Homeschooling and Cognitive Enhancement Programs

Howard Eaton, Founder and Director of Eaton Arrowsmith, shares insights on the growing trend of homeschooling and the role of cognitive enhancement programs in supporting student success.

It is estimated that there are nearly 3.7 million homeschooled students in the United States and 100,000 in Canada. In the province of British Columbia, there are estimated to be between 10,000 to 12,000 homeschoolers. 

Reasons for Homeschooling

Parents choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons. Some parents want to create a personalized education for their child. Others worry about academic standards or socialization. There are also children who have important extracurricular needs, such as sports and acting, which require a homeschooling option due to travel or training. Then there are about 15% who have children with special needs. These parents are often looking to individualize instruction, manage the pace of the curriculum, customize the learning environment, and hopefully reduce stress and anxiety in their child.

Support from Professionals

Many of these families are supported through the work of professionals involved in assessing children and teenagers for learning difficulties. A team of psychologists might conduct psycho-educational assessments to determine why a child is struggling in school. A full battery of cognitive and achievement testing would take place, and a profile would emerge that would be shared with the family. Reading and spelling weaknesses would be addressed either through specialized private tutoring or by the parents themselves getting trained in a highly structured language remediation program like Orton-Gillingham, Lindamood-Bell, or Wilson Reading Program, to name a few. Math weaknesses would also be addressed either by the parent or a tutor. 

Addressing Cognitive Weaknesses

For the cognitive weaknesses, the recommendation was often to avoid them at all costs. Families were encouraged to find ways to compensate or accommodate these cognitive weaknesses. The cognitive strengths would be highlighted repeatedly. The child would be told they have these excellent cognitive strengths, and they could use them one day in a career. The goal was to reframe the thinking of that child from one of having deficits to one of having gifts that could be used in life. Hope was the focus. Ignoring the cognitive deficits was the plan.

Evolving Assessment Practices

The follow-up psycho-educational assessment meetings might now explore how a child can improve their cognitive weaknesses that are resulting in their academic and often social difficulties. Programs that improve neurological functioning would be reviewed and recommended. The assessment would note that the child’s current cognitive profile will change over time as they engage in cognitive training over the next few years. A child might be diagnosed with a learning disability today, but in a few years, due to improved cognitive capacities, show no learning disability profile.

Cognitive Training Programs Available

Today, parents who homeschool their children are presented with quite a few brain training programs online. A simple search for “homeschooling and brain training” reveals quite a few options to explore. Searching “homeschooling brain training programs” might yield recommendations such as Lumosity, Cogmed, Fast ForWord, BrainWare Safari, Learning Rx, and CogNeuro. Over the last nineteen years, the Arrowsmith Program has been implemented at schools in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Redmond, Washington.

The Arrowsmith Program

Since the pandemic, the online Arrowsmith Program option has been popular with homeschooling families now familiar with the concept of growth mindset, brain change, neuroplasticity, and cognitive improvement. This is particularly the case with parents who have children with learning disabilities, ADHD, and autism without intellectual disability. What is unique about the Arrowsmith Program online option is that each child works with a cognitive instructor during their sessions. This is often not the case with other cognitive training programs.

Why Parents Choose Cognitive Training

Why are parents looking for cognitive training programs for their child? These are usually parents who are well-informed as to why their child is struggling to learn. They understand cognitive weaknesses and recognize that research has discovered that the brain can change. Cognitive weaknesses with reasoning, attention, processing speed, and memory can improve with targeted, highly structured, and progressively challenging tasks. Parents understand that if these cognitive weaknesses improve, their child can become an independent learner and not rely on the skill of a parent, teacher, or tutor to pass on knowledge exclusively. Emotional health is partly based on having good cognitive processing capacity.

Encouragement for Homeschooling Parents

Homeschooling parents are encouraged to look at cognitive training programs. This is especially the case if a child struggles with independent learning and requires constant repetition to understand concepts. There doesn’t necessarily need to be an identified disability. Indeed, all children can boost their neurological functioning through high-quality cognitive training programs.