Brain Training Does Work
Brain training does work despite the volume of uneducated articles you may read on so called lifestyle websites. Brain training is a science, not some developers creating some nice games with graphics. While some of fun, they have zero scientific evidence or research they work or are even beneficial.
So, here are RaiseYourIQ, we will continue our mission to provide published, scientific proof that brain train based on the science of Relational Frame Theory does work to increase a child’s or adults IQ. In fact, RaiseYourIQ is the ONLY brain training which has been created following years of scientific studies by the co-founders of the company, Dr. Bryan Roche and Dr. Sarah Cassidy. If anyone would like to know more about how brain training can better equip the ability to learn, then either Dr. Roche or Dr. Cassidy will be delighted to answer any questions you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us directly via this site or any of our social media channels.
Brain Training Evidence
One such scientific paper that the co-founders of RaiseYourIQ produced along with other academic colleagues, published in the journal “Learning and Individual Differences” ,Brain Training Science shows that significant increases in overall intelligence, of 28 points on average, can be produced by undertaking online relational skills training or brain training as it’s commonly known. In fact, the research showed that significant improvements in overall educational aptitude can be achieved by the user in a few months of practising these relational skills.
We continue in our mission to provide scientific evidence that a Relational Frame Theory (RFT) approach to a person’s intellectual development holds the key to a functional approach to brain training. Our research into RFT has identified a series of basic building blocks of intellectual development, which center around the ability of someone to understand complex inter-relations among stimuli.
Brain Training in Action
A good example of these building blocks is that if we understand that if something is opposite to two other things, then those two things must be the same as each other. This calculation involves a relation skill. Another example to this is if one object is worth more than another, the second one is worth less than the first. The belief that these types of skills do not just underlie intelligence, but actualy constitute it, is core to RFT. We call this a modern behavioral approach, however it sits well with more mainstream cognitive assessment approaches.
Brain Training Research
The reality is that most people and children are relatively proficient in basic relational skills. However, many people are quite deficient in solving the more complex relational problems. To address this deficiency, we created our online brain training system and called it SMART training (Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training). This system was developed by Relational Frame Theory researchers (psychologists to you and me) at Maynooth University in Ireland. Another piece of study by Dr. Cassidy et al. was the second such study to be published by the Maynooth University team to show that SMART training can increase general intelligence as measured by standardized IQ tests, such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). In fact, this second study provided new additional evidence that scholastic ability, as measured by a gold standard aptitude test known as the Differential Aptitude Test (DATs), also increases as a result of SMART brain training or “intellectual skills training” to give its proper medical name.
We documented in previous research that a person’s IQ increase cannot be easily accounted for by practice at the IQ test, because the IQ test was administered only twice, with several month intervals between administrations. Furthermore, IQ rises due to practice are usually very small compared to the rises reported in this latest study. Further still, the training administered to the sample of 11–12-year-old children employed in Experiment 1 of this study, was dissimilar to an IQ test. The same applies to the DATs aptitude test. This was administered only twice, and the increases in scores observed for numerical and verbal reasoning far outstripped the increases expected by practice at the test itself.
It is important to note that the online relational skills training did not in any way teach the items on the DATs test. This was the second SMART study to achieve what critics of “brain training” treat as the benchmark for acceptable brain training; the transfer of skills from the training to other tasks. In this regard the Cassidy study provides more evidence that brain training can work to enhance essential intellectual skills, at least if it focuses on relational skills, or what RFT researchers call Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding.
Brain Training Evidence
One of the more common criticisms of brain training programs is that while it can improve the cognitive skills needed to complete the training, any benefits will have no practical relevance to a person’s daily life. In one study, however, a sample of thirty 14 to 15-year-old kids were tracked across several months of online training. This was completed 2–3 times a week for approx. 30–45 minutes. The evidence proved that practice at relational skills, increased their numerical and verbal reasoning abilities, as measured by the DATs (administered and scored by independent third parties) by a significant degree.
These numerical indices were then used by educators to assess a child’s overall “educational aptitude”, which is the child’s ability to perform well in school across the board. By finding a significant increase in learning ability, the current study suggests that SMART brain training can make a real and measurable difference to the education of a child. While more evidence is always required when such promising results are reported by any new Brain training method, the case is mounting that a relational frame theory approach to intellectual development may indeed have identified some basic building blocks of intelligence, once thought to be an unchangeable trait.
We are not suggesting that brain training games is the answer to improving everyone’s learning ability or to raise their IQ, however our scientific research goes a long way to proving that brain training does work.
