Arrowsmith Program Exercises

The brain is thought to be similar to a muscle in that it needs regular exercise to function at its best. That which is not used is lost. But there's more to it than that. Chapter 2 of Norman Doidge's "The Brain That Changes Itself" is devoted to the story of Barbara Arrowsmith Young, who was diagnosed as retarded but "healed" her brain dysfunctions with the help of exercises she created.

Barbara's learning problems were quite severe, but she was otherwise clever. For example, her test scores for visual and auditory memory were both 99th percentile. As a result, she was able to compensate for her weaknesses with the help of her memories and graduate from "regular" high school, albeit with much struggle and stress.

At age 28, she finally realised that the secret to overcoming her learning difficulties was not to compensate for them (as she had done her whole life) but to strengthen her weaker areas via practice. She did this by working to "normalise" her abnormalities through repeated practice of exercises she developed herself.

Her epiphany led her to create the Arrowsmith school, where she taught others with learning problems how to use the same mental exercises that helped her.

The theory behind the Arrowsmith Program is that students' weaker cognitive abilities can be strengthened to help them overcome their learning disabilities.

Some hypothesise that weak cognitive capacities are at the root of various learning challenges, and the Arrowsmith Program is an intensive and progressive set of exercises to enhance these capacities. In addition, a comprehensive evaluation is performed to pinpoint each student's unique learning challenges.

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Results-Oriented Framework

• Examination and diagnosis of 19 learning disorders using cutting-edge tools, including specialised activities and
• Computerised applications
• Objectives that are specific, measurable, and personal
• A setting that is conducive to learning, one that is both encouraging and organised
• Improving one's sense of worth through growing abilities
• Low ratio of students to teachers

Will Your Kid or Student Benefit from the Arrowsmith Program?

Students enrolled in the Arrowsmith Program have average or above-average intelligence but struggle in the classroom due to obstacles like reading, writing, mathematics, remembering what they've learned, or paying attention. In addition, each student has unique issues, so we tailor our fitness plans to their specific needs.

If you, as a parent or teacher, suspect that your child or student is struggling because of learning challenges, we encourage you to read the Description of Learning Dysfunctions Addressed. In addition, our downloadable brochure has a condensed version of this list. Everything that needs fixing that the Arrowsmith Program is currently working on is on this list.

An Overview of the Theory Behind the Arrowsmith Plan

The Arrowsmith Program uses the research of neuropsychologist A. R. Luria, who studied the roles of several brain regions, to diagnose learning disabilities.

Since each brain region is responsible for a fairly specific function, Luria deduced that complex cognitive tasks like reading, writing, and arithmetic require the cooperation of multiple brain regions. Imagine a situation in which a single brain region is damaged in a given mode of learning. When this happens, the weaker brain region's contribution to the learning activity will be disproportionately felt regarding how well it is performed. Our experience at the Arrowsmith Program has led us to believe that this is the root cause of a distinct form of learning disability.

The Arrowsmith Program is based on the idea that challenging mental tasks can develop these regions of the brain and, in turn, boost students' capacity for new information.

Every student in the Arrowsmith Program has a unique daily routine that consists of a series of exercises and assignments. The assigned homework will vary depending on the student's individual learning profile. Practice materials include the literary, visual, aural, and technological spheres.

A learner who has trouble differentiating between sounds like "hear" and "fear" could be trained to listen to speech sounds adapted from other languages until they can hear and recreate the sounds appropriately. Consistent exposure to English speech helps hone one's ability to hear and distinguish between its various sounds.

After each year of participation in the Arrowsmith Curriculum, students are evaluated to see how well they did and whether or not their individualised programme needs to be adjusted for the next academic year.

After participating in the Arrowsmith Program for three to four years, students should be able to take advantage of their newfound cognitive abilities and return to a regular academic programme at a public or private school at the appropriate grade level.

How Effective Are Barbara Arrowsmith Young’s Approaches at Rewiring the Brain?

To put it simply, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young is believable. When you're sitting across from her, it's hard to believe that she's trying to fool you about anything, whether it's her personal experience or the nature of her programme. Likewise, Yagnik, Beare, and Green, the parents of Arrowsmith students, come across as sincere, caring, average individuals who exhaust all other viable options before going to their children's school.

Even with this, many people, including virtually all scholars and specialists, have serious reservations about Arrowsmith. And that is because it has never been shown to work by credible scientific studies. A clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist at Charles Sturt University and former president of the Australian Psychological Society, Dr Tim Hannan, claims that "after 35 years, there has still not been a single, controlled clinical trial, adopting stringent methods, published in a peer-reviewed journal to show the efficacy of the Arrowsmith Program." A lack of evidence is not necessarily indicative of a treatment's ineffectiveness. It's been over a decade since the announcement of the Arrowsmith Research Initiatives Report in 1997, and still, results have yet to be published in a scholarly journal.

Arrowsmith-Young says there is research, and she's partly right: she brings up many studies conducted by previous Arrowsmith courses, each involving a wide range of metrics and outcomes. But unfortunately, these studies have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal or used a randomised control group. Therefore, it is impossible to know for sure that a specific intervention (such as a drug, a programme, or a purple people-eater costume) was the cause of the observed effect, no matter how persuasive the results of an experiment may seem.

Brain training techniques like Arrowsmith show little improvement in large-scale, randomised, control-group research. Renee Testa, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist specialising in child and adolescent neurodevelopment problems, teaches at Monash University and maintains a private practice. If only there were a silver bullet, I'd say that's the answer! And yet, that's what the research shows."

To that end, explain how science accounts for the wide-ranging and presumably permanent alterations detailed by the Arrowsmith parents.

It's not that anyone doubts that these kids get better, the scientists say. That's because finding out why is next to impossible without a carefully planned experiment. It could be Arrowsmith, but it could just as easily be another. Testa elaborates, "There are various kinds of reasons kids improve." If you give a youngster undivided attention, you will see improvements in their performance on many other scales.

"There's a lot of study on the impacts of feeling special," says Anne Castles, a professor of cognitive science at Macquarie University in Sydney. All of that is a tremendous inspiration. (This reaction is widely studied in psychology and is known as the Hawthorne effect.) Or, when parents engage a lot of themselves — whether in terms of time, money, or emotion — in a programme, they have a vested interest in seeing positive results. Indeed, they are beginning to notice an uptick in their fortunes. (Another cognitive fallacy, this one called confirmation bias.)

Dr Dorothy Bishop, an internationally renowned researcher and professor of developmental psychology at Oxford University, has written extensively about Arrowsmith. "People sometimes think [in cases of learning difficulty] that growth is static," she writes. However, as time goes on, most kids improve at the skills they've been working on. Features [of a learning challenge] may attenuate or take on a new shape as a youngster matures. If your child receives some intervention and begins to show progress, it's natural to attribute those changes to the intervention. "However, the progress may have happened regardless."

Arrowsmith-Young claims that about 80% of participants finish the Arrowsmith Program. Unfortunately, no hard data is available to show how effective the programme is for the remaining 20%. The remaining 20% need to gain public knowledge too.

 The son of Susie Beare, Jack, is one of the 20%. He was excited to continue the programme in Australia after his time in Vancouver and convinced Beare to relocate to Melbourne with him. Jack reportedly earned an A on his capstone geography paper and a B in "general math, not math for dummies" in year 11. (A-C had been the best grade he'd ever received.) Despite this, Jack eventually departed Arrowsmith, and they were back in their old stomping grounds by year's end.

Beare recalls, "It was too hard for us to be separated as a family for me to want him to continue." Too much homesickness, and because working at Arrowsmith is so demanding, everything else must be perfect. At the moment, Jack would rather be a typical kid and avoid the subject altogether.

That isn't the most enthusiastic recommendation to me.

Beare chuckles, then lets out a deep sigh. There are zero regrets on our part. After giving it a try, we noticed positive results. To get through it, you have to give it your all. The reality is, I am still determining if that's what Arrowsmith wants me to say.

Arrowsmith, Barbara -

Many adults, including young people and their parents, believe that conventional science will eventually catch up with the Arrowsmith Program. Meanwhile, it's simple to feel that science is "unfairly critical of Arrowsmith," as Tim Hannan put it. The question, "Why are you blocking parents from helping their child?" comes to mind. Naturally, caring parents who want what's best for their kids will exhaust all avenues. In light of this, it is crucial for those concerned about children's issues who want to maximise their advantages to ask, "Hold on a sec, does something like Arrowsmith work?"

Because there are two losses if we don't know for sure, for one, there's the hard cash outlay required. [Arrowsmith's annual tuition is $4,500, although the company has no requirements about how much other schools can charge. Considering the cost of private school education, this can quickly reach tens of thousands of dollars every year. The opportunity cost must also be considered. The opportunity cost must also be considered. If your focus is solely on something other than this, you won't be able to take advantage of the most promising programmes available to help your child.

Neuroplasticity is widely accepted as a true phenomenon. However, the question remains whether or not neuroplasticity operates in the ways that Barbara Arrowsmith-Young claims it does: as a result of her exercises, in support of the behavioural and academic changes she describes.

"Exceptional assertions deserve extraordinary evidence," Hannan sums up, quoting cosmologist Carl Sagan. For example, "Arrowsmith promises to treat challenges in strikingly diverse areas, actually an astounding range: reading, writing, arithmetic; logic and processing; attention; non-verbal functioning; organisation; problem-solving; memory; communication; independence." There is a pause while he draws a breath. "Except for androgenic alopecia, of course. An equally astonishing argument would be required to back up this claim.

But I'd even take it a little further. An astonishing assertion about children with severe learning impairments, targeted to understandably frantic parents, demands evidence of the highest quality. But unfortunately, there is a lack of high-quality proof, and many professionals in the field are worried that this is where it will be accepted without question.

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young alludes to something that could be such evidence, or at least a first step in that direction, right before we wrap up our interview. Dr Lara Boyd, a renowned Canadian researcher based at the University of British Columbia, is conducting a large study with control groups to investigate whether or not the Arrowsmith Program causes structural changes in the brains of children with learning disabilities and whether or not these changes are related to better learning or behavioural outcomes. Unfortunately, no results from this study have been published, and Boyd, whom I've contacted multiple times at the UBC physical therapy department (most of her work concerns motor-learning brain rehabilitation from a stroke), has not responded to any of my correspondence.

However, Arrowsmith-Young was very pleased with the development thus far. As a result of her presentation at New York's Columbia University last June, I have a good idea of how the data is developing. I'm thrilled because my lifelong theory that brain changes cause corresponding behavioural, intellectual, and cognitive changes is correct.

The Arrowsmith approach aims to fortify the weak links in the chain, allowing previously excluded persons to acquire access to previously unavailable abilities. To some extent, it's analogous to correct a lazy eye. The normal progression of the lazy eye involves decreasing reliance on the affected eye. Similarly, the inherent flaws in an individual progressively develop worse via avoidance of use. Then, after having those abilities restored through training that targets their particular areas of weakness, these people can better realise their full potential. A good example from the book is as follows:

If abnormalities are found during these early years, when neuroplasticity is at its peak, then exercises can be started to strengthen the defective parts of the brain.

However, neuroplasticity can occur at any age. Therefore, mental workouts are useful at any age. In addition, the negative effects of ageing and disease on the brain can be slowed or stopped with regular brain exercise.