Brain science research provides new answers for children with learning difficulties

An edu­ca­tional pro­gram designed to rewire the human brain for bet­ter learn­ing is improv­ing the lives of thou­sands of Australian and New Zealand school chil­dren strug­gling with learn­ing dif­fi­culties, includ­ing Dyslexia, Autism, Auditory Processing Disorders, ADHD and other lan­guage disorders.

Fast ForWord is a learn­ing pro­gram based on 35 years of neur­os­cience* research into the prin­ciple that the brain is plastic, with the abil­ity to change and adapt. Children with learn­ing dif­fi­culties are given the tools to rewire their brains to become more effi­cient at learning.

With one in eight Australian school chil­dren at risk of learn­ing dif­fi­culties by the time they start school**, Fast ForWord is provid­ing the answer for thou­sands of chil­dren who are bene­fit­ing from improved memory, atten­tion and read­ing abil­it­ies as a res­ult of being involved in the program.

Introduced into Australia and New Zealand by LearnFast, an organ­isa­tion based in Lindfield on Sydney’s North Shore, the Fast ForWord pro­gram has grown rap­idly from a few hun­dred stu­dents in 2007 to over 4,000 stu­dents today. The pro­gram is now being used in more than 70 pub­lic and private schools through­out Australia.

In addi­tion, Fast ForWord is an approved inter­ven­tion for the Australian Government’s Helping Children with Autism Package, a com­mit­ment of more than $190 mil­lion over four years designed to help aut­istic chil­dren access main­stream edu­ca­tion. The pack­age includes fund­ing the full cost of Fast ForWord for par­ents with chil­dren aged under seven years as part of their early inter­ven­tion program.

Internationally renowned US lan­guage and learn­ing expert Dr Martha Burns*** will visit Australia and New Zealand in March to speak at a series of edu­ca­tional sem­inars titled ‘Building Brains for Learning’. She will reveal the latest insights on how we can rewire the brain to optim­ise cog­nit­ive abil­it­ies and learning.

“Every time we learn new things, the brain changes and forms new con­nec­tions,” Dr Burns said. “Reading is a rel­at­ively new human skill, depend­ent on brain capa­cit­ies that evolved for other sur­vival pur­poses. Whether it is a child learn­ing to read or an adult mas­ter­ing a new iPod, the brain adapts to cater for this need. This abil­ity is known as brain neuro­plas­ti­city, while the speed with which we pro­cess the new inform­a­tion is known as brain efficiency.

“The excit­ing news is that computer-based pro­grams have now been developed which can increase brain capa­city and effi­ciency at any age, and with remark­able res­ults. Fast ForWord is spe­cific­ally aimed at school stu­dents strug­gling to read and is prov­ing to be the vital link between stu­dents whose brains do not effi­ciently pro­cess school­work and stu­dents who excel in the classroom.”

Fast ForWord is a series of com­puter ‘games’ which build new con­nec­tions in children’s brains, mak­ing learn­ing easier and faster. The pro­gram evolved from the work of US research sci­ent­ists at the University of California and Rutgers University who found the core cog­nit­ive and lin­guistic attrib­utes that define a student’s abil­ity in the classroom (memory, atten­tion, pro­cessing and sequen­cing) could be suc­cess­fully improved.

By using acoustically-modified speech tech­no­logy in an inter­act­ive com­puter pro­gram, stu­dents can build a wide range of crit­ical lan­guage and read­ing skills such as phon­o­lo­gical aware­ness, phon­emic aware­ness, flu­ency, vocab­u­lary, com­pre­hen­sion, decod­ing, syn­tax, gram­mar, and other skills that had pre­vi­ously been inac­cess­ible to them.

LearnFast Director and speech patho­lo­gist Devon Barnes said Fast ForWord auto­mates and strengthens the brain in the same way an ath­lete builds muscle memory – through repetition.

“Students in the Fast ForWord pro­gram are provided with a daily com­puter pro­gram which stretches the brain by prompt­ing the stu­dent to answer hun­dreds of increas­ingly dif­fi­cult exer­cises in quick suc­ces­sion,” Ms Barnes said. “The pro­gram uses scientifically-based neur­os­cience prin­ciples and has been clin­ic­ally proven to get res­ults (see research find­ings in accom­pa­ny­ing document).

“Fast ForWord can sig­ni­fic­antly improve both read­ing and learn­ing in chil­dren because it strengthens both cog­nit­ive skills and fun­da­mental read­ing and lan­guage skills.”

Dr Martha Burns will be a guest speaker at a key edu­ca­tional sem­inar series, Building Brains for Learning: It’s all in the Connections’ to be held in Sydney on March 8, Melbourne on March 10 and Auckland NZ on March 12. Dr Burns will address the implic­a­tions of new neur­o­lo­gical and lit­er­acy research and how both par­ents and edu­cat­ors can help chil­dren with learn­ing dif­fi­culties achieve much bet­ter results.

For fur­ther inform­a­tion on the sem­inars, please visit www.fastforWORD.com.au/seminars2010

* Neuroscience is a sci­entific dis­cip­line that includes a range of areas that explore, among other things, how the human brain learns and what factors affect that learning.

**Australian Early Development Index released 2009 (http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-in-eight-at-risk-of-learning-difficulties-social-problems-by-school-age-20091209-kk3h.html)

***Dr Martha Burns

Dr Martha Burns is a renowned expert in the field of neur­os­cience and its applic­a­tion to learn­ing atten­tional dis­orders, includ­ing Dyslexia, Autism, Auditory Processing Disorders, ADHD and other lan­guage disorders.

Dr. Martha Burns has been a prac­ti­cing speech lan­guage patho­lo­gist in the Chicago area for 35 years. She serves on the Faculty of Northwestern University, depart­ment of com­mu­nic­a­tion sci­ences and dis­orders, and on the med­ical staff of Evanston-Northwestern Hospital, both in Evanston, Illinois.

Dr Martha Burns has received hon­ours from Northwestern University, Evanston Hospital Corporation, the American Speech Language Hearing Foundation and St. Xavier University. She is the author of sev­eral books on brain func­tion, aphasia and cog­ni­tion and has also pub­lished numer­ous art­icles on lan­guage devel­op­ment, lan­guage dis­orders, aud­it­ory pro­cessing dis­orders, and adult neur­o­lo­gical dis­orders in pro­fes­sional journals.

Doody’s Rating Service selec­ted her book on the Right Hemisphere pub­lished through Aspen Press as one of the best health sci­ences books of 1997. In addi­tion to that book, Dr. Burns is the author of a book on aphasia and the test Burns Brief Inventory of Communication and Cognition pub­lished by The Psychological Corporation.

Dr. Burns is cur­rently serving Director of Clinical Specialists at Scientific Learning Corporation.

Dr Martha Burns and Devon Barnes are avail­able for interview.

Further inform­a­tion and case stud­ies are also avail­able. Please con­tact Sarah Peattie on +61 2 94876555 or 0412 239 633