Sparks of Genius, a Boca Raton-based brain-training company is offering free attention testing to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with head injuries. Test results will give veterans and family members important information about to improve attention and other cognitive skills.

Brain damage is the “signature wound” of the Iraq war. Many brain-injured veterans with mild and moderate can “work out” at home on a personal computer to improve attention, memory, listening, mental processing speed, impulse control, and thinking skills.

A special 6-month program is now available to these veterans. Sparks of Genius programs are uniquely effective because they identify, ignite and nurture the many ways people are smart. In addition to great software and personal trainers, each veteran receives a customized, success-based program and learns how to:

• Defy labels
• Tap into inner resources
• Create one’s own destiny
• Move beyond limitations decided by others

If you are a head-injured veteran, please call 561-859-4060 for more information.

If you know of a veteran who could benefit from doing daily brain-building exercises on a home computer, please make them or their families aware of this special FREE ATTENTION TESTING OFFER by having them call 561-859-4060.

There’s good news out there for folks who are looking to increase memory, stave off dementia, reduce the frequency of their “Senior Moments” and have fun doing it. What about training Attention (for Attention Deficit Disorder – ADD)?

In recent weeks, three new brain training games have arrived on store shelves, each one promising to give us neural networks of steel. There’s “Hot Brain” and “Practical Intelligence Quotient 2,” both playable on Sony’s handheld PSP. And then there’s “Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree” for Nintendo’s new Wii console.

Full article here.

But do these games really work?

Like most things in life, the answer is both yes and no. New and stimulating activities, including these video and puzzle games, can help you “use it” in lieu of “losing it.” So in that regard, yes they can help.

But once you’ve played a particular game enough times so that the activity is no longer novel, it loses some of its potency. In part this is addressed by offering a variety of games and puzzles. Ultimately, though, these games are not much better than the typical fare you can play online, often for free, at least as far as brain-training is concerned.

Don’t neglect your 9 IQs

We all have those 9 IQs: spatial, verbal, math, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, naturalist and spiritual. These types of games typically offer spatial, verbal and math style puzzles. That leaves two-thirds of your intelligence untapped.

If you really want to help “train your brain”, learn to play a new instrument!

Make new friends, write an article or life story, take up bird-watching, solve an old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle (or a new-fashioned 3D puzzle), play a sport, read something complicated. To train your brain, you sometimes have to STRAIN your brain. Just like a muscle, you’ve got to push your brain beyond its comfort zone and it will respond by making new connections and strengthening existing neural networks. That’s why most video games, television shows and pulp reading don’t help. Their too easy.

To train your brain, you sometimes have to STRAIN your brain.

Training executive function and attention, two vital higher-order skills, is a different story, and the Nintendo Wii doesn’t have anything to genuinely fit the bill. There are some games that we use here at Sparks of Genius in our Electronic Playground that you can use at home. You’ll find them on this page.

So work your brain hard…and if you’re a teacher or parent, then work your kids’ brains hard, too. They’ll thank you for it later (if they don’t forget)!

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

One a recent mini- vacation of sorts, I decided to spend some time playing the violin. Something fun, new and challenging: a Gypsy melody.

I wound up where I did not intend to be —back at the computer—and discovered another spark of genius.

There I was on YouTube.com watching a master violinist give students a series of incredible yoga-derived exercises here.

Kinesthetic intelligence has been defined as “the ability to think in movements and to use the body in skilled and complicated ways for expressive and goal directed activities.”

Dr. Branton Shearer, a member of the Sparks of Genius Community, explains it as “…a sense of timing, coordination for whole body movement and the use of hands for manipulating objects.”

A little background may shed some light. Yehudi Menuhin made his violin debut at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony. By the time he was thirteen, he had played in Paris, Carnegie Hall, Berlin and London.

His career took him all over the world, and he was known as an exceptional musician master educator and great humanitarian.
In 1948, Yehudi Menuhin he discovered a book on yoga in an osteopath’s office and around 1950 he went to India and met the yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar.

At the time, Menuhin was very busy and somewhat fatigued. It was supposed to be a quick five-minute session, but five minutes turned into an hour and Menuhin was completely uplifted. That evening, Menuhin and Iyengar forged a friendship that lasted nearly 50 years, until Menuhin’s death in 1999.

Menuhin was intrigued with the science of motion and sound as they related directly to the improvement of his violin performance. This lifelong study was both inspired and enhanced by his practice of yoga.

One needs to work through the poor sound and video quality and actually do these exercises to appreciate the sparks of genius in them.

You do not need to be a violinist or a musician to benefit from them. Go watch. Now.

To learn more about the 9 intelligences in our 5-4-9 formula, visit http://sparksofgenius.com/sparks.html

-Dr. Rohn Kessler

You probably know how Einstein was a horrible student, was forced to wear a dunce cap, failed at math and was repeatedly told by teachers that he was hopeless.

All wrong.

In a new biography, “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” Walter Isaacson explains how good a student Einstein actually was. He was a good student, did not fail math and in fact had mastered differential and integral calculus before he was fifteen.

But he did not like the mechanical regimentation and mechanical learning of the German schools, comparing elementary school teachers to “drill sergeants” and high school teachers to “lieutenants.”

When he moved from Germany to Switzerland at the age of sixteen, Einstein spent a year at a school that emphasized independent thought, free action and personal responsibility. He thrived in a learning environment without rote drills, memorization and force-fed facts.

Based on the philosophy of a Swiss educator named Pestalozzi, the school helped students move through a series of steps from hands-on observations to intuition, conceptualization, imagination and visual imagery.

“Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,” wrote Pestaslozzi, and “the learning of numbers and language must be definitely subordinated.”

Spatial intelligence has been defined as “the ability to think in pictures and to perceive the visual world.” Dr. Branton Shearer, a member of the Sparks of Genius Community, explains it as using the imagination to think in three-dimensions, transform one’s perceptions and re-create aspects of one’s visual experience.
One with high spatial awareness can solve problems of spatial orientation and moving objects through space.

http://miresearch.org/mitheory.php

Remind you of anyone? It was at this school that Einstein, age sixteen, started picturing what it would be like to ride along a beam of light.

To learn more about the 9 intelligences in our 5-4-9 formula, visit http://sparksofgenius.com/sparks.html

-Dr. Rohn Kessler

As a card-carrying nerd, I’ve often heard people talk about the difference between Book Smarts and Street Smarts. Often invoked as a “Sour Grapes” remedy against poor school performance, the idea retains a grain of truth: often those who focus their efforts on mastering intellectual pursuits lose out on common sense savvy. If ever a group was vulnerable to that kind of thinking, its librarians!

From the NY Times:

Trying to build popularity, many public libraries across the country have been looking more like big chain bookstores, offering comfortable easy chairs, coffee bars and displays of the latest best sellers.

But the new library in this growing Phoenix suburb has gone a step further. It is one of the first in the nation to have abandoned the Dewey Decimal System of classifying books, in favor of an approach similar to that at Barnes & Noble, say, where books are shelved in “neighborhoods” based on subject matter.

So the librarians are learning something new! That’s great and speaks well. Why would bookstores be better at appealing to the public than libraries? A library that fails to appeal wins less work by way of fewer visitors, but a bookstore that fails to appeal goes out of business.

The Dewey Decimal System served us well as a means of organizing tomes, but is no longer needed thanks to computer search-power. Plus, it’s boring, old-fashioned and doesn’t mesh with the needs and desires of library patrons.

But the attraction is hardly universal. On Web sites where librarians frequently post, the abandonment of Dewey has not been welcome. One blogger titled her entry “Heresy!” Another called the Perry Branch’s approach “idiotic.”

So of course set-in-their-ways bureaucrats, who are probably loaded with book-smarts, but a little short on street-smarts, aren’t happy. They’ve spent a good chunk of their lives mastering the Dewey system, and don’t want to lose their advantage. That’s kind of like mastering an abacus…you can do it, but why bother?

To me, the irony here is that many of these librarians started out as bright, innovative, ambitious and energetic. But stick someone into a hierarchical bureaucracy long enough and even the most individualistic, talented and innovative person can have the soul sucked out of them just as if they’d set the world record for French kissing a Dementor.

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

Harry Potter fights off soul-sucking monsters, dark wizards and bureaucratic teachers in the latest movie installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You can read without fear: all spoilers are avoided.

This episode focuses on what happens when educational decisions are made, not by teachers, but by government bureaucrats like the lovely pink Delores Umbridge whose installment at Hogwarts is a detriment to learning.

The story of Harry Potter has always centered around Hogwarts, that fantastical training grounds for wizards and witches and safe haven against a harsh family life and of course the evil Lord Voldemort. This episode focuses on what happens when educational decisions are made, not by teachers, but by government bureaucrats like the lovely pink Delores Umbridge whose installment at Hogwarts is a detriment to learning.

The first thing the new bureaucrat does is establish her legitimate authority.

The first thing the new bureaucrat does is establish her legitimate authority. Then, under the guise of “law and order” or “following the rules” she begins implementing changes that in reality merely further her power in the school. Her rise to power is aptly displayed in the film by a wall covered in educational edicts each individually hammered into place by the eager Mr. Filch.

Some students thrive under this new authority…students like Draco Malfoy and his cronies Crabbe and Goyle. Of course the Weasley’s–in particular Fred and George–don’t take to the new addition to the staff. The results of their inevitable rebellion are visually impressive and hilarious.

The heart of the conflict (besides Voldy vs. Harry) lies in the Ministry of Magic’s refusal to accept or acknowledge, and prepare against, Voldemort’s return. This polarizes wizarding society with Dumbledore and Harry with their supporters on one side, and the Ministry (government) with The Daily Prophet (media) opposing. The conflict spills out into Hogwarts as the ministry tries to undermine and eliminate Dumbledore as Headmaster.

Is it possible for the government to be involved in education without turning it into a political tool to further their own agenda?

Does any of this sound familiar? The U.S. Federal government laid down the law (literally) on education a few years ago with No Child Left Behind, and the resulting increase in bureaucratic involvement in education has led to controversy after controversy. Is it possible for the government to be involved in education without turning it into a political tool to further their own agenda? Harry Potter says “no” but you’ll have to decide for yourself.

For pure entertainment value, HP5 delivers a thrilling package that won’t disappoint. Cutting the lengthy book into a lengthy film requires eliminating a great deal of material, but it was masterfully handled and only hardcore sticklers (of which there are many) will be unhappy. Those new to HP or less than enamored with him should find plenty to like in this movie.

From a Cognitive Training perspective, the movie is no better than Transformers, Live Free or Die Hard or any other eye-candy flick. No thought is required to enjoy the ride. On the Brain Training Food Pyramid, this is a High-Fat, High-Sugar treat to be enjoyed only occasionally.

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

Tip 1: Don’t smoke.

Smoking represents a major risk factor for cancer, heart disease and stroke. These leading causes of death represent an ongoing concern for all Americans. Nonsmokers might consider taking an empathetic approach to smokers who are trying to quit, and parents might use a “tough love” approach with their children to make sure they don’t even start.

Tip 2: Follow your physician’s advice.

Your relationship with your physician is critical to your health. Remember, though, that as a consumer of health services your doctor is your employee, so establish a good working relationship based on the understanding that you are the boss of your body. We must develop a proactive attitude toward maintaining our health and take responsibility to change those aspects of our lifestyles that are minimizing our longevity potential. Our physicians can help guide this process.

Tip 3: Exercise regularly.

Exercise and physical activity continue to emerge as primary components of a healthy lifestyle at any age. Aerobic exercise, weight training and recreation are critical not just to our cardiovascular health but to our brain health, as well. Every time our heart beats, 25 percent of its output goes to our brains-quite a large market share! Clearly, maintaining efficient blood flow to our brains through regular exercise promotes health. If you don’t exercise regularly, start by walking around the block tonight and build from there.

Tip 4: Reduce the overall calories you consume daily.

We Americans tend not to under-consume anything…including food. Yet the leading factor for longevity in animals is caloric restriction. This finding has yet to be demonstrated in humans. However, provided you get your daily nutritional needs from the USDA’S food pyramid, you should pay close attention to how much you eat. Follow the advice two physicians gave me: N ever go to bed stuffed, and eat only 80 percent of what you intend to consume at every meal.

Tip 5: Socialize and have fun.

We Americans specialize in stress, with little understanding of how to have fun. We need more time to socialize, celebrate and laugh! Some of us have walls around us that keep other people away. As humans, though, we need to be engaged and to be social. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, once stated that every time “we lose an elder from our village, we lose a library.” If we begin to think of everyone as a library, it becomes clear that we can learn from others.

Tip 6: Develop your spirituality.

Evidence continues to emerge that prayer is a health-promoting behavior and that attendance at formalized places of worship may have more significance to our health than we understand. Meditation, yoga, relaxation procedures and prayer have neurophysiological bases. They help to alter our existing homeostasis for the better. Praying or meditating daily can help us combat the stresses of life and focus on the challenges ahead.

Tip 7: Engage in mentally stimulating activities.

“Mental stimulation” refers to the ways our brains respond to stimuli in the environment. Novel and complex stimuli are health-promoting for the brain. New learning translates to neurophysiological growth and to mental stimulation in the same way that aerobics translates to cardiovascular health. We can benefit from being challenged, from learning information and skills that we do not yet understand, and from engaging in pursuits that are initially hard for us!

Tip 8: Maintain your role and sense of purpose.

Retirement as it is presently envisioned in this country is not good for the human brain, which benefits from environments rich in novel and complex stimuli. Retirement by definition reinforces disengagement and passivity. Our nation might consider prioritizing social engagement across the lifespan-from a brain-health perspective. Although it is important to allow elders to choose more passive lifestyles, many may benefit from an understanding of the importance of actively participating in society and finding personally relevant roles and senses of purpose.

Tip 9: Seek financial stability.

Research clearly demonstrates that having some money late in life correlates with better health. Therefore, a practical tip for maintaining lifelong health is to hire a financial planner and begin a savings plan that will provide some money late in life. Financial planners do not consider themselves to be health promoters, but they are. We are never too young or too old to begin saving, and the less money we make the faster we need to get started!

Tip 10: Engage family and friends.

Developing and maintaining a social network of relationships is important from a health perspective. Our friends and family help us stay active and involved in the fabric of society. They can provide us with emotional support and can nurture trust. Our roles in life, from child to parent to grandparent, exist within the family; they provide much health and human enrichment across the lifespan. And intimacy, broadly defined, is itself a health-promoting behavior at any age.

As a young whipper-snapper, I often thought that grown-ups had little or no sense humor. Turns out I was onto something!

From No Joke: Age Makes Things Less Funny :

A new psychology study at Washington University was no laughing matter: It found that older adults may have a harder time getting jokes because of an age-related decline in certain memory and reasoning abilities.

The research suggested that because older adults may have greater difficulty with cognitive flexibility, abstract reasoning and short-term memory, they also have greater difficulty with tests of humor comprehension.

How Can You Maintain the Light of Humor?

Further research is warranted, but I’ll bet that the decline in humor is directly caused by the general cognitive decline associated with age. That’s good news. It means that by working out your brain and maintaining your cognitive edge, you can keep your sense of humor. If you don’t think today’s hip young comics are funny, that probably won’t change, but you’ll be able to see hilarity from a mile away–as long as you remember where you left your coke-bottle glasses!

From Ninah Kessler’s article Improve Your Memory Now:

1. Travel to New and Exciting Places!

Engage in novel and stimulating environments. The same-old-same-old is boring for a reason! Get out there and go to new places and meet new people. Sure, you’ll forget their names, but who cares…when you meet them a second time it will seem new all over again.

2. Exercise, exercise, exercise!

The brain is very greedy, and it gobbles up most of the oxygen that we take in. This is why when the body is deprived of oxygen, one of the first symptoms is mental impairment. One of the best ways that we can get more oxygen to the brain is through rigorous activity. Check with your doctor first!

3. Computer Based Brain Training!

This is what we focus on here at Sparks of Genius – using NASA inspired technology to help children of all ages strengthen their brain functions. If you are in the South Florida area, take the free 39 Point Learning Assessment and come in to check out our Electronic Playground. If you’re too far away, then check out these programs that you can use to Train Your Brain at home. We’ve tested them and our students use them. They work!

4. Get the Sparks of Genius Newsletter.

Its our job to stay on top of the latest developments in Neuroscience and translate them from boring scientist-speak into understandable, easy-to-use methods to Train Your Brain. The Newsletter is how we share the best with our community. You’re invited to be a part of it all!

Good luck!

Allen Dobkin

There is an adage by memory experts that if someone comes into their office worried about memory problems, there is probably nothing to worry about. However if their son or daughter brings them in, and the person denies that there is anything wrong, it is very likely that there is a problem.

How can we help the aging brain?

“My 83 year old mother is showing signs of forgetfulness” Nola asked me at a family celebration. “You’re the memory expert. Tell me the quick version, ‘Memory 101, what can we to do for her?”Nola is not alone in her concern. Most memory loss is noticed by family members. How can we help them?

I heard a story on NPR about an experiment where rabbits were either fed in cages or at feeding stations in the woods, and these stations were regularly changed. So those rabbits in the wild had to use their brains to figure out where dinner was coming from. When they autopsied their brains, the wild rabbits had many more neurons that the caged bunnies. It was as if every day our brains produce new neurons wanting to get to work. So if we use these new neurons, we can compensate for age related memory loss.

Novel and Stimulating Environments

One of the best ways that we can create new neural networks is to create novel and stimulating environments. This can be as simple as doing a mental games or as elaborate as going on a trip to China. How we do this is limited only by our imagination and our funds, which is why Dr. Paul Nussbaum suggests that having money is a good defense against memory decline. (http://www.paulnussbaum.com/ )

Dr Gary Small has some interesting insights into mental games.

http://www.aging.ucla.edu/memorybible.html. He suggests that we need to include both left brained functions and right brained functions. Left brained functions would include logical analysis, information sequencing, language, mathematics and symbol recognition. This would include crossword puzzles, scrabble, sudoku, anagrams and word scrambles Ordinary activities like making lists of pros and cons or planning out your vacation are also helpful.

Right brained functions involve spatial tasks, musical and artistic abilities, face recognition, depth perception, emotional perception and a sense of humor. This would include taking that water color class, learning to play the piano, visual brain teasers or studying yoga. Planning different routes to get to your usual destinations are also great. Instead of just taking mom to a new medical appointment, give her the Google map and let her give directions. (Of course, the success of this experiment depends both on mom’s degree of memory loss and your sense of direction.)

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise

The brain is very greedy, and it gobbles up most of the oxygen that we take in. This is why when the body is deprived of oxygen, one of the first symptoms is mental impairment.

One of the best ways that we can get more oxygen to the brain is through physical exercise, which is why it is so important to stay active to the extent that we can. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662247/site/newsweek/) This doesn’t mean that you have to climb Mt. Everest any time soon, although if you did you would have the additional benefit of being in a new and novel environment. A thirty minute brisk walk would do it. It even helps to park farther away from Nordstrom’s at the mall. Which gets into another way to keep your brain young – have fun!

Computer Based Brain Training Exercises

I could go on and on about the other thing that you can do to decrease memory decline – eating a healthy diet, minimizing alcohol (although a glass of red wine can be good), no smoking, stress reduction, treating depression, using the new medications that are coming out to slow cognitive decline – but this is memory 101, not a doctoral thesis. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the computer based brain training exercises that we are doing at Sparks of Genius (www.SparksofGenius.com ). Using games that are specifically designed to improve different areas of mental functioning, our clients have already been able to slow down, stop and reverse mental decline, and we have just started to work with people long distance.

So Nola, that’s Memory 101. We can empower ourselves and our loved ones to decrease age related mental decline and dementia.

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach

1. Mandated exams take away from limited teaching time.

Don’t just count the time required to actually take the exams, include the time to prepare students for the logistics, endless faculty meetings, time to take practice exams. SAT and ACT testing takes place on Saturdays…so why not FCAT (Florida’s Big Test) testing, too?

2. The Tests do not provide the intended measure.

What each test measures is how well a student took that particular test. Period. Claims that the exams measure reading ability, math mastery or science proficiency are all disputed.

Here in Florida, we have a huge immigrant population who speak English as a second language. Since the government must acronymically label everyone, these students are referred to as ESOL – English Speakers of Other Languages.

What’s the problem? These students must take their exams in English, not in their native language. Thus, their exam grades reflect a combination of their English Mastery and the subject matter. Imagine having to take a Science test in French. They can’t win. If I had to take a reading test but in Spanish, they’d say I was illiterate, too!

3. Exams are skewed by culture.

The standards, questions and priorities are all set by primarily middle-class white people. They assume a certain set of background knowledge that is common among middle-class white folk, and since the impoverished, minorities and immigrants have a different background, they are penalized.

4. High-performing schools are penalized.

An ‘A’ rated school will have a tough time showing any progress or improvement. They may have the ‘A’ but the law of diminishing returns increases the difficulty and expense in terms of resources to push scores even higher.

5. Poor schools are penalized.

If we are going to make an apples-to-apples comparison, we can’t ignore the impact of having the right, and enough, tools for the job. If there are not enough teachers, text books, classrooms, or computers at a particular school, learning achievements will naturally falter when stood side-by-side with an affluent school that has their own T.V. studio. That problem is doubly compounded when you consider that students at those poor schools are poor themselves and thus face the socioeconomic disadvantages that come with that dilemma.

6. “Improvements” are baloney!

How can you tell if a school improved? Compare this year’s score with last year’s, right?

WRONG!

The students who took the exam last year are not the same students who take it this year. They are different people. It’s an entirely new student body! Think how this might apply to real life. At work your boss sends group 1 to a leadership seminar, then he sends group 2 to the seminar. Everyone then takes a quiz on the material covered. Group 2 scores higher…the seminar must have improved!

There is–maybe–a way around this: the growth model. Under the growth model, reported by the NY Times, schools are evaluated at least in part by how individual students progress on exams. So little Susie is no longer compared to Johnnie, who is a year behind her. Instead Susie as a fourth grader is compared to Susie as a 7th grader. This makes more sense, but still won’t save us.

7. Exams ignore student effort.

This won’t be popular, but let me be honest for a moment: some kids fail because they don’t make (enough of) an effort. You can’t teach the unwilling. Why they are unwilling is important yes, but is a completely separate issue from school/teacher efficacy. Again, poor students are prone to find school useless.

There are students with Christmas tree attendance, who drop out to sell fruit and run cock-fights, who have to miss two weeks to watch their siblings while their parent is gone, who live with a distant cousin because mom and dad are stuck back in Haiti. They can’t make enough of an effort. They’re just trying to live. But standardized tests insist on cramming them into the middle-class white mold in which they so obviously do not fit.

8. Testing decisions are made by unqualified bureaucrats.

We’re talking about government agencies from the White House, Department of Education, State Government, School Districts, Administrations and advisory boards and committees. The government is the body which cannot deliver your mail on time and buys $800 hammers, remember? Why would we trust that they can deliver high-quality education?

Elected officials and appointed officials have their own agendas. Academics have their own agendas. Teachers have their own agendas. Yet the more contact, training and experience with students one has, the less influence one has on the big decisions. This guarantees that education is used for political gain, with education taking a back seat.

These people decide when, how, who, what, and where testing takes place. They decide what is on and off the test. They call the shots, and most have little or no experience actually teaching.

9. Testing ignores parental involvement.

Along with hundreds of additional factors that impact student performance, parental involvement is completely ignored. On one end of the spectrum are the parents who are in regular contact with teachers, who hire private tutors, who help with homework and maintain a great learning environment at home. At the other end is an unrelated guardian who demands that the student drop out and get a job so they can help pay the bills. That has a real impact, as do all the intermediary positions, yet are totally ignored.

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I’m sure you can come up with dozens of flaws I missed. But all hope is not lost! Next time I’ll be writing:

Why Standardized Testing Is So Desperately Needed!

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin