Brain Training To Nurture the Genius in Every Child
Dr. Bryan Roche and Dr. Sarah Cassidy argues that brain training can nurture the genius in every child or adult.
Dr. Bryan Roche and Dr. Sarah Cassidy argues that brain training can nurture the genius in every child or adult. The idea that our Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is an inherited trait that is fixed for life is a common but mistaken one. Decades of research have now shown that intelligence levels are relatively malleable. More importantly, in our research at NUI Maynooth we have struck upon what appears to be a set of basic building blocks of intellectual development. We have also devised a method for teaching these basic skills and have digitized this training online for use by individuals and schools at www.RaiseYourIQ.com. In this article we will outline the SMART brain training method, illustrate evidence for it and explain why we believe it represents a nothing short of a revolution for the way we think about intelligence.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests index the speed and accuracy with which a child can perform tasks associated with educational attainment (e.g., use numbers, display an extensive vocabulary, concentrate, problem-solve). Despite public misperception, it has been known for some time now that any intensive educational program can lead to IQ gains (e.g., Brinch & Galloway, 2012; Ceci, 1991). Moreover, new neuroscientific evidence provided in an article published in Nature, shows that IQ can vary considerably in the teenage years as a function of environmental influences (Ramsden, et al., 2011). More recently, several respectable studies by Susanne Jäeggi and colleagues at the University of Michigan have found that practice on a demanding memory task known as the dual n-back task leads to gains in fluid intelligence (the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge). Finally, in the special education field IQ gains have been routinely reported following Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions. The late O. Ivar Lovaas (1987), for example, reported IQ gains up to 30 points (roughly two standard deviations) following a three-year ABA programme for autistic children.
Why Does IQ matter?
While there is much more to being a well-rounded young citizen than intellectual capacity, a student’s IQ will nevertheless roughly predict their educational success (Deary, Strand, Smith & Fernandes, 2007) and is associated with a range of several positive life outcomes (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). One study (Frey & Detterman, 2004) found a high correlation of 0.82 between IQ and American Standard Aptitude Test (SAT) scores. The latter are widely used as selection criteria for college places and other training and employment opportunities. Another study (Deary et al., 2007) found a correlation of 0.81 between IQ and British GCSE scores. Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that any enhancement of intellectual skills will broaden educational and employment opportunity for the individual. The problem is that attempts to raise IQ have until recently been rather haphazard and often ineffective. However, in our research over the past decade, in collaboration with a community of international colleagues, we have identified what appears to be a set of basic building blocks of intellectual development. We have also devised a method for teaching these skills online at RaiseYourIQ.com.
How We Make a Genius of any Child
Research in the field of Relational Frame Theory (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes & Roche, 2001) has shown that understanding relations, such as more than, less than, opposite, same, before, after, here-there, amongst others, is crucial for our intellectual development in just about every sphere. In fact, they are so crucial that researchers have reported in published scientific research papers that we can measure intelligence simply in terms of one’s ability to understand these relations (or what we call “relational ability”).
As an example of an abstract relational skill that children must acquire, consider the example of how monetary currency works. With physical currency, the value of a coin is unrelated to its physical size. So while coins have varying magnitudes in terms of size, the magnitude of interest in the context of value, is the buying power of the coin, not the length of its circumference. The latter is easily discernible by any animal, human or otherwise. But the abstract purchasing power magnitude is arbitrary and abstract and not discernible from looking at the coin alone. Coin value is an abstract relational property. Using money, therefore, requires a basic grasp of some algebraic concepts, which is precisely why children cannot usually use money. Their relational skills are not far enough advanced to allow them to deal with abstract and arbitrary relations between symbols.
Parents and teachers already teach children relational skills routinely without even knowing it. For example, parents inadvertently teach young children the concept of “sameness” in normal language interaction. To be more specific, a parent will not just teach a child one word for a television set, they may in fact use two. On one occasion they may refer to it as the “tv” and on another as “the box”. The child will have to be explicitly told in the early years that given this information, “tv” and “box” refer to the same thing. Any confusion shown by the child is met with assurance from the parent that whenever two words are used for the same thing — those two words have the same meaning as each other. This is just one way in which a child learns to understand what “same” means and how “same” relations can be derived across multiple words and objects in logical ways. This in essence is a skill required for vocabulary expansion. If it were not for this skill, each and every word in the child’s vocabulary would have to be taught individually and related to each other word individually (i.e., billions of individual learning tasks).
Other relational concepts, such as Opposite, and comparison, have unique properties, and it is surprising how inefficient many children and even adults are in their basic grasp of the truly abstract nature of these relations. To test yourself, look at the little quiz questions below. We have inserted arrows to make these apparently “easy” tasks even easier!
SMART training teaches students how to learn
Our intellectual skills intervention is called SMART training (Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training). This training is content free. We do not teach students anything that they can use in their examinations (e.g., how to multiply, the capital of Peru). Instead we teach the foundational reasoning skills crucial to vocabulary acquisition and mathematical reasoning. In effect, we are giving students the tools to learn more effectively. Moreover our training remediates deficits in these skills bases that not only cannot be taught at school efficiently without extensive one-to-one assistance, but can even help children to catch up to and even surpass the population average in intellectual ability. This is the springboard from which future learning then occurs.
SMART training has been shown in published research to impact intellectual ability scores (measured using the WISC) and in independent research into relational skills have shown that our ability to understand abstract relations corresponds to scores on standard IQ tests (e.g., the WAIS and Kaufman’s brief intelligence test). One published research paper (Cassidy, Roche & Hayes, 2011) described how a range of different children (four normally developing and eight educationally challenged) were provided with a fully automated SMART training method on a computer in once to twice weekly sessions lasting approximately 90 minutes across several months. IQ tests (WISC III) were administered before the relational training and several weeks following the completion of training. At the outset of the study, the four normal children had an average IQ of 105 (ranging from 96-119). This is typical of normally developing children. Nevertheless, this average IQ was raised to over 130, which is called high functioning or exceptional. Children in this intellectual range are often referred to as gifted. The lowest IQ among the normally developing students following the intervention was 128 and the highest was 137. This means that these children’s intellectual ability was moved from average range to within the top 2% of the population. Four further typically developing children who had average range IQs were also tracked across the period of the study but they did not receive the SMART training. Their IQs showed no change over the intervention period, as expected.
Eight further educationally challenged children started the program with an average IQ of 82 (using the WISC IV), well below the average score of around 100. Following the intervention, these IQs were moved on average to 96, well within the average IQ range. While all IQs improved, three remained below average. A further three children had their IQ moved into the average range, while two had their IQ raised to high average ranges. These raised IQs have been maintained four years since the trial (see Roche, Cassidy and Stewart, 2013).
IQ rises from pre to post SMART relational skills training for 8 children from Scoil Ui Riada, Kilcock with learning difficulties (Cassidy, Roche & Hayes, 2011).
More recently, in a small trial of 15 children completed in Rathmore National School we recorded significant improvements in IQ, averaging 23 points. Two of three pre-existing diagnoses of dyslexia were revised following the intervention due to the significant improvements in reading for those students. This study is currently being extended in Scoil Ui Riada, Kilcock and is being replicated in a well-controlled trial in Scoil Ide, Limerick.
A Summary of the IQ improvements observed in the Rathmore NS trial.
More importantly, there were improvements in reading and mathematical ability recorded at Rathmore National School as measured by the Sigma and Micra T standardized tests. On the back of these very promising findings a large-scale trial involving over 750 children is currently underway at Confey College, Leixlip, Co. Kildare. Confey College have taken a keenly progressive approach to giving their students every chance to reach their educational potential, illustrated by the fact that even the teachers and administrative staff will be undertaking the training!
The Democratization of Educational Attainment
Affordable and easily accessible interventions to hone the foundational educational skills of any child have the potential to democratize education. It can be quite impractical for a school to try to bring up to speed a child who is years behind in educational attainment due to a lack of investment in that child in their earlier years, by parents or otherwise (Hart & Risely, 1995). The identification of relational skills as the basic building blocks of intelligence, however, offers the possibility of remediating these deficits in a very efficient way so that educational efforts will be more effective and so that disadvantaged children can reach their educational potential in an expedited fashion. In this way, online SMART training can foster inclusion by increasing the skill sets of those with learning needs, who may require more assistance than many educational settings can cater fully for. In effect, our training tools address the aims of such bodies as the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which intends to improve the delivery of education services to persons with special educational needs. SMART training is a tool that can aid in this mission because it removes barriers to education and the reaching of one’s potential in contexts in which massive resources are required to remediate intellectual deficits. In line with NCSE aims, SMART can help students achieve the maximum benefit from their attendance at school (see Winter & O’Raw, 2010).
The optimistic vision we have outlined here may seem too good to be true. As pioneers of this new educational intervention, however, we are mindful that all great leaps forward, in every discipline were once too good to be true. For instance it was once thought that the IQ of a Down’s syndrome child could not increase above 60 or so. Thanks, however, to concerted efforts to address the specific educational needs of children with Down’s syndrome we have left that supposed maximum IQ in the rear view mirror many years ago and have seen such children go on to reach borderline to low average IQs and even to attend University to complete Degrees. We have every reason to believe that we are on the cusp of just such a leap forward in our expectations, not just of children with borderline and mild learning difficulties, but of all children. And we are proud that this revolution will have started here within the Irish school system.
For more information visit www.RaiseYourIQ.com or e-mail support@raiseyouriq.com
