Learning and Life Skills

Ways to Encourage Summer Learning

Well, this is good news - positive benefits for all that video game and strategy game time my son spends his time doing.  Just kidding... I've seen first-hand the kind of analysis and problem-solving that is an integral part of strategy games, and the roll-playing games involve tons of reading, communicating, debating, persuasion, arguing, community relations, etc.  Read on to gain some additional insights and suggestions for summer learning options for your family....

Students can forget as much as two months' worth of math and reading instruction over the summer, according to some reports. To keep their children on track, many parents have enrolled them in summer learning programs. But for students who are unable to attend one, playing certain video games or practicing skills around the house can help.

via www.usnews.com

How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit - NYTimes.com

Let's go!  Everyone out to garden, walk, bike, or lift weights.  If these findings mean help for those of us who are aging, imagine the impact on our children's developing/growing brains.   Read more...

For those of us hoping to keep our brains fit and healthy well into middle age and beyond, the latest science offers some reassurance. Activity appears to be critical, though scientists have yet to prove that exercise can ward off serious problems like Alzheimer’s disease. But what about the more mundane, creeping memory loss that begins about the time our 30s recede, when car keys and people’s names evaporate? It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s worrying. Can activity ameliorate its slow advance — and maintain vocabulary retrieval skills, so that the word “ameliorate” leaps to mind when needed?

via well.blogs.nytimes.com

In New Study, MRI Scans First Provide Way To Diagnose Autism with Near Perfect Accuracy | Popular Science

Autism disorders affect one in 110 children in the U.S.--or perhaps more--but the method of diagnosing the condition, which is characterized by difficulties socializing and communicating, among other behavioral and emotional problems, is largely subjective. Now, researchers may have finally found a way to objectively and scientifically diagnose the condition early, with 94 percent accuracy, using simple MRI brain scans.

via www.popsci.com

 

    This procedure gives hope to parents of children on the autism spectrum that with improved diagnosis will come improved treatment.  The benefit of early diagnosis using an objective method is exciting.

    If you have a child on the spectrum, how did diagnosis happen for you?  What helpful advice would you share with other parents who do, or think they they do have a child with autism?

 

Child Brains Organized Differently Than Adult Brains | LiveScience

Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have studied the brain scans of volunteers age 7-31 to understand the organizational structure of the brain and how it changes over time.

What they found were true differences between children's brains and those of adults.  A child's neural connections are more organized based on the neurons proximity to each other when compared to the organization of adults, whose neural networks are more effective and efficient based on function rather than proximity.

Scientists hope the study of brain organization differences will lead them to better understand developmental disorders and those caused by brain injury.

The difference in organization does not, the scientists warn, explain why children can be scatter brained.  The brains of children are "differently organized but at least as capable as an adult brain."

What the study doesn't  answer is how experiences and learning by children affect their brain, or whether certain experiences can help improve mental organization.

One series I recommend to impact a yound developing mind is the series: Building Thinking Skills.  To improve visual perception in young children, think about the series: Visual Perceptual Skill Building .  Use the links to learn more at my online information center at Thinking To Learn.com 

You can find an interesting animation depicting the changes to brain organization found in this study using this link:

Child Brains Organized Differently Than Adult Brains | LiveScience.