Transcript Wilson Language Training 10th Annual Conference Providence

Oregon Branch IDA
Salem, Oregon
“Cerebrodiversity In The Classroom-Lessons From Neuroscience”
Part 3 - Slides 65-96
Gordon F. Sherman, Ph.D.
Newgrange School & Education Center
Princeton, N.J.
www.thenewgrange.org
February 24, 2007
Talents
Helps Prevent
Genetic Manipulation
Temptation?
Talent
• A match
(biology/environment)
• Sensory input
• Basic computations
• Memory
• Complex and creative
analysis
• Motor output
• Motivation
Do Talents & Learning
Challenges Co-exist?
James Henry Pullen
• Genius of Earlswood (asylum)
• Never learned to read or write
beyond the simplest words of
one syllable (muvver)
• Most speech was unintelligible
• Savant
• Brother
Born on a Blue Day
--Daniel Tammet
“he…speaks of numbers with
affection..they have individual
personalities, particularly the smaller ones.
The number four is shy (and remains him of
himself); nines are scary and imposing.
Ones are shiny and bright, eights are blue,
fives are loud, and 333 is beautiful.”
By the Way…
Daniel Tammet has been diagnosed with
Asperger’s Syndrome, can be fluent in a
language in a week, and has memorized
and publicly recited the number pi to
22,514 digits (a new European record).
Are Certain Talents
Related to Dyslexia?
Cerebrodiversity Includes
Assets
Dyslexic CEOs
W. Pringle Morgan, M.D.
Percy F., 14
"Calfuly winder the sturng
rond the Pag.”
“He could multiply 749 by 887
quickly and correctly.”
What Did Other Pioneers’
Think?
Other Advocates
Anna Gillingham
S.T. Orton
Margaret Rawson
Norman Geschwind
Priscilla Vail
Tom West
Dyslexia Strengths
• Spatial analyses
• Mechanical/digital aptitude
• Creative approaches to problemsolving
• Connecting disparate pieces of a
puzzle
• Visualization
• Artistic expression
• Athletics
Caveats
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•
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Not everyone with dyslexia
Talents may be hidden
Conflict of disability/talent
Spatial/digital processing
may be a strong channel
• Complicated by stress
Early
Intervention:
Another Reason
• Chronic stress
• Negative neuronal
effects
• number/size
• adult neurogenesis
• Impairs learning
• Dyslexia
• school-home
environment
• testing
• Feedback loop
• Strengths are not
enhanced/inhibited
Let’s Talk About Space?
• Location of points in space (2D)
• Depth perception (3-D)
• Orientation of lines in space
• Face recognition
• Geometric relations
(forms/shapes)
• Tracking moving objects over
time
Prominent Dyslexics?
(Historical)
• Thomas Edison
• Albert Einstein
• Leonardo da
Vinci
• Winston
Churchill
• Woodrow Wilson
• Auguste Rodin
• Pablo Picasso
Prominent Dyslexics
(Living)
•
•
•
•
•
Paul Orfalea
Jerry Pinkney
Stephen J. Cannell
Robert Rauschenberg
David Boies
• Tommy Hilfiger
• Reyn Guyer
•
•
•
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Jack Horner
Henry Winkler
Jay Leno
Cher
Bruce Jenner
Greg Louganis
Jim Shea
Guy Ritchie
Talented Brains
“Making talented brains is not simple.
Nature has probably adopted many
(strategies) for the achievement of this
end…it is indeed quite possible that
dyslexia… may be an unwanted
byproduct of a mechanism that evolved
as a means of increasing the numbers of
certain types of high talent.”
Norman
First Scientific Evidence
Challenge for Educators & Parents
College and High School Student Panel
Another Cerebrodiversity
Research Question
• fMRI during spatial tests
• Highly stressed experimental
group
•
•
•
•
school-home environment
test situation
aversive stimuli (Eden)
appropriate control groups
Tough Being a Rat
“Even if you win the rat race, you’re still
a rat”
--Lily
Tomlin
Improve Your Spatial
Skills?
• KIF17-spatial superiority
• one of 45 kinesin proteins
• involved in learning and memory
• enhanced Morris Maze learning
in transgenic mice
• improved working memory
• Human chromosome 1
• linked to dyslexia
• KIF17 gene
Ectopias Improve
Spatial Learning!
What Else Can We
Do?
• Efficiency of remediation
• Technology bypass
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 (S-T)
• CAST AspireReader 4.0 (T-S)
• Enrichment of abilities
• Computer-based (Mac)
• Digital music
composition/performance
• Digital video production
New
What is Digital
Audio?
• You are surrounded
• movie soundtracks
• popular music (hip hop, rock, techno)
• Sophisticated, complicated, exasperating
software programs
• Takes advantage of powerful computer
technologies
• processing speed (Intel Mac chips)
• inexpensive memory
Strengths Involved
• Visuospatial
• processing
• memory
• Auditory
• Digital
New Experiences
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What it feels like to be motivated
Working/long term memory workout
Being attentive
Altered perception of time
Learning can be fun
Energy of discovery
High level processing success
Value of instruction
Extends to other subjects/learning
Action Plan
• Adopt cerebrodiversity model
• Expect differences and plan for
them
• Do not wait, intervene early
for weaknesses
• Utilize new technologies
• Turn learning differences into
learning abilities
“Do not wish to be anything but
what you are, and try to be that
perfectly.”
--St. Francis
deSales