Arrowsmith in Brisbane!

The very good news is that the Shaping Brains Project of The Benevolent Society has now signed up for the Arrowsmith program at the Acacia Ridge Early Years Centre. The program will be for children - but for adults too!  Sheryl Batchelor emailed me with her exciting news a few days before she went to Toronto for her training.  She will be starting the candidate selection process when she comes back.

I'm sooo hoping that A-One will be a suitable candidate.

I chose my time to tell him about the program coming to Brisbane, because he hadn't shown any enthusiasm for it when I've raised it with him before.

Mum: A-One, you remember the Arrowsmith program? Well, it's now going to be available in Brisbane.

A-One: Well, I won't be going.

Mum: I think it could help change your life.  Even though we don't know that for absolute certainty, I still think it's the best thing that I've seen that could help you.  You could start thinking about a sound engineer course at TAFE or even something else if you wanted to.  The program could help you to learn and to write more easily - to be able to handle a course so much better than when you were at school.

A-One: It's not necessary.

Sisters: So what are you going to do if you don't do this?

Mum ... and Dad: You know the people who usually do the course are just normal, intelligent people. They just have some blockages in their otherwise perfectly fine brain, and they want to work to remove those blockages so that they can make the best use of the already good parts of their brain.

Grandparents:  A-One, this is very exciting for you.  You'd be at the cutting edge of a new frontier!

I think he'll come round.

Getting ready for a change ...

In the last couple of days I've sent off a few emails to others on the advocacy list for Arrowsmith, as well to a couple of educational institutions.  I've also been keeping up with the latest news from SharpBrains, and came across a reference to a free cognitive test called Brain Baseline for iPads and iPhones.  I duly went looking for it but it's only in the US Apple store, not the Australian one.  So I wrote off to them too asking when it would be available in the Australian store.

In the meanwhile I've tested myself out on the CogStateTM practice tests and think I have the hang of them now.  I've uploaded my practice results and am now working out whether the test report is useful to me, or simply to track A-One's scores in a spreadsheet myself. I'm very keen to get started with him as he seems to be losing interest in Lumosity, and I think it's time for a change. So I want to baseline him using CogStateTM, then try something else, giving Lumosity a rest for a while.

I'm very impressed with C8-Kids Cognition Cross Training, another suite of brain training exercises I came across via SharpBrains.  This one's from Yale University and has been used to treat ADHD. I like very much that a few simple games progressively incorporate training for additional cognitive functions, and progressive comprehensive reports on a student's cognitive profile are also available i.e. it combines both training and assessment.  The program also combines mental and physical training, so it's really the whole package! The program is geared to 5-10 year olds, but the interface is not too 'babyish' and adults can benefit from it too. The downside, and this is noted on their website, is that for adults any comparative assessments draw on a much smaller population, so I'm not sure how useful they'll be.

The C8 program requires that the student do 3 - 5 sessions a week ranging from 25 - 40 mins each, generally over a 4 month period.

I recall when I spoke to Sheryl Batchelor that she wondered why the Arrowsmith program needs 3-4 years when other programs show improvements over 3 months or so. I also have some niggling concerns whether A-One would qualify for the Arrowsmith program which requires students to have average or above average intelligence.  A-One's IQ is just below the average range, although when he was younger he was in the average range. Given the C8 program is used for ADHD, and A-One had been on medication for ADD when he was younger, this program might even be more suitable for him than Arrowsmith?

So, I think C8's worth a try.  It seems to match A-One's cognitive impairments, and compares in price to Lumosity.

Arrowsmith advocacy

Last week, Debbie Gilmore, the Arrowsmith program's Australian representative, distributed the email addresses of people wishing to form an advocacy group to bring an adult Arrowsmith program to Queensland.

I'm keen to work with others to see how we can progress this. To that end I've emailed the group, as has one other in the group.

The policy of the Arrowsmith organisation is to not make public the discussions they have with any educational institutions considering the program until they have formally committed to the program and/or are happy to have that made public.  Advocates are not bound by that policy because they do not represent the Arrowsmith organisation.  However, I see the prudence in adopting the same position, so in this blog I'll write only in general terms about such advocacy.

The exciting news is that two more Australian schools have now agreed to offer the program:

• Silkwood School on the Gold Coast
• Mosman Church of England Prep in Sydney

The Arrowsmith website lists both Participating Schools and Prospective Schools.

Mind Up

A few weeks ago I attended a SPELD seminar presented by Sheryl Batchelor, the Program Director of the Shaping Brains Project funded by The Benevolent Society. 

I had previously not considered SPELD for A-One because many of its clients have dyslexia, and that is one area where A-One does not have a problem.  However, I had spoken to Sheryl late last year before embarking on A-One's brain training program, when she had advised me to be careful to use only evidenced based programs, and I was keen to meet her in person.

The seminar was about the Mind Up program, developed by the Goldie Hawn Foundation, in response to the number of children suiciding after 9/11.  The program helps children manage their self-regulation. Sheryl  first came across the program when she visited the Arrowsmith school in Canada about 6 months ago.  Mind Up is incorporated into the Arrowsmith program to help students manage the frustration they may feel when trying to maintain the sustained effortful attention to brain exercises. A lack of ability to self regulate can often be a student's first learning disability.

After seeing the program first-hand, Sheryl is keen to bring the Arrowsmith program to Brisbane for primary children and adults - to enable a family approach if that's what's required. After speaking with Sheryl after her presentation I emailed her to ask how I can also help bring the Arrowsmith program to Brisbane.

The Challenge

A few days ago I was reading a SharpBrains article about whether brain training really works, and read with interest my own burning question: 'how to max­i­mize the like­li­hood of trans­fer from train­ing to daily life.'

One of the conditions is that it must target a bottleneck. 'For instance, if you need to train your exec­u­tive func­tions but use a pro­gram designed to enhance speed of pro­cess­ing, you may well con­clude that this pro­gram does not “work.” But this pro­gram may work for some­body whose bot­tle­neck is speed of pro­cess­ing ...'

Bingo.
This is the area where I have been looking lately for some professional assistance.  Where is the user's guide to online brain training, so that someone can pick the right brain training exercise for their specific area of impairment?  Even the jargon for describing cognitive capacities seems to vary between sites, or is too general, so it's not always clear which exercises match A-One's specific deficits.


To this end, I have contacted some organisations to raise the possibility of combining professional expertise with online brain training, not for general brain fitness but specifically to improve cognitive deficits, just as I am trying to do with A-One.

For example, the co-ordinator of a 'brain gym' for brain injured soldiers at Walter Reed Military Hospital in the US presented at SharpBrain's Virtual Summit last year. She described how they use readily available brain exercises based on peer reviewed neuroscience, delivered via various media - online, mobile device apps, Nintendo etc - combined with standardised neuropsych evaluations to help soldiers rehabilitate their cognitive capacities after an injury, so that it is evidence based.

It seems to me that A-One could benefit from working with others seeking to improve capacity in their areas of cognitive deficit, where each person's brain exercises are targeted to their individual bottlenecks.  I think he would benefit from the social aspects of meeting with others, as well as increased motivation to keep working at it.

I keep coming back to the initial assessment phase of the Arrowsmith program and the classroom environment for delivery, and why that has been so successful. Could there be something similar for readily available, and inexpensive, online brain training?

So I'm running a few parallel paths of activity at the moment:

• I'm contacting support organisations for people with learning disabilities or developmental or neurological deficits, with a view to joining with other parents and practitioners who have an interest in brain training to see what we could get happening for group training, especially for adults with average or above average intelligence with cognitive deficits.
• I've contacted TAFE to discuss what would be needed for TAFE to deliver the Arrowsmith program
• I have been raising awareness of the educational implications of developments in neuroscience, and the Arrowsmith program in particular.  For example, Coursera have recently announced their Continuing Professional Development program for Teachers which includes a course called The Brain-Targeted Teaching® Model for 21st Century Schools from Dr. Mariale Hardiman at John Hopkins University. I've alerted the Learning Support teacher at my daughter's school to this, and she is raising it with the school's senior admin. I also sent a link to my contact at TAFE, and the Australian Arrowsmith program as it may be a useful supplementary professional development course for teachers involved in this year's pilot in Sydney.

Both a tortoise and a hare

It's been over a week and A-One has had no calls about going back to work. Despite our urging to make contact to show his interest, he has heard nothing and has not been willing to make the phone call.

So I did.

He has been registered with a disability employment service for several years, and they found him his current job.  I spoke to his consultant.  I had wanted to call her anyway to let her know about A-One's brain training work, and to let her know how it has been going.  I also mentioned the Arrowsmith program and how I have joined an advocacy group to bring the program to Australia.  It was not one with which she was familiar.

Of most interest to me was the feedback she gave about A-One's work.  She found that A-One worked really well on some days, but was very slow on others.  He worked best when there was someone there all the time encouraging him with 'You can do it A-One'.  When there wasn't anyone there he was very easily distracted, or would do the same thing over several times when it wasn't really required.  His work buddy was able to complete the whole job sooner on his own than when they worked together and was not returning to the job. So A-One's job is on hold until they can find someone else to be his work buddy.

That certainly consolidated for me the consistency of our experience of A-One:

• at home
• his first job after he left school (Life since school)
• this job (It's all in the timing)

I spoke with A-One about it.

A-One: Why did you phone up? That's not your business!

Mum: Because Dad and I wanted to know what was going on.  We wanted some idea as to when you might be going back to work.

Mum: We're hearing again that even though you know the job very well, it's the inconsistency in your pace that is difficult for employers.  You often tell me 'I know' when I remind you about doing things, and it's clear to me that you can readily learn a job, but you need help in doing it at a consistent pace.

A-One: My work buddy probably got sick of me.

Mum: I don't know anything about that.

A-One resumed playing WOW  as I was speaking to him.

Mum: Could you take your character to a safe place and pause the game while we're talking about this?

A-One: I can listen to you while I do this.  See I'm responding to you?

Mum: That's pretty amazing seeing your auditory processing is somewhat impaired ....

Mum: Remember your cooking plan which includes the times of when to do things (It's all in the timing)?  What if you do that for other jobs so that you can do them at a more consistent pace, and improve your work prospects?  Use the clock as your friend to check things off against the time on the plan. Remember how I tell you to take note of the time when you start and finish jobs? We've been trying to tell you this, but you haven't wanted to know.

A-One: I get it Mum.





Later on A-One came downstairs and asked me which additional games he should play today.

That's a first. 

Global market report into digital health offerings

I have just received the latest newletter from SharpBrains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research and think tank track­ing health and pro­duc­tiv­ity appli­ca­tions of neu­ro­science.  In my assessment they are strongly backed by academics, and have a long list of professional articles listed on their blog, including one by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young on why she wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain.

They report on fully automated applications designed to assess, monitor and/ or enhance cognition and brain functioning.  Even though the report is available for purchase, they provide an overview which includes a list of the top vendors worldwide.  Some of the sites I'd discovered so far are listed:

• Lumos Labs is listed in the top five
• the Arrowsmith program is listed first on the list of Service-based Companies
• CogMed is listed in the list of companies to watch in 2013/14

I find it encouraging that my research has identified some quality offerings. 

Of course, my challenge has always been which programs are the right ones for A-One's specific cognitive impairments, so that his efforts in brain training translate to real improvements in his quality of life.

No writing!

I woke A-One an hour earlier this morning and let him know the time for brain training.  I mentioned that I wanted him to try some alternative problem solving games, those that did not involve arithmetic, so that we could see how his problem solving goes when it's not about maths.

He brought up the login page at my request. After he worked through the games, grumbling that whoever wrote them is mentally challenged, we looked at his results. No PBs today; in fact he went down in 3 of the games.  However his speed is now over the 50th percentile at 52.6!  Overall he is at the 16.5th percentile.

When he completed the set games, I asked him to choose one of the non-maths problem solving games.  He had a choice between shapes and words, both of which required him to discern the hidden rule. He chose the shapes.

He read the rules of the game and saying it still didn't make sense he proceeded to play anyway.  The game requires the player to guess whether a shape fits the rule or not, so the first couple of tries is trail and error to discern the rule.  However when he got a 'X' on subsequent guesses, he consistently wanted to go back to the start.

Mum: You don't need to go back to the start each time you get one wrong.

A-One: I can't get any wrong.

Mum: It doesn't matter whether you get it wrong, because that's how you find out what the rule is.

A-One: No, I can't get any wrong.

Nevertheless, he seemed to be getting the hang of it, but wouldn't play it again.  I'll be very interested to see how he goes over the next week, as long as he's willing to add the game to his daily list.

We then took up the clocks exercise to a familiar refrain. 'This is a waste of time.  I have better things to do,' as he sat down at the table.  He was willing to try 2 clocks only, taking a while to work them out and making several errors.

Mum: Where did you get the 47 (minutes) from?

A-One: It's correct!  That's what I say it is!

Mum: Let's count them up.

A-One (sighing): OK. It's 52.

After the clocks, we took the first couple of paragraphs from the Inquirer section of last weekend's The Weekend Australian.

A-One: I'm only reading as far as I want to.

...

Mum: Where did you read to?

A-One (without waiting for me to read): There.  It's saying that the government and people are spending as if nothing bad is going to happen to the economy, and the Prime Minister is saying Australia has a good economy.

Mum: OK. Now I want you to write that down.

A-One, quite vociferously: No! No! No! I'm not going to write it down!

Mum: OK.  I'm just letting you know that writing it down in your own words will be one of our future exercises.

 

 

 

Well do I remember the challenges A-One felt at writing his assignments when at school.  I recall one of his teachers wrote one of his assignments while he dictated.  She knew he knew the work and could see that writing it down was a barrier to his succeeding. This year's neuropsychologist's report also recommended something like Dragon Dictate if he needed to write assignments.

 

However, that's the compensatory approach. The Arrowsmith approach is to exercise, exercise, exercise the weak cognitive function.  I just need to find the right level of challenge so that he doesn't refuse.



5-handed clocks

With A-One being turned off the clocks exercise, I re-read Norman Doidge's summary of the Arrowsmith school approach. A-One had been zooming through the 3-handed clocks, and had elected to go straight to Legendary level for his latest X-Box game, so I thought he might respond more positively to a greater challenge.

I decided to create a page of 5-handed clocks with the hands already on them.  That meant that A-One had to read the times rather than write the times.  Where the Arrowsmith school uses 1/60th second for the 4th hand, I instead used milliseconds and microseconds on two 'sub-' clocks within the main clock, because milliseconds and microseconds have practical application. I showed them to A-One after I had printed them out, and he once again stated emphatically that he wasn't going to do them.

I let that go so that A-One could do his Lumosity training first.  I noticed that he's starting to use the 'pause' button on some of the games. Even though the image disappears during a pause, it gives him time to think.  Also for one of the games, whenever he made a mistake, instead of continuing on with the game he went back to the start each time.  So it seems to me that he is becoming 'hooked' on achieving good scores.

He's now over the 15th percentile overall, and his speed is over the 45th percentile. Memory and attention are around the 20th percentile, and flexibility a bit lower than that.  Today he went down in problem solving, to less than the 2nd percentile.  I've told him he needs to relearn his tables and number facts to improve on this one. 

When he and his sisters were young, I used to play songs of tables in the car to school every day, and once upon a time he knew them all. At school the children weren't drilled on their tables like we were when I was at school, and I don't think any of my children would have learnt their tables but for those songs. For them it seems to have been use it or lose it.





I raised the new clocks exercise again:

A-One: No! I don't need to do them! I'm not going to do them! Two hands are all you need to read a clock ... I'm going to the toilet.

Fifteen minutes later (I measured it this time), he came back to resume his computer game.

Mum: Can I just show you how these clocks work, without you doing the exercises?

A-One: Alright.

I explained a millisecond, and a microsecond.

A-One: What do you need those for?

Mum: They are usually used in science, in laboratories, and sometimes to measure how long it takes to access data on computer discs.

Using the first clock as the training example, he made an error reading the hour hand but was able to correct himself when I pointed it out.  He was willing to read the time on the second clock too.

Mum: How about the next one?

A-One: No! No more today!

Mum: How many milliseconds in a second?

A-One: 1000

Mum: How many microseconds in a millisecond?

A-One: 1000

Mum: Fantastic! You know, you're not slow in picking this up. Do you remember when you first started this only a couple of weeks ago that you didn't even know how to read the half hour? And look what you can do now! All you need is practice so that you can do it quickly. Like swimmers - most people know how to swim, but it's those who train and train who swim really fast.

By that stage I was talking to one ear - the other was already under the headset.

A random act of kindness

A-One's laptop died today.  He did his brain training in the study, drawing my attention to the cafe (memory) game where he's surging forward.  Only two PBs today, but his overall BPI is now almost at the 10th percentile for his age group, which is a good advance on when he started.

Mum: Did you have music going?

A-One: Yes, but I'm not paying attention to it.

Mum: Did the music have lyrics?

A-One: Yes.


As he was sitting at the computer, he mentioned that he gave some money to a couple yesterday near his work.

They were asking people on the street for money. From Toowoomba, they had a sick baby and were just back from the hospital. Having borrowed a car which had run out of petrol, they couldn't raise the owner. A-One gave them $10.

A-One: That was kinda like a random act of kindness wasn't it Mum?

Mum: Yes, it was, and very good of you.  Do you think they were genuine?

A-One: I don't think they were playing me, Mum.  She looked really worried. The baby was in a pram, although I didn't quite see the baby.

...

Before we started the clocks exercise we talked about a daily routine for his brain training.  He is still unwilling to agree to a set time even though he follows a pretty consistent routine from 2pm onwards: shower, pack his bag for work, eat, spare time, clean teeth, head off to the bus.

Mum: So what about setting a time for brain training?

A-One: Well, clearly it needs to be before 2pm.  But I can't say a time, because there are other things I want to do too.

Mum: How much time do you want to allow for the other things, so that we can work backwards to figure out when you need to wake up?

A-One:  I don't want to talk about this - it's wasting time.  Let's just get this over and done with so I can do other things.

He whizzed through one page and would go no further.

Forging new neural pathways requires significantly more than 20-30 minutes per day.  At this stage, if I mention the 3-4 hours per day that is spent at Arrowsmith schools, I expect I'd see the heels dig in big time.

Patience!

My regular physical exercise includes cardio and weight/resistance work.  I wonder if negotiating with A-One also gives my mind a mental workout.  My father-in-law commented once after A-One spent some holidays with them, "A-One is such a blessing. He really teaches you patience!"

After feeling despondent on Friday, I stepped back a little for A-One to choose his own time for brain training over the weekend (only Lumosity, no clocks).  In the context of WOW, we had some discussions about agreeing with others to do things at or by a certain time.  A-One understands the concept, ably articulating the courtesies about time commitments when playing WOW with others.

So how do we help him translate that to real life! I am endeavouring to incorporate some sense of timing/planning in our work together.  That is probably the most disabling of his cognitive impairments when it comes to his employability.

Anyway, he completed his brain training on his own for both days, again improving his overall Brain Performance Index (BPI).

This morning, he arose, completed his morning jobs and went straight to his brain training - again on his own.  I was on the treadmill when he came out beaming, "I've just unlocked the next level in the cafe game!"  We looked at his results, and his BPI chart rose more steeply today - yay!

Before we took up the clocks again:

Mum: I'll be finished my exercise in about 20 minutes, then we can get on to the clocks again.  This time we'll add a second hand.

A-One: Why do I need to do that?  Second hands aren't important to telling the time!

Mum: Mostly, that's true.  The clocks exercise isn't just about telling the time.  It's about exercising that part of your brain so that you can understand concepts and ideas better.  When you read something, you can read it very well, but you don't always understand what you are reading.  This exercise will help you understand what you read better.


I'm basing this on Barbara Arrowsmith-Young's experience where, after 3 months of doing increasingly complex clock exercises, she was able to read philosophy and understand it!

I had added seconds to the same exercises that he had done with just 2 hands, but kept the old exercises out of sight.  We started by looking at the second hand of a clock, so that he could count the 60 seconds around the clock for a minute.  Once he got the hang of that, he managed the first page of clocks pretty well.  I observed that for every clock he counted in fives around the clock for the second hand.

A-One: That's all I'm doing today!

What A-One doesn't know yet is that I plan to incorporate some comprehension testing into our program.  I may use a book of short stories, and start with a single paragraph, asking him what he thinks the key point is and what the story may be about.

It's about when you don't know how to do something

After I came home I woke A-One for today's brain training. 'Just a minute!' he said.  That's his favourite phrase when he's called for dinner too; we often finish before he arrives.

First we attended to some banking - we recently set up his internet banking and he's getting the hang of it quite well.  He remembered a call centre operative's instructions from the other day and could identify each recent transaction in his statement.


His online training went well again today.  He gained 4 personal bests out of 5 games, and his chart is still showing improved scores.  Even when he made a mistake, he seemed to know it before the game alerted him. Only one of his recorded cognitive competencies is still in the 1st percentile, and his memory and speed are still his best scores.

No protest from him when we resumed the analogue clocks work. I suggested he review the work we did yesterday, and he spent several seconds (sometimes up to 6 or 7 seconds) looking at each clock face where he had drawn the hands yesterday.  I asked him some review questions and talked about 'to' and 'past' the hour. 

For today's clocks, 10/20 to- and past- the hour, and 5/25 to- and past- the hour, counting in 5s would be an advantage, so I checked that he could do that, which he had no trouble doing.

On looking at the 10/20 page:

A-One: You've 'mixed up' the 10s and 20s times. It would be better if you had put all the 10s together and all the 20s together.

Mum: I could have, but that sounds too easy.  I wanted to challenge you.

A-One: Why do I need to be challenged?

Mum: Because it's only when you have to work at it that you are learning. When you don't know how to do something, that's a really precious time.  It's the very best learning time because it's only then that you can forge new neural pathways.  Once you know something, you're not changing your brain.

A-One:  Silence.

No protests, so I thank god for small mercies.

After drawing the big hand in the wrong place on the first clock, I explained the one complete rotation in 60 minutes again, and asked him to count by 5s up to 60 while tracing his finger through each of the numbers.  He was then able to self correct the first clock. 

He completed the page, sometimes copying the placement of the big hand from an earlier one.  He did them all so well that I told him it's now time for a 30 second celebration dance. He just looked at me, but I did a sitting dance anyway!

A-One: That's all I'm doing today.

Mum: How about just trying the first one on the next page?

He did ... and completed the whole page!

Tomorrow, none of the minutes end in '5'.

Met Barbara Arrowsmith-Young this morning

My husband and I attended a breakfast talk by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young in Brisbane today.

Barbara's talk reinforced to me that the strength of the Arrowsmith program when compared to online brain training is that the Arrowsmith program is carefully focussed on a person's weak cognitive function, keeping it isolated from cognitive strengths which might compensate.  Whereas online brain training is likely to be more general.

I also found the talk very worthwhile in meeting some people in Brisbane who have an interest in this area, including those who have a special interest in any adult programs.  I came away with some business cards to follow up, as well as an Arrowsmith Parent Adocacy Guide - to gain support from schools to implement the program.

Again I came away convinced that evidence based research and results will be important to brain training programs becoming more mainstream.

Analogue clocks

We added a change of scene today to start work on analogue clocks. That's how Barbara Arrowsmith-Young got started on her own exercises, and from the Principal's pack I received from the Arrowsmith school, the description of the brain function improved by this exercise seems to fit A-One.

From what I have read, Barbara put hands on her clocks and drilled herself to tell the time.  Her goal was to improve that part of her brain that understands cause and effect and mathematical relationships.

I'm starting the other way around. I have created pages containing 12 clocks without hands, each with a time underneath represented digitally (A-One knows digital times). The exercise I'm asking A-One to do is to write the hands on the clocks.  In time, we can try it the other way round too i.e. having him read the times represented by the hands.

Page 1: 6 x on-the-hour times, followed by 6 x half-hour times
Page 2: 6 x quarter times, followed by 6 three-quarter hour times
Page 3: 6 x (10 or 20) past-the-hour times, followed by 6 x (10 or 20) to-the-hour times
Page 4: 6 x (5 or 25) past-the-hour times, followed by 6 x (5 or 25) to-the-hour times
Page 5: 6 x (any other number) past-the-hour times mixed with 6 x (any other number) to-the-hour times



A-One was fine with the 6 x o'clock (on-the-hour) times. When we got to the first half-hour time, he was stumped.

I drew diagrams of the large hand travelling round the clock once an hour, and the small hand travelling between two 'numbers' each hour. With assistance he was able to draw the first half-hour time, but his comment was 'Even though it's right, it doesn't seem right.'

By this time, he was slouching in his chair.

Mum: Take three deep breaths - oxygen to your brain helps you stay alert.

A-One: I don't need to do that.

Mum: OK. Stand up and shaaaaaaake yourself about.

A-One: No! I don't need to do that.


Nevertheless, he sat up straighter in his chair. That enabled him to declare that he was doing only as many as he was comfortable with!

As we tried a few more, he would refer back to my diagrams, and ask how many pages there were to go. A couple of times he drew the little hand between the wrong two numbers, but insisted it was between the correct two numbers. I used a ruler to show him where he'd drawn his hands in relation to the numbers, and his retort was 'Even though it looks wrong, it's right!'

We got to the end of the second page ...

What's a vowel?

Last night A-One told me that I didn't need to be with him while he did his brain training. 

Given that he's needed to be kept on task all his life, I wasn't willing to leave it to him. I explained that I was blogging about his experience with brain training, so it was necessary for me to work with him on this.  He seemed to accept it.

Yesterday, while he accompanied his dad to an audio/video shop he bought Halo 4 for the X-Box.  I have no idea how late he stayed up playing it, but he did check with me this morning on the brain training time because he was feeling sleepy, and was willing enough to be woken again.

One game today was about vowels and even numbers.  He pressed on with the game but didn't do very well. 

Mum: Do you understood what the game requires?

A-One: I don't know what a vowel is.

Mum: Vowels are the letters 'A' 'E' 'I' 'O' 'U'.  Only 5 of the 26 letters of the alphabet are vowels.  Consonants have harder sounds. All words must have a vowel.  You can't have a word that is only consonants, but you can have a word that is only a vowel e.g. 'a'.

A-One: I don't understand.

I explained again, but emphasised that all he needed for the game was to recognise any of the 5 vowels. When I asked him about trying it again ...

A-One:  No!  I'm doing only 5 games a day. I'll do my 5 today and that's it!  That's all I'm ever doing!

Mum: Do you want to help your brain get better?

A-One: I will.  I don't need to do more than 5 games a day.

So he proceeded with the next game, one in which he needed to recognise faces and orders e.g. for a cafe.  When he tried to give the wrong order to a customer, he insisted that's what she ordered and tried to give it to her 3 times!

Nevertheless he gained some personal bests, one of which was speed! His face lit up briefly on seeing his score, but his overall mood seemed to match 'let's get this over with'.

After hearing Barbara Arrowsmith-Young explain how she developed her first brain exercise for herself, tomorrow I'd like to try A-One on analogue clocks as well as the online brain games. Over the years, we've learnt to give A-One notice about what's planned (and especially after his declaration of 5 games only), so I told him that tomorrow we would try something new on paper as well as the online games. No loud protests, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Now to creating some clock faces ...

Australian and Global scene

The Arrowsmith school's business model is to work with established schools (> 5-10 years) to take up the program. An Arrowsmith pilot is planned for Sydney, and I've been in touch with the Head of Diverse Learning Needs at Catholic Education in Sydney who had been instrumental in making that happen.

As it turns out, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young is currently in Australia: November radio interview



I've also been in touch with the Program Director of the Shaping Brains project here in Brisbane. That project is funded through The Benevolent Society, and undertook an independent evaluation of brain training programs available globally.


I've started to investigate some of what's available online:

Lumosity
directors with backgrounds in equity fund management, games design, and neuropsychology

IQMindware

Cogmed
for working memory - 5 weeks with a weekly coaching review

Fast ForWord
3 month program - look and feel pitched at primary school, although the principles of the exercises are relevant to any age

Posit Science

Dual N-Back
a free and challenging app for memory and intelligence

Brain Gymmer
seems to be designed to have fun while you improve your brain

A glimmer of hope ...

In May of this year, a good friend emailed me referring me to a recorded Radio National radio interview with Barbara Arrowsmith Young , thinking that there might be something in it that could help A-One. I had heard about Barbara because she was 'Chapter 2' in Norman Doidge's book The Brain that Changes Itself about the neuroplasticity of the brain. At the time I had thought there may be something in this to help A-One, but daily life and work commitments took over at the time.

When I listened to Barbara's interview, she said something that made me sit up and take notice: she had had difficulty reading analogue clocks. I knew someone else who had difficulty with that: A-One was fine with digital clocks, but he always needed to check if he was reading analogue clocks correctly.

I started to look into this further. I emailed the Arrowsmith School in Canada. At the time I asked whether they have anything available online, or even better whether they were collaborating with any games developers. Imagine the possibilities if brain training was built into highly addictive games like World of Warcraft! All those despairing parents of especially teenage boys who spend hours and hours playing games - what if all that game playing could improve their brains!

As it turned out, the Arrowsmith school does not have an online offering, but they sent me their Principal's pack. As I read through it, I mentally checked off the list of impairments for which they have developed exercises: A-One's OK at that, OK at that, OK at that, THAT'S A-One!, OK at that, OK at that, THAT's A-One! From my mother's inexpert eye (I'm not a professional educator or psychologist - my background is in ICT), it sure seemed to me that here were some exercises that could help A-One. And the Arrowsmith school has been using brain training to help people with cognitive impairments for 30 years!

At the same time, members of my husband's family had been reading Barbara's book The Woman who Changed Her Brain and in knowing A-One, had also thought that there could be something in this that could help him. As I read the book myself, I thought this is the closest thing to A-One I'd ever read, and seemed to fit him more than any of the therapies that we had done with him in his early life.

Barbara's writing was inspirational and brought me to a deeper level of compassion and insight for my son.



I sensed that the planets were aligning. Fairly recently, the opportunity arose for me to cease full-time employment (at least for a while), so I am about to embark on a program of brain training with A-One, and to assist in whatever way I can to make brain training more accessible in Brisbane to help people with cognitive impairments.