Re: [xmca] brain activity of taxi drivers

Do people have a view on Norman Doidge:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/default.htm

His book "The Brain that changes itself" is a best seller
and we're waiting for the new printing to get our copy, as
he offers hope for stroke sufferers.

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
> More on the effects of behavior on the brain, more specifically on the
> 'executive function' Mike recently mentioned:
>
> <
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/health/healthspecial2/15brain.html?_r=1&em=&oref=login&pagewanted=all
>
> TimesPeople
> The New York Times
> Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By
>
> September 15, 2008
> Training Young Brains to Behave
> By BENEDICT CAREY
>
> AFTER inflicting months of sleep deprivation on their parents, young
> children often switch course and begin what could be called a
> thought-deprivation campaign.
>
> This is the stage, around age 2 or 3, when their brains seem to send
> multiple messages to the body at once — eat, scream, spill juice, throw
> crayons — and good luck to anyone trying to form a complete sentence or
> thought in their presence. Toddlers are interruption machines, all impulse
> and little control.
>
> One reason is that an area of the brain that is critical to inhibiting
> urges, the prefrontal cortex, is still a work in progress. The density of
> neural connections in the 2-year-old prefrontal cortex, for instance, is far
> higher than in adults, and levels of neurotransmitters, the mind's chemical
> messengers, are lower. Some children's brains adapt quickly, while others'
> take time — and, as a result, classmates, friends and adults are interrupted
> for years along the way.
>
> But just as biology shapes behavior, so behavior can accelerate biology. And
> a small group of educational and cognitive scientists now say that mental
> exercises of a certain kind can teach children to become more self-possessed
> at earlier ages, reducing stress levels at home and improving their
> experience in school. Researchers can test this ability, which they call
> executive function, and they say it is more strongly associated with school
> success than I.Q.
>
> "We know that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until the 20s,
> and some people will ask, 'Why are you trying to improve prefrontal
> abilities when the biological substrate is not there yet?' " said Adele
> Diamond, a professor of developmental cognitive science at the University of
> British Columbia in Vancouver. "I tell them that 2-year-olds have legs, too,
> which will not reach full length for 10 years or more — but they can still
> walk and run and benefit from exercise."
>
> Executive function involves three important skills. The first is the ability
> to resist distractions or delay gratification to finish a job: to finish the
> book report before turning on the television. The second is working memory,
> the capacity to hold multiple numbers or ideas in the mind, — for example,
> to do simple addition or subtraction without pencil and paper. The third is
> cognitive flexibility, the presence of mind to adapt when demands change —
> when recess is canceled, say, and there's a pop quiz in math.
>
> Researchers can rate these abilities with some precision by giving young
> children several straightforward mental tests. In one, youngsters sit in
> front of a computer and when a red heart appears on the left side of the
> screen, they strike a key on the left, and when it appears on the right
> screen they strike a key on the right. Most of them do well on this.
>
> But when scientists change the rules, and have the children strike a key on
> the right when the symbol appears on the left, and vice versa, the test gets
> harder. The number of errors they commit, and the time it takes the children
> to answer, are considered measures of their ability to regulate themselves.
> Other similar kinds of tests can track improvements in working memory and
> intellectual flexibility. Researchers have designed school-based curriculums
> intended to improve each of these abilities. In a study published in 2007,
> Dr. Diamond led a team that compared one of these programs — called Tools of
> the Mind — to a standard literacy curriculum, in several preschools in the
> Northeast. The Tools program features a variety of exercises, including a
> counting activity in which children pair off. One child counts a given
> number of objects from a pile and separates them, and then the other child
> checks the sum. The "checker" has a sheet of paper with a list of numbers,
> each beside a corresponding number of dots: for example, four dots line up
> beside the No. 4. By placing the objects on the dots, the child can see
> whether the count was accurate. This double-checking is intended to force
> the "counter" to be more careful and to stall the other child's impulse to
> grab an object.
>
> In another activity, also done in pairs, one child tells a partner a story
> based on pictures in a book while the other child listens. The listener
> holds a drawing of an ear — a visual reminder that his role is to listen and
> not to interrupt. The child telling the story holds a drawing of a mouth — a
> reminder of her role as the speaker. After about two months, children didn't
> need the props anymore: they had internalized the rules, namely that the
> listener listens until it's his or her turn to speak.
>
> "The activities are specifically designed to promote self-regulation, and
> they are embedded in the teaching," said Deborah J. Leong, an educational
> psychologist and professor emerita at Metropolitan State College of Denver,
> who designed the Tools program with Elena Bodrova, principal researcher at
> McREL, an educational research group in Denver. The program also focuses on
> pretend play with a purpose, namely dramatic role-playing in which children
> decide beforehand what their roles are and must stay in character — an
> exercise that draws on all aspects of self-regulation.
>
> The 2007 preschool study tracked 85 preschoolers in the Tools program and 62
> in the basic literacy curriculum. After one year, teachers in one school
> judged that the children in the special program were doing so well that all
> students were moved into it. After two years, and factoring out the effects
> of gender and age, the researchers found that the students in the special
> program scored about 20 percent higher on all of the demanding measures of
> executive function. "Although play is often thought frivolous, it may be
> essential," the study authors concluded.
>
> Parents, too, can help their children become more self-possessed in this
> way. Jessica Fanning and Helen J. Neville, who are neuroscientists at the
> University of Oregon, are testing how parent training classes affect the
> same kind of executive skills in youngsters. Their preliminary finding is
> that the children of parents taking the training have developed
> significantly better concentration and self-discipline than the others.
>
> Researchers say that parents can use a variety of home activities to help
> children sharpen executive skills. Some of these are obvious: reading to a
> child while continually establishing eye contact. By tilting the book so
> pictures are obscured, parents force youngsters to follow the words
> carefully, holding more of them in mind at one time — a function of working
> memory.
>
> Singing a bedtime song or a cleanup song can keep children focused on the
> chore at hand, resisting distractions. The familiar verses tell them how
> much time they have to finish a chore.
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
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