"[J]ust as our brains shape us, we can shape our brains."
- The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, page 8
"Only as recently as 2000 did Eric Kandel of Columbia University win the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating that learning in response to environmental demands changes the brain."- The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, page 12
You were taught in school that our brains don’t change. What you’re born with is what you’ve got. Kill off some brain cells, and they’re gone forever. Some people are quick and some people are slow. Good at math, or not. Musical, artistic, or not.
We have implicitly believed or been explicitly taught that while we can work hard and develop a certain level of proficiency, if we aren’t wired for something we’ll never be a “natural” at it. Worse, that if someone has a deficiency in some area, that’s their lot in life.
Arrowsmith-Young, born with numerous neurological conditions, has proven that in many cases, it’s just not true. The website for the Arrowsmith Program says that “it is possible for students to strengthen the weak cognitive capacities underlying their learning dysfunctions through a program of specific cognitive exercises.”
"Here is an opportunity to understand the mental glitches and deeper problems of their own..."- The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, foreword by Norman Doidge, MD, page xvii
Like my friend T, most people who have neurological disorders which are diagnosed as learning disabilities have created coping strategies to try to keep up in school and in life. It’s our nature to assume that everyone is like us. In the stories Arrowsmith-Young tells of people with neurological impairment, all assumed that others had someone overcome the same challenges they faced. It wasn’t until they were tested that they realized that what they had was, not a deficiency in character, but a physical problem in their brain.
The appendix of The Woman Who Changed Her Brain lists 19 cognitive deficits and the most common phrases used by those with that deficit to explain themselves or compensate for it. I’m including the list of those phrases below. Read each one, and ask yourself if you can hear yourself saying it, either now, or when you were in school.
The natural reaction is to develop compensating skills instead of addressing the problem, often because no one realizes there is either a problem or a solution.
Each of us occasionally suffers a mental lapse, but if one or more of these phrases seems to be a natural part of who you are, consider the possibility that you’ve been compensating for a physical limitation in your brain—a limitation for which there may be exercises which lead to significantly improved cognitive powers.
In other words, at least consider the possibility that it’s not your fault.
"...or of others in a new way."- The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, foreword by Norman Doidge, MD, page xvii
You might assume that someone who lacks the ability to recognize human faces would be socially awkward. In T’s case, you’d be wrong. No matter where he is, he’s the center of the fun, the core of the fascinating conversation, the spark of the activity.
It’s easy, then, to assume there’s a personal problem when you walk up to him and he gives you that blank look, as if he doesn’t even recognize you. What’s hard is coming to the conclusion that this is precisely what’s happening.
Cognitive deficits tend to be localized, allowing people to excel in unaffected areas. In the stories of Arrowsmith School students, their friends, families, teachers and employers consistently assumed that the problem was attitude.
Once again, look at the list of 19 phrases below. Do you know someone whose mantra seems to be one or more of these?
Consider the possibility that it’s not their fault. And if you want to be the world’s greatest parent, teacher, manager, or friend, ask them about it. I wish I’d asked T about his odd mannerism years ago. Our friendship would have grown faster, and deeper.
Habitual Phrases Which May Indicate Cognitive Deficits
It’s easy to gloss over these challenges in ourselves or others. That’s just how I am, we think; that’s just how they are.
The Woman Who Changed Her Brain grabbed me by the lapels and shook me. Reading the anecdotes of people who’ve been helped by the Arrowsmith School I recognized overwhelming parallels to two in my life who I’ve assumed just wasn’t listening, trying, caring.
The genesis of the Arrowsmith Program of cognitive exercises lies in Barbara Arrowsmith Young’s journey of discovery and innovation to overcome her own severe learning disabilities, a description of which appears in the article, Building a Better Brain or in Chapter 2 of the book, “The Brain That Changes Itself” by Dr. Norman Doidge.
