties also has weaker cognitive processes at play compared to the child with the near prefect cognitive processes. Learning to read will not correct the student’s problem with reading clocks or knowing her left from her right or bumping in the doorways and other related problems that affects learning. Brain training is very much needed in the public education system, as well as effective reading instruction and other practices that will help students to learn easily. In the Scientific American article, it concludes - “Yet science does increasingly suggest that the brain is far more supple than we once assumed. Eventually the educational community may decide that the data support the adding of at least a dollop of brain fitness to children’s usual scholastic fare.”

In January/2013 - the Globe and Mail - “As for taking a leap into new territory: “Any time there’s a shift in an approach or way of thinking,” she says, “there’s going to be resistance.”  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/brain/can-a-controversial-learning-program-transform-brains/article7871918/

2012 article - “When Barbara Arrowsmith-Young started her research into neuroplasticity the idea was somewhat controversial. How could performing neural exercises in one area help you to improve in other areas altogether?”  http://vancouvermom.ca/for-kids/guides/a-different-kind-of-back-to-school-barbara-arrowsmith-young/

A Huffington Post article - 2013 - Arrowsmith on Mental Health - “Conditions have improved somewhat since I was in school as a learning-disabled youth, but a lack of understanding and tolerance seems to remain. People with learning disabilities are commonly criticized or even dismissed….”  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/barbara-arrowsmithyoung/canadian-mental-health-week_b_3224386.html

As a parent, I was mocked at the home-made cognitive exercises that was made by the materials at hand and the internet. Three months later, no educator especially from the school board was mocking me - steady improvements in handwriting, short term memory improvements, mental arithmetic, and other improvements that facilitates easier learning that leads to higher achievement. I copied some of the techniques of Barbara Arrowsmith- Young and others from researchers in Israel. You be surprised what a bouncing yoga ball does for studying for a test or a quiz….......especially when the child has LD. Or even chewing gum to keep the brain focus…....

In a Jewish publication - “What is the Arrowsmith methodology based on? What are its limitations? Why is it so popular among Orthodox Jews? And how does it achieve the success alleged by enamored parents and educators?”  http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/381/Olympic-Training-for-the-Brain-The-Arrowsmith-Revolution