| Tyler
was a motivated high school junior, potential Ivy League football
player, and solid AP (Advanced Placement) student. But he was “SAT-Challenged!”
Jessica was also an excellent student
in her junior year in high school, but her test anxiety was so great
it could only be controlled with prescription medication.
Cheryl is a 50-something baby-boomer
with more and more of those embarrassing “senior moments” that leave
her at a loss for names and having trouble finding the words she
wants to say.
Ryan is a 12-year old dyslexic learner,
bright but struggling to read and write.
As diverse as these four individuals seem,
they can all be helped with mental fitness, or cognitive skills,
training.
Recent brain research indicates that the brain can
continue to grown and change throughout our lifetime. The kinds
of skills needed for
• quick thinking and problem solving on the
SAT,
• relaxed, efficient retrieval of information for tests,
• sharp memory and thinking as we age, and
• overcoming learning challenges
are learned cognitive abilities that can be improved
with training.
Tyler 's Story: Conquering the SAT
Tyler was a good student and a good football player.
He was being looked at by scouts from Ivy League colleges. However,
his SAT scores were nothing to brag about and he feared they would
keep him out of the college he wanted to attend.
Tyler went to The Core Learning Group in Addison,
Texas, where he lived, to see about getting some help. He scored
so well on the screening test that the director of the center was
hesitant to have Tyler make the investment of time and money.
Tyler and his family persisted and Tyler enrolled
with The Core Learning Group for a 12 week course in processing
skills training using PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement).
Here was the BIG result:
When Tyler re-took the SAT, his
score improved by 200 points!
The SAT is as much about knowing how to think quickly,
problem solve, evaluate, and apply knowledge as it is about knowing
the material. The SAT time limits are the enemy of many test-takers.
Students who do well on the SAT must be able to rapidly make good
decisions so they can quickly spot and answer easier questions,
leaving more time for the tougher ones.
For Tyler, as with many other college-bound students,
the stress and length of the test was enough to compromise his performance.
After completing the PACE program of cognitive training, Tyler had
the speed and confidence to overcome these challenges.
Jessica's Story: Overcoming Test Anxiety
Jessica, a high school junior, was an A student in advanced
placement (AP) classes. In spite of being a top performer, she had
extreme test anxiety that had to be managed with a prescription
medication. Her parents really wanted to get her off the medication,
but Jessica was afraid to because she “didn't want to screw up her
classes.”
Jessica enrolled in PACE, an intensive processing
skills program. PACE develops cognitive skills in 24 specific areas
including auditory and visual processing, short and long term memory,
processing speed, attention, logic and reasoning, visualization,
and association. Many of the activities are done to the beat of
a metronome, which enhances processing speed, internal organization,
and quick decision-making. For Jessica, activities were worked on
at such a fast pace that she couldn't afford to split her mental
energy with anxiousness.
Jessica finished the PACE program in the Spring of
her junior year. She went into AP calculus the following September
and began scoring higher than anyone else in her class on her tests.
Her classmates began calling her “The Brain.”
Jessica attributes her success to PACE. It showed
her that she could perform without anxiety and gave her the skills
to hold numbers and formulas in her head. She was amazed at how
strong her ability to do mental math had become.
For Jessica's parents, the PACE program help Jessica
develop skills that allowed her another kind of success: She
was able to get off of her anxiety medication!
More About the PACE Program
PACE is a cognitive skills training program that builds
mental tools for thinking and learning. Recent research on the brain
and learning suggests that mental exercises can increase the connections
between brain cells, making thinking and learning quicker and easier.
The brain seems to work a lot like a muscle. The more you work it
the more it grows.
PACE is about working the brain. It is intense because
intensity produces the quickest results, and it is motivating because
students can see changes so quickly.
PACE was developed by a team of professionals in various
fields related to learning. It develops skills in the following
areas:
Attention:
the ability to stay on task even when distractions are present.
Divided
Attention: the ability to attend to and handle two or
more tasks at one time. Such as: taking notes while listening,
carrying totals while adding the next column
Sequential
Processing: the ability to process chunks of information
that are received one after another.
Simultaneous
Processing: the ability to process chunks of information
that are received all at once.
Logic
and Reasoning: the ability to reason, plan, and think.
Processing
Speed: the ability to perform cognitive tasks quickly;
an important skills for complex tasks or tasks that have many
steps.
Working
Memory: the ability to hold and recall small amounts
of information about the current situation until it is used or
stored in long term memory; Holding information in your memory
while deciding what to do with it.
Long
Term Memory: the ability to retrieve past information
when needed. This is important for spelling, comprehension, and
test-taking.
Auditory
Processing: the ability to take-in and think about information
that is heard. This includes phonemic awareness, the ability to
judge the number, order, and identity of sounds in words. This
is a critical underlying factor in reading and spelling.
Visual
Processing: the ability to perceive, analyze, and think
with visual images. This often includes visualization, which plays
an important role in comprehension, math word problems, and mental
problem solving.
Increasing
School Success
The unifying theme of successful older student who have
participated in the PACE program has been that it saves
them time.
These busy
high-achieving students are often involved in sports, community
service, and school functions. After PACE, they often come away
so impressed by their efficiency with schoolwork and their own ability
to manage their time.
College
students who have previously been in special education or who were
mediocre students in high school, and who have been afraid they
“couldn't cut it” in college, have consistently reported cognitive
skills training to be unbelievably helpful in boosting their confidence,
motivation, and school performance.
Cognitive
Training for Struggling Students
Students who experience learning challenges usually have
areas of inefficient processing, which are interrupting expected
academic development. In order to make real changes in their learning,
we need to explore the underlying skills critical to academic and
social success . These include skills such as:
•
Memory
• Attention
• Processing Speed
• Auditory processing, language, and communication
• Phonemic awareness
• Visual processing
• Logic and reasoning
• Internal timing and organization
• Motor coordination and sensory integration
Weaknesses
or inconsistencies in one or more of these areas can cause difficulties
with efficient learning. Cognitive skills training programs such
as PACE have consistently been shown to improve student's underlying
thinking/learning processes in order to bring independence and success
into the learning process.
Keeping
the Brain Fit as We Age
As the Baby Boomer generation ages, awareness of brain
health has dramatically increased. Several outstanding books have
been written recently by medical doctors who outline steps for maintaining
mental sharpness and treating and preventing neurological conditions
such as Alzheimer's, stroke, and Parkinson's. The steps consistently
include:
•
Nutrition,
• Exercise,
• Sleep,
• Meditation or relaxation exercises, and
• Brain Training
The brain
is a powerful resource. At any age, we can stimulate our cognitive
skills for more efficient thinking and functioning!
Here are
a few good resources for further information on brain health:
The
Better Brain Book by David Perlmutter, M.D.
Making a Good Brain Great by Daniel Amen, M.D.
The Memory Prescription by Gary Small, M.D.
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