By Dr. Ken Gibson, LearningRX. Reprinted with permission.
Contemporary science has opened up powerful new possibilities for those who struggle to learn or want to gain a competitive edge. There are causes behind learning and reading problems. What you see on the surface—when facing a persistent learning or reading struggle—is most often merely a symptom. The causes are deeper and sometimes more difficult to identify and understand. Through a series of key questions this booklet helps you understand learning problems and explore the most common root cause: cognitive skills weakness. You will learn strategies and options available to overcome poor learning and reading if cognitive weakness is the source.
Poor learning and reading need not be a life-long problem!
What are the causes of most learning and reading problems?
There are a variety of reasons that can cause learning and reading difficulties. Drawing from numerous studies determining the prime causes of learning problems in the U.S., approximately 10% are due to poor or inadequate instruction. Another 5% are attributed to one or more sensory defects such as hearing or vision problems. Up to 5% can be blamed on low motivation. The balance— roughly 80% of learning or reading difficulties among U.S. students and adults—are the direct consequence of a cognitive skill weakness.
What are the consequences of cognitive weaknesses?
Learning and reading struggles are the breeding ground for other serious problems including poor self-esteem, disruptive or withdrawn behavior, poor selection of friends, chronically low motivation, academic weakness, and limited educational advancement. These directly impact life opportunities such as earnings and lifestyle.
For Example:
After a ten-year public study, the National Institute of Health concluded that the cause of 88% of specific learning-to-read difficulties resulted from a single weak cognitive skill known as phonemic awareness (an inability to blend, segment, and analyze sounds).
What choices are available to help a struggling learner or reader?
Effective long-term strategies are surprisingly rare when trying to help someone with a persistent learning or reading struggle. One non-strategy is to pretend that the struggle will simply go away or be outgrown. This is rarely the case. When trying to take positive steps, you must choose one of three approaches. You can try to accommodate the problem by expecting less. You can attempt to compensate by focusing only on strengths. Or, you can identify and overcome core cognitive weaknesses through testing and training. This has the potential to open the future to faster, easier learning and reading.
Three Options for the Struggling Learner
Accommodation is a passive strategy that simply accepts the learning limits as permanent. Special programs that isolate underperforming students, or require long-term medication to control behavior, are examples of this approach. It is a common alternative, and is often justified in the name of preserving self-esteem.
Compensation is a never-ending approach to work around learning weaknesses. Typically it includes altering the student’s environment or selecting challenges to fit individual strengths while ignoring their weaknesses. It trades the present appearance of success for future frustration and failure.
Identifying and overcoming the source of the struggle is the logical choice. If cognitive weakness is the root of a particular student’s learning or reading struggles, then cognitive testing and training is clearly the most promising approach to provide both immediate and long-term answers. It’s the only choice specifically designed to overcome barriers and unlock potential.
For Example:
Over 4 billion dollars are spent each year in the U.S. on tutoring and similar programs that focus on treating the external symptoms of learning struggles (while producing little measurable change in underlying learning ability).*
Correctly identifying the underlying cause of a learning problem is the only way to determine the correct treatment strategy. Even when there is limited success in a specific issue or subject, the underlying problem that caused the struggle in the first place remains. Identifying and treating the cause of a learning struggle is the best guarantee of long-term success.
* Aimee Green—Newhouse News Service—Times-Picayune - July 31, 2005
Just what are cognitive skills, and how do they impact learning?
Cognitive skills are the underlying mental skills required for learning. Active skills are identified as Attention, Processing Speed, and Working Memory. These attend to, receive, sort, and prioritize incoming information. Higher Thinking skills are Auditory Processing, Visual Processing, Long-Term Memory, and Logic and Reasoning.
For Example:
How well you do at a new mental task depends on...
- The strength and speed of your mental skills (Active Processing System plus Higher Thinking)
- The presence of data in your Knowledge Bank
How smart you are =
- Active Processing System + Higher Thinking
What you know =
- Data stored in your Knowledge Bank
The Learning Model illustrated here helps point out the difference between the processing functions of Active Processing and Higher Thinking Systems on the left and the storage and distribution function of the Knowledge Bank on the right. All new or unfamiliar information must be processed before it is useful in life, work, or academic performance. Strong, efficient cognitive skills are essential to successful learning.
Why is it so important to test individual cognitive skills?
A cognitive skills weakness is internal and specific. One struggling student might be weak in visual processing skills and another weak in long-term memory, but both may seem to struggle in a similar way. You must measure each student’s individual cognitive skills to confirm the cause of his or her particular learning problem and formulate the right training. Untested, cognitive weaknesses can remain undetected for years while hindering a student’s ability to learn or read successfully. Guessing at the cause without testing can lead to frustration and wasted time and money.
Your child’s individual skills testing will create a personal Cognitive Skills Profile.TM The profile will measure the strength or weakness of his or her individual cognitive skills by both age and percentile. It will also show you any gaps between current skill levels and the success you envision for your child. This knowledge will help you determine both the specific type and the amount of training required.
Student Profile
This Cognitive Skills ProfileTM shown here is typical of a student who struggles significantly with reading.
How does “closing the gap” on cognitive skills weakness work?
Example: The average cognitive skills ranking of all entering freshmen students in the United States in the 81st percentile. If you desire your student to attend college and be successful, and his or her average score is lower than the 81st percentile, a cognitive skills “gap” needs to be overcome to increase the chance of realizing that college goal. This gap can be narrowed—and even closed—with appropriate cognitive skills training.
For Example:
Cognitive skills play an essential role in learning. Therefore, a significant weakness in Auditory Processing (also called Phonemic Awareness) will lead to poor reading regardless of other skill strengths. Any individual cognitive skill or ability that functions below age-level expectation or scores below the 50th percentile in a standardized cognitive skills test is considered a weak skill. Learning skills can also be considered weak in relationship to individual goals. Skills in the 50th to 70th percentile are weak for the students hoping to attend college, for example.
Is Average Good Enough?
It depends on your goals and desires. The average student in the U.S. is significantly below grade level in writing, math, and reading. Average students do not face a very bright future. Increasing demands in the Knowledge Economy and stiff competition from foreign students and workers make average far too low a goal for most students. Source: The National Assessment of Educational Progress: 2002–2003.
Why must cognitive skills be trained, not taught?
Just as you cannot learn to play the piano with 12 weeks of classroom lectures (you will have to actually practice playing), cognitive skills grow stronger with training, not teaching or tutoring. Cognitive skills training must also feature specific methods if it is to be consistently effective.
Studies have shown, and logic confirms, that one-on-one training is by far the best vehicle to deliver these essential training methods. The student gets undivided, individual attention.
Neuroscience research indicates the following are necessary elements of effective cognitive training:
It must be skill-specific and targeted.
...to close specific mental skill gaps
It must be highly intense.
...concentrated repetition builds skills quickly
It must be properly sequenced.
...small challenging steps build upon one another without overwhelming the student
It must be progressively loaded.
...properly increasing both difficulty and complexity makes skills automatic
It must contain immediate, accurate feedback.
...instant, effective reinforcement and correction keeps training focused and intense
In addition, training benefits from being nonacademic.
...fun and game-like exercises get beyond student’s frustration and defenses
Just how effective is one-on-one cognitive skills training?
Because weak cognitive skills are the cause of most persistent learning or reading struggles, training that strengthens those specific skills is the most effective way to permanently correct most learning and reading problems. If testing reveals that the root cause of your child’s struggle is cognitive weakness, the smart choice is to overcome it with properly designed, targeted, cognitive skills training.
It is not only the most effective, but also the most efficient way to increase learning skills. Typically, significant gains can be achieved through cognitive skills training in only 12 to 24 weeks. Other non-cognitive based approaches are actually designed around schedules that take months or years, and most never promise to correct the cause of struggles. Well structured cognitive training also gives parents an opportunity to participate, making the training even more efficient.
“When Melissa first came to LearningRx, her reading was extremely poor and her ability to sound out words was almost unheard of! Our family time became zero due to lengthy nights of homework and studying for tests. Homework took her around three hours each night — with my assistance! We had tried a private tutor, after-school programs provided by the school, and lots of praying, but nothing seemed to work. She basically got through second to fifth grade by memorizing enough to take tests…then the information was gone.
“My husband and I decided to try LearningRx [because it] was like nothing we had ever seen. Thank goodness we did! Melissa’s reading has improved so much and just as importantly, she now has the skills to “decode” words she doesn’t know! She has the confidence that wasn’t there before. She no longer calls herself “dumb” or “stupid.” I am amazed at the improvements the program has made in her! Thanks again to LearningRx. We actually eat dinner as a family again!!”— S. Sloan
Why is cognitive training not only the most effective choice, but also the best value?
All of us are concerned about cost and budgets. This is why it is important to consider cognitive skills training when seeking to overcome learning or reading difficulties. Learning problems diminish as cognitive skills get stronger. The chart above demonstrates the relative cost in time and money to get a 1-year gain in the key reading skill of Word Attack (one of the key skills for reading efficiently).
Real value comes when your investment of time, money, and energy produces big, lasting changes, fast!
Students see a difference and motivation soars. With cognitive training you get four times the improvement for the same investment. LearningRx training is so effective that gains can actually be guaranteed. Why spend more time and more money without guaranteed results?
Notes: The chart illustrates historical average gains, time requirements, and cost per program to produce one year of key reading skills gain. Prices are averaged for nationally available services. LearningRx programs are customized for each student.
The Meantime Volume 7 Number 3