On recognizing learning disorders: where do we stand?

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When Kandel said that “In the study of memory storage, we are now at the foothills of a great mountain range. We have some understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of memory storage, but we need to move from these mechanisms to the systems properties of memory” (UCD, 2009), it was important to me to understand that his call addresses a move from a singular and isolated view to an effort from all parties involved in studying the mind-brain relation to consider the systemic view of how integration promotes diverse functions.

As an educator, I have often noticed the isolation that practitioners of different – albeit interrelated – areas defend their praxis. It seems that the breaking into small parts that is so important to an accurate understanding of the limits that cognitive capacity forces upon processing of information have been taken to extremes (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Green & Bavelier, 2008; Lockhart & Craig, 1990). It is no longer a question of seeing the whole to understand the parts, but rather an issue of defending the part not to be lost in the whole. And in so doing, or abiding by this mechanism, we seem to have lost the path to continuous progress as a society.

In schools I work with what I see are isolated efforts from practitioners to understand what is happening inside the brains of students who are genuinely struggling to learn. On one side, medical doctors and psychology practitioners are clad in the protective realm of their knowledge of the brain and mind, respectively, whereas the empirical knowledge and the evidence derived from the classroom remains largely ignored by diagnoses that fail to listen to the accounts and informed opinions of teachers.

The fact that each brain is unique and uniquely organized (Devlin & Poldrack, 2007) and that much will be shaped  at pre-natal stages (Aamodt & Wang, 2012) should make it easy for teachers, on the other side, to avoid subscribing to methods and approaches that promise learning based on fads and myths (Dekker, Howard-Jones & Jolles, 2012). What astonishes me is how quickly we all cling to short-cuts in understanding something so complex as the brain, avoiding taking the hard yet necessary route of systemic learning (Toga & Thompson, 2007).  The fact that we do prefer the use of heuristics (our System1 according to Kahneman & Egan, 2011) on everyday tasks should be discussed and broadly divulged wherever there is a genuine quest for knowing more about different learning and developmental trajectories.

Whereas there is nothing wrong in acknowledging what we all do, the fact that we have to remain vigilant – and humble, disciplined and effortful – in our quest to process information differently when complex issues are considered should be widely known and attempted. That is, in my view, the way to assimilate information about the developmental stages, learning thresholds and differences. It takes a collective effort to respect the individuality of a human being in a learning trajectory that has to be supported by that very same community. We should all, for instance, strive to furnish each individual with quality of input and interaction as it does impact their language acquisition and, consequently, their learning trajectory (Saxton, 2017). We may still lie in our infancy in terms of knowledge about the brain, but baby steps in the right direction should be a joint effort for all in Education to take. 

And you, where do you stand in recognizing that we all learn in different ways?

References

Aamodt, S.& Wang, S. (2011). Welcome to your child’s brain: How the mind grows from conception to college. New York: Bloomsbury

Craik, F. I., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 11(6), 671-684.

Dekker, S., Lee, N. C., Howard-Jones, P., & Jolles, J. (2012). Neuromyths in education: Prevalence and predictors of misconceptions among teachers. Frontiers in psychology, 3, 429.

Devlin, J. T., & Poldrack, R. A. (2007). In praise of tedious anatomy. Neuroimage, 37(4), 1033-1041.

Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2008). Exercising your brain: a review of human brain plasticity and training-induced learning. Psychology and aging, 23(4), 692.

Kahneman, D., & Egan, P. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow (Vol. 1). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lockhart, R. S., & Craik, F. I. (1990). Levels of processing: A retrospective commentary on a framework for memory research. Canadian Journal of Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie, 44(1), 87.

Saxton, M. (2017). Child language: Acquisition and development (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

                                                                                                                                                                        Toga, A. W., & Thompson, P. M. (2007). What is where and why it is important. Neuroimage, 37(4), 1045. 

UCD (21 Sept. 2009). “Ulysses Medal for Groundbreaking Memory Scientist.” University College Dublin, UCD News. Accessed at www.ucd.ie/news/2009/09SEP09/210909_kandell.html.