How The Brain Works – Part 1

I have two children. My daughter is 12 and my son is 8. My son had a learning defect that caused my wife and me to have to study the development of the human brain. We learned a great deal.

My son’s condition was a visual and auditory processing problem. You could ask him to get the blue Lego from a box of assorted toys and he would pull out something that was blue, but not necessarily a Lego. He heard the words, but was spending so much time decoding the instructions that he missed important details. He would understand the first few words of a sentence, but lacked the capacity to decode the rest of it.

I started to study. A human brain is not fully developed until approximately 20 years of age. Before the brain is fully developed, the cognitive, or intellectual, processor of the brain is not utilized as much as the primal, or survival, processor is. This primal processor is dedicated toward instantaneous gratification with little or no objective thought toward the outcome of an action.

“Why did you hit the ball at the house window? Didn’t you think the ball would break the window?” I asked my son one day.
“I don’t know, ” was his thoughtless response… which accurately reflected his thoughts at the time. He hadn’t thought out his actions because his cognitive processor is not developed enough to realize consequences of actions. His brain is still developing.

The therapy that my son went through was designed to increase the visual and auditory processing centers of his brain. One step of this was the use of a computer program similar to one on the market called Eye-Q. This application displays images on the screen in various positions to train the eye muscles to move. It also uses the images to train the brain to recognize the object. Auditory information is used as well, training the brain to decode increasingly complex instructions.

After working through his therapy, both computer based and non-computer based, we were more capable and effective parents. We understand the complexities of decoding instructions, even for some adults. We are FAR more patient with our kids as a result.

My son is now able to decode and process information as well as or better than the majority of children his age. He has developed his language skills and can easily understand and react to complex instructions. He’s also a lot better at pre-thinking the consequences of his actions.

Next – How TV hurts the development of the brain.