Can We Predict Future Literacy Skills in Children? - Hallie Smith, MA CCC-SLP

Study: Predicting literacy skills in children years before they read

A new study says non-reading children as young as age 3 carry objective neurophysiological markers that signal whether they will struggle to read. Children so young have never been tested before, but the research team found a way to measure their brain responses to sound, a key part of pre-reading development.

The groundbreaking study found promising results in how to predict reading abilitybefore reading instruction begins. More testing is needed, but if the approach works, scientists may literally predict if a toddler is at risk. That could lead to early intervention strategies that dramatically improve a child’s reading skills, said senior researcher and neurobiologist Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Evanston, Ill.

“If you know you have a 3-year-old at risk, you can, as soon as possible, begin to enrich their life in sound so that you don’t lose those crucial early developmental years,” Kraus told The Huffington Post.

The study published in the July issue of PLOS Biology is one of the first to find that the brain’s ability to process the sounds of consonants in noise is critical for language and reading development. In other words, reading begins with the ears, not the eyes, as our brains index meaningful sounds and attempt to block out noise, all within microseconds.

“This is arguably some of the most complex computation that we ask our brain to do,” Kraus told National Public Radio.

Noisy environments tax all of us when we’re trying to listen for meaningful sound, according to Martha Burns, Ph.D., Joint Appointment Professor at Northwestern University. But for children with auditory processing disorders (APD), meaningful sounds sound, well, simply muddled. And classrooms can be very noisy places, where children with APD may find it difficult to filter out irrelevant noise.

“The child’s natural instinct, just like yours, is to stop listening. As a result, children with APD often achieve way under their potential despite being very bright,” Burns wrote.

Researchers have already found ways to help children with auditory processing disorders. Burns notes, for example, that programs such as Fast ForWord Language v2 can change the brainstem response to speech and improve auditory processing skills, helping children improve their ability to listen for competing words and deciphering words that are unclear.

But noise, as distinct from sound, particularly affects the brain’s ability to hear consonants. Consonants are said very quickly and not as loudly or as long as vowels - which in contrast - are acoustically simple.

The methodology: how did the study work?

Kraus and her team used a combination of consonants and vowels, specifically the sound “da,” to see how well kids’ brains could filter out background noise. The results showed tremendous potential for identifying children with potential reading problems later in life. “Our results suggest that the precision and stability of coding consonants in noise parallels emergent literacy skills across a broad spectrum of competencies – all before explicit reading instruction begins,” the study says.  

Here’s how Kraus’s team discovered the neurological markers in youngsters too young to read. In a series of experiments, they asked 112 kids between the ages of 3 and 14 to choose a favorite movie and sit in a comfortable chair. Then, researchers attached electroencephalograms (EEGs) to each of the children’s scalps to monitor their brain waves while they listened to a video soundtrack in one ear and to noise in the other ear. The transmitted noise, specifically the sound “da,” was imposed over background chatting of about a half dozen people.

The EEG output to a computer allowed Kraus’s team to actually see the kids’ brain waves and understand how well they could separate the sound “da” from the noisy chatter. The brain should respond the same way repeatedly to the sound “da,” Kraus said. But if the brain doesn’t respond the same way over and over again, something may be wrong with the child’s auditory processing. “If the brain responds differently to that same sound - (even though) the sound hasn’t changed – how is a child to learn?” Kraus said.

The team tested the 3-year-olds, then re-tested them the following year. In the follow-up, researchers learned they could predict which of the 4-year-olds would struggle with reading. They also tested children as old as 14 and found that they could predict reading skills and learning disabilities.

What are the implications?

Based on the results, researchers developed a model to predict reading performance. The test is a “biological looking glass into a child’s literacy potential,” Kraus told NPR.

“If the brain’s response to sound isn’t optimal, it can’t keep up with the fast, difficult computations required to process in noise,” she said. “Sound is a powerful, invisible force that is central to human communication. Everyday listening experiences bootstrap language development by cluing children in on which sounds are meaningful. If a child can’t make meaning of these sounds through the background noise, he won’t develop the linguistic resources needed when reading instruction begins.”

The findings have far-reaching consequences for parents and educators because, clearly, they show that reading is about perceiving sound. To reiterate, reading is about the ears, not the eyes.

And, when it comes to reading intervention, the earlier, the better.

“My vision for this is to have every child tested at birth,” Kraus said.

For further reading:

It Could Be Possible To Predict Which Kids Will Struggle With Reading, Says Study

Auditory Processing in Noise:  A Preschool Biomarker for Literacy

Detecting Reading Problems in Preschoolers

Interview with Nina Kraus, PhD, Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University

The Test That Can Look Into A Child's (Reading) Future

The Benefits of Downtime: Why Learners’ Brains Need a Break - Hallie Smith, MA CCC-SLP

A friend of mine once described her brain as a washing machine, tumbling and tossing the requests and information that hit her at work from every direction. Many people I know feel the same way—overwhelmed by the onslaught of knowledge and to-dos that accompany the always-on smartphone era.

The situation is not that different for most kids these days, with high expectations in the classroom, fewer opportunities to unwind with recess and the arts, busy social calendars, and a seemingly limitless supply of extracurricular activities—like circus arts and robotics—that weren’t available to previous generations. That’s unfortunate, because research shows that time off-task is important for proper brain function and health.

Going Offline

The idea that the brain might be productively engaged during downtime has been slow in coming. Because of the brain’s massive energy consumption—using as much as 20% of the body’s energy intake while on-task—most scientists expected that the organ would default to a frugal, energy-saving mode when given the chance.

Recently, however, brain researchers have discovered sets of scattered brain regions that fire in a synchronized way when people switch to a state of mental rest, such as daydreaming. These “resting-state networks” help us process our experience, consolidate memories, reinforce learning, regulate our attention and emotions, keep us productive and effective in our work and judgment, and more.

The best understood of these networks is the Default Mode Network, or DMN. It’s the part of the brain that chatters on continuously when we’re off-task—ruminating on a conversation that didn’t go as well as we’d hoped, for example, or flipping through our mental to-do list, or nagging us about how we’ve treated a friend.

Many of us are culturally conditioned to think of time off-task as “wasted” and a sign of inefficiency or laziness. But teachers and learners can benefit from recognizing how downtime can help. In addition to giving the brain an opportunity to make sense of what it has just learned, shifting off-task can help learners refresh their minds when frustrated so they can return to a problem and focus better.

The Productive Faces of Idleness

SLEEP

Sleep is the quintessential form of downtime for the brain. All animals sleep in some form, and even plants and microorganisms often have dormant or inactive states. Sleep has been shown in numerous studies to play a major role in memory formation and consolidation.

Recent studies have shown that when the human brain flips to idle mode, the neurons that work so hard when we’re on-task settle down and the surrounding glial cells increase their activity dramatically, cleaning up the waste products accumulated by the neurons and moving them out via the body’s lymphatic system. Researchers believe that the restorative effects of sleep are due to this cleansing mechanism. Napping for 10-30 minutes has been demonstrated to increase alertness and improve performance.

Teachers might consider reminding parents of the importance of adequate sleep for learning in the classroom – especially if learners are visibly sleepy or have noticeable difficulty focusing in class. As many as 30% of K-12 learners don’t get enough sleep at night.

AWAKE, DOING NOTHING

Idleness is often considered a vice, but there’s growing evidence that there are benefits to “doing nothing.” Electrical activity in the brain that appears to solidify certain kinds of memories is more frequent during downtime—as when lying in the dark at bedtime—than it is during sleep.

Meditation is another way of giving the brain a break from work without fully surrendering consciousness. Research has shown that meditation can refresh our ability to concentrate, help us attend to tasks more efficiently, and strengthen connections between regions of the DMN.

Experienced meditators typically perform better than non-meditators on difficult attention tests, and may be able to toggle more easily between the DMN and those brain networks that we use when we’re actively on task.

There’s evidence as well that the brain benefits from going offline for even the briefest moments—as when we blink. Every time we blink, our DMN fires up and our conscious networks take respite for a moment, giving the conscious mind a bit of relief.

Some schools are taking note and introducing meditation into the classroom.Getting the buy-in needed to launch a meditation program takes work, but benefits can be substantial.

MUNDANE ACTIVITY

It’s not uncommon to experience a sudden flash of insight while engaged in mundane activities like doing a crossword puzzle or cleaning the house. There’s a famous anecdote about Archimedes, a prominent scientist in classical Greece, solving a problem in just this way.

Archimedes needed to determine whether the king’s new crown was made entirely of the gold supplied to the goldsmith, or whether inferior metals like silver had been mixed in—and he had to do it without damaging the crown. He puzzled over how to solve the problem, without luck. Then, as he stepped into a bathtub one day and saw the water level rise, he realized in an instant that he could use the water’s buoyancy to measure the density of the crown against a solid gold reference sample. He conducted the experiment and found that the crown was less dense than the gold sample, implicating the goldsmith in fraud.

Scientists who research “unconscious thought” have found that activities that distract the conscious mind without taxing the brain seem to give people greater insight into complex problems. In a study of students who were asked to determine which car would be the best purchase, for instance, the group that spent their decision-making time solving an unrelated puzzle made better choices than the group that deliberated over the information for four minutes.

Brief windows of time spent on routine, mundane activities in the classroom—like feeding the class pet, putting books back on a bookshelf, or rearranging desks—can give learners a much-needed break from the sustained concentration required for academic time on-task.

Standing Up for Downtime

With so much to do and so little learning time in a school year—fitting in downtime is easier said than done. But take heart. Even closing your eyes, taking one deep breath, and exhaling can help to refresh the brain and takes practically no time. Offering more downtime in moment-sized bites might be just the thing for keeping ourselves, our students and our children on schedule and giving our brains that little bit of freedom to turn off for just a minute.

Holiday breaks and vacations are a perfect time for all of us take a break. I’ll be finding some time to unplug, unwind, and turn off. Will you?

References:

2004 Sleep in America Poll. (2004). Retrieved December 8, 2013, from http://www.sleepfoundation.org/

Braun, D. (2009, August 6). Why do we Sleep? Scientists are Still Trying to Find Out. Nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved December 2, 2013, fromhttp://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2009/08/26/why_we_sleep_is_a_mystery/

Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Epidemic. (2013).  Retrieved December 8, 2013 from http:www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep

Jabr, F. (2013, October 15). Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime.Scientificamerican.com.Retrieved November 30, 2013, fromhttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mental-downtime

Sabourin, J. Rowe, J.P, Mott, B.,W. & Lester, J.C. (2011). When Off-Task is On-Task: The Affective Role of Off-Task Behavior in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. Artificial Intelligence in Education, 6738, 534-536. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-21869-9_93

Welsh, J. (2013, October 17). Scientists Have Finally Found The First Real Reason We Need To Sleep. Businessinsider.com. Retrieved December 2, 2013, fromhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-real-reason-we-need-to-sleep-2013-10

Understanding Dyslexia: 5 Ways to End the Homework Struggle by Joanne Gouaux

Many parents find themselves feeling exhausted and frustrated with the role of homework enforcer and personal tutor.  Homework support for a child with dyslexia adds another item to the ever expanding to-do list of family responsibilities.  Our children spend the greater part of their lives at school, and homework time often determines how much family time remains at the end of each day. If your child struggles to learn independently, it’s easy to fall prey to the pressure of the ticking clock.  Whether or not time efficiency is a reasonable expectation, the pressure to perform can quickly become a power struggle between parent and child, resulting in angst and tension.  The family dynamic surrounding homework can dramatically affect our relationship with our child, and likewise how our child views their relationship with us, along with how they feel about their own abilities. 

“All kids want to do well.  All kids are trying,” said Sarah Entine, director of the documentary film Read Me Differently. Read Me Differently explores how undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD have impacted three generations in Entine’s family, and portrays the confusion at home surrounding missed connections between parent and child, along with general misunderstandings within families.  While working on her Masters Degree in Social Work, Entine realized how being dyslexic shapes her communication style, despite having ‘overcome it’ as a reader and writer in elementary school.  Through a broader understanding of dyslexia, she discovered that the identification is not limited to a mere difficulty with reading, writing or speech.  She recognized communication patterns in her family relationships that spanned well beyond the school years, bridging from one generation to the next.  By sharing her family’s story, Entine unravels some of the communication mysteries that are common in households with members who identify as ADHD or dyslexic. 

Communication and coping mechanisms

“You want to be like your friends.  You want to be like everyone else,“ says Entine.  Communication conflicts bring to light coping mechanisms that some dyslexics adopt in hopes of securing parent approval: pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion, participating in activities they don’t enjoy so as to appear productive or smart, struggling to prove their capability and worthiness over and over again.  She recommends teaching children self-compassion as a method to alleviate some of the anxiety and stress that children encounter while trying to perform at school, or while doing homework with their parents. There are also some other strategies parents can use to create a cooperative and healthy homework relationship with their child at homework time.

Strategies to help end the homework struggle:

• Practice empathy. Put yourself in their shoes.  Homework, when coupled with overcoming dyslexia, is no small task for either child or parent.  Play anthropologist for an hour and pretend you’re simply at the homework table to observe and witness a marvel of human invention, homework.
• Welcome mistakes as teachable moments. Trying something and failing gives us valuable information.  Mistakes are often how we learn.  It helps develop resilience, something successful dyslexics have mastered. 
• Customize techniques for your child. Listening and asking questions about your child’s experience will provide valuable insight into their behaviors and interests which can help you develop appropriate incentives based on knowing your child’s motivations.
• Do your homework, too. Prepare for the homework session by checking in ahead of time on the subject matter.  This especially helpful for math assignments.  YouTube is a wonderful resource for a three minute refresher or intro to the latest curriculum. 
• Develop multi-sensory strategies. Help boost your child’s homework stamina by bringing in other sensory outlets. For example, offering your child a piece of gum to chew, the option to sit on a yoga ball, or to stand rather than sitting in a chair.  Invite your child to pace around the room while brainstorming aloud for a writing assignment, or provide a rubber band they can fidget with to facilitate an outlet for their need to move.  Do some silly stretches, think calisthenics, with an emphasis on crossing mid-line to help bilateral integration, which means using both sides of the body at the same time.  For children distracted by noise, offer a quiet place, or allow them to put on some noise canceling headphones.

Above all, avoid power struggles.  It takes two for tug-o-war, so beware of picking up your end of the rope.  If your child is showing signs of over-stimulation such as: decreased focus, yawning, or you notice their gaze drifting off, ask them what they need to do to get back on track. Offer a snack, or bathroom break.  Sometimes they’ll tell you they need a break. Set a timer for five to ten minutes and provide a “brain break.”  Keep your cool, and don’t mimic negative behavior. 

“It’s not just a learning difference,” says Entine.  “Our brains are wired differently.  It’s a mistake to blanket lack of effort as the cause of a dyslexic child’s struggle with reading and writing.” 

As parents, we naturally observe certain qualities in our children that evoke feelings of closeness, or inspire a warm nostalgia about our own childhood.  Seeing these qualities is rewarding.  We feel close and connected, understood.  What about the opposite? What happens when our children, through no fault of their own, struggle with something that triggers feelings of anxiety, shame, or helplessness – all three as relevant to our present as they maybe from our past? Entine’s advice, “Put on your own oxygen mask before you try to help someone else.”

Strategies for parents:

• Give yourself permission to ask for help. Whether from another parent, a teacher, a tutor, a friend, or even an online dyslexia support group, sometimes you need help as well.
• Stay flexible, and observe your child’s responses rather than reacting.  Use I statements, “I’m noticing you’re yawning,” and follow up with engaging questions such as “what do you need to do right now to move forward?”
• Do something nice for yourself. You're doing a great job with your child, you also need to stay motivated.
• Start the homework sessions with a hug. Reassure your child that they’re loved and valuable as a person. 

Utilizing some of these strategies with your child can help foster better communication and family relationships, not just during homework but throughout the day.

The Write Way