Not All God’s Chillin Got Rhythm July 13, 2008
Posted by brainbalancer in Interesting Factoids, Play, Things here and there.Tags: ADHD, health, Rhythm
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A new article on rhythm, timing and intelligence from the Journal of Neuroscience entitled ‘Intelligence and variability in a simple timing task share neural substrates in the prefrontal white matter’, Fredrik Ullén, Lea Forsman, Örjan Blom, Anke Karabanov and Guy Madison from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. This article is summarized by Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2008 ) — People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.
Researchers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University have now demonstrated a correlation between general intelligence and the ability to tap out a simple regular rhythm. They stress that the task subjects performed had nothing to do with any musical rhythmic sense but simply measured the capacity for rhythmic accuracy. Those who scored highest on intelligence tests also had least variation in the regular rhythm they tapped out in the experiment.
“It’s interesting as the task didn’t involve any kind of problem solving,” says Fredrik Ullén at Karolinska Institutet, who led the study with Guy Madison at Umeå University. “Irregularity of timing probably arises at a more fundamental biological level owing to a kind of noise in brain activity.”
According to Fredrik Ullén, the results suggest that the rhythmic accuracy in brain activity observable when the person just maintains a steady beat is also important to the problem-solving capacity that is measured with intelligence tests.
“We know that accuracy at millisecond level in neuronal activity is critical to information processing and learning processes,” he says.
They also demonstrated a correlation between high intelligence, a good ability to keep time, and a high volume of white matter in the parts of the brain’s frontal lobes involved in problem solving, planning and managing time.
“All in all, this suggests that a factor of what we call intelligence has a biological basis in the number of nerve fibres in the prefrontal lobe and the stability of neuronal activity that this provides,” says Fredrik Ullén.
Who was the gal who sung “I got rhythm…? Guess she was pretty smart. O, yeah…Ella Fitzgerald!
This article demonstrates that using the Interactive Metronome, one of the modalities we use in Brain Balance, has a definite scientific basis.
Play June 17, 2008
Posted by brainbalancer in Play, Things here and there.Tags: Add new tag, Play
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I recently came across this great article on Cognitive and Emotional Development Through Play by Dr. David Elkin which totally verifies my opinion on play, or rather the lack of it, since my early childhood in the 1940s and ’50s. Every childhood activity has now become a structured event, including “play dates.” It’s time to loosen up, people!!
Creative play is what the right hemisphere needs to flourish!
Also another interesting article appeared on the SharpBrains blog by Dr. David Rabiner – Promising Cognitive Training Studies for ADHD entitled Two New Cognitive Training Studies for ADHD Yield Promising Findings .
Here’s the individual summaries of each of the studies:
The authors conclude that their attention training program produced significant improvements in parents’ ratings of inattentive symptoms and on academic tests. This is the first demonstration I am aware of that suggests attention training may improve academic performance.
The authors note several important limitations to their study. First, the sample is relatively small. Second, no behavioral data was obtained from children’s teachers. Third, there was no extended follow-up so the duration of the benefits observed at post-test is unknown. To these concerns I would add that the academic results would be stronger if a standardized achievement measure had been used. Finally, I wonder if parents truly remained blind to whether their child was receiving attention training or was in the video game control group.
These limitations not withstanding, these are promising results that highlight the potential of attention training procedures for children with ADHD. A larger controlled trial that addresses the limitations of the current work is certainly warranted.
and,
Results from this study support the benefits of working memory training for children with ADHD and indicate that training of visual-spatial working memory is especially important. The fact that this training was associated with an increase in positive behavior above and beyond medication and behavior treatments already in place is a very encouraging result.
As with Study 1, this study has several limitations to consider. Although the behavior improvements noted by camp counselors is important, it would also be important to document that such behavioral gains were also observed by parents and teachers. This, however, was not examined in the study. As with Study 1, there was no extended follow-up so the duration of training benefits can not be determined.
Here’s the overall summary of the two studies mentioned:
Results from these two cognitive training studies highlight that cognitive training interventions may provide an important complement to traditional medication treatment and behavior therapy. Both studies included appropriate control groups, employed random assignment, and had outcome measures provided by individuals who were “blind” to which condition children were assigned to. They are thus well-designed studies from which scientifically sound conclusions can be drawn. They add to the growing research base that intensive practice and training focused of key cognitive skills can have positive effects that extend beyond the training situation itself.
