How You Can Improve Your Child’s Brain Function

Should my child with a learning disability attempt to improve brain functioning or try to survive through core academic subjects?

This is such an important question for the future of that child. Another way to reframe the question would be, “do I focus on trying to get my child through an academic curriculum with extensive supports?”, or “give them improved neurological functioning for increased independent functioning?”

If your child has been diagnosed with learning disabilities such as Dyslexia, Dsycalculia or Dysgraphia (Reading, Math or Written Expression Disorders) then they have brain-based neurological deficits. That is the likely reason they are struggling to acquire these achievement skills. There is a lot of research that points to specific cortical and brain network deficits in functioning as a cause for these disabilities.

What is critical to point out is that these large-scale brain networks are also involved in planning, organizing, memoryiv, decision making, reasoningv, attention, social skills, emotional regulation and self- awareness capabilities.Thus, if one has dyslexia it is likely you also have working memory deficits, attention control problems, possible social skills deficits, and reasoning problems when it comes to reading comprehension and math problem solving, to name a few additional issues faced by your child other than just sounding out letters to read words. 

The brain is complex and so is your child’s struggles. If your child struggles to decode words, it is more common than not that they will also struggle with some of the issues noted above as they progress in school. Two children diagnosed with a reading disorder will have some similar yet unique cognitive deficits that will results in highly specific learning related problems.

Large-Scale Brain Networks

Your child moves through their environment taking in sensory information. The brain has developed over thousands of years to sense, attend to, process, memorize and understand sensory stimuli.

For example, when your child first observes a bird they see it, hear it, might feel it (poor bird), possibly smell it, and then relate that bird to all the other birds they might come across.

Your child’s brain must see patterns or relationships between the various birds observed to understand complex relationships. Their brain has unique cortices to process sensory information and then what one calls association areas to integrate or relate this information to each other.

Various sensory information is moved in the brain through networks to these association areas. It is a complex task, and if these cortices are not connected effectively then uncertainty or confusion would arise. These association areas are theorized by some neuroscientist to hold our sense of self-awareness or consciousness.

Now place a child with dyslexia, who most likely has large-scale brain network connectivity problemsx, in a classroom to learn a core academic subject like social studies. In specialized schools for learning disabilities one may have small class sizes.

If you are a parent of a child with a learning disability you need to be aware that large-scale brain networks and their proper connectivity is key to educational attainment and mental health. 

The Arrowsmith Program is changing large-scale brain networks by increasing their connectivity. Problems with brain network functioning is being observed on achievement and behavioural measures that cause school failure.

We highly recommend improving brain network connectivity before engaging in an intensive core curriculum program. If a child with a learning disability has a brain that struggles to communicate within and between brain regions, thereby making attention, planning, organizing, memory and reasoning problematic why not address this issue head on, first. 

In short, improve brain network connectivity, and then challenge it with curriculum.