Brain Gym faces a Perfect Storm!

I keep getting enquiries about Brain Gym, also known as Educational Kinesiology. Its scientific validity and effectiveness have been questioned for years, but it carried on regardless, spreading like wildfire in British schools and to a lesser extent, South African schools.

Then Dr Ben Goldacre, writing the column Bad Science for The Guardian, took a hand. His caustic questioning of Brain Gym triggered a torrent of derisive comment from scientists and the public about the Brain Gym organisation and its methods. It was exposed as a pseudoscientific educational technique with a nonsensical theory base and very little evidence of effectiveness. As the furore spread, the technique's originator, Dr Paul Dennison, was eventually forced to concede that it's unscientific.

Here is Dennison on British television being confronted about his technique:



I have this statement issued by Brain Gym UK, courtesy of Dr Aust's Spleen:

"The UK Educational Kinesiology Trust makes no claims to understand the neuroscience of Brain Gym®. The author has advised that the simple explanations in the Brain Gym Teachers Edition about how the movements work are hypothetical and based on advice from a neurobiologist at the time the books were written."

I've tried to collect important recent information on Brain Gym in this one post for anyone who may wish to learn more. Here follow some online resources that provide information on Brain Gym controversy, with one salient quote from each. I'll start with their official website, then progressing from academic articles to blog posts (the links marked with asterisks are the more scientific ones):

Brain Gym official website

"Educational Kinesiology (or Edu-K) is the study and application of natural movement experiences to facilitate learning."

The Wikipedia entry

"Its theoretical foundation and claimed results have been thoroughly discredited."

* Hyatt, K.J. 2007. Brain Gym: Building stronger brains or wishful thinking? Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 28, No. 2, 117-124.

"Educators are encouraged to become informed consumers of research and to avoid implementing programming for which there is neither a credible theoretical nor a sound research basis."

* Howard-Jones, P., Pollard, A., et al. 2006. Neuroscience and education: Issues and opportunities. London: The Economic and Social Research Council.

"The pseudo-scientific terms that are used to explain how this works, let alone the concepts they express, are unrecognisable within the domain of neuroscience."

* Sense about science: Brain Gym

"Brain Gym is a programme of teacher-led physical exercises which are claimed to improve the cognitive abilities of primary school children. These exercises are being taught with pseudoscientific explanations that undermine science teaching and mislead children about how their bodies work."

* Dr Steven Novella. Brain Gym: This is your mind on pseudoscience. Neurologica Blog

"Unfortunately, Edu-K is little more than pseudoscientific wishful thinking and an example of researchers who refused to abandon their (lucrative) claims simply because they are wrong."

Experts dismiss educational claims of Brain Gym programme

Two leading scientific societies and a charity that promotes scientific understanding have written to every local education authority in the the UK to warn that a programme of exercises being promoted to help child learning relies on "pseudoscientific explanations" and a "bizarre understanding" of how the body works.

Brain Gym claims to be withdrawn

"The creators of an educational exercise programme used in hundreds of schools in England have agreed to withdraw unsubstantiated scientific claims in their teaching materials. ... Paul Dennison, a Californian educator who created the programme, admitted that many claims in his teacher’s guide were based on his “hunches” and were not proper science."

Here are some of the Ben Goldacre's posts that sparked the controversy, in chronological order:

Work out your mind

"In an ideal world, we would be teaching children enough science in school that they were able to stand up to a teacher who was spouting this kind of rubbish."

Brain Gym - Name & Shame

"Because telling stories about fairies and monsters is fine, but lying to children about science is wrong. ... With Brain Gym, the same teacher who tells children that blood is pumped around the lungs and then the body by the heart, is also telling them that when they do “The Energizer” exercise (far too complicated to describe) then “this back and forward movement of the head increases the circulation to the frontal lobe for greater comprehension and rational thinking."

Banging your head repeatedly against the brick wall of teacher stupidity helps increase flow of blood to your frontal lobes

"Brain Gym continues to produce more email than almost any other subject: usually it is from teachers, eager to defend the practice, but also from children, astonished at the sheer stupidity of what they are being taught."

My own previous posts that touched somehow on Brain Gym were:

Badscience smites Brain Gym

Loyal dissent

Poor misled consultants

Not only teachers are gullible

Kluge in decision making

Professor Gary Marcus's book "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind", sounds fascinating.

This is part of the review from Publisher's Weekly, as found at Amazon:

"Why are we subject to irrational beliefs, inaccurate memories, even war? We can thank evolution, Marcus says, which can only tinker with structures that already exist, rather than create new ones: Natural selection... tends to favor genes that have immediate advantages rather than long-term value. Marcus ..., refers to this as kluge, a term engineers use to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem. Thus, memory developed in our prehominid ancestry to respond with immediacy, rather than accuracy; one result is erroneous eyewitness testimony in courtrooms. In describing the results of studies of human perception, cognition and beliefs, Marcus encapsulates how the mind is contaminated by emotions, moods, desires, goals, and simple self-interest.... The mind's fragility, he says, is demonstrated by mental illness, which seems to have no adaptive purpose."

I've not yet had a chance to read it, but Jeremy Dean at PsyBlog has a useful summary of how Marcus suggests we overcome the deficiencies of the human mind in decision making (see descriptions on Jeremy's blog):

1. Whenever possible, consider alternatives

2. Reframe the question

3. Correlation doesn't equal causation

4. Never forget the sample size

5. Anticipate your impulsivity

6. Make contingency plans

7. Make important decisions when relaxed and rested

8. Weigh costs against benefits

9. Imagine your decision will be spot-checked

10. Distance yourself

11. Beware the vivid, personal and anecdotal

12. All decisions are not equal

13. Be rational!

Woolly-thinker's guide to rhetoric

This is from Butterflies and Wheels via Jeffrey Ricker at PESTS. It is a tongue-in-the-cheek guide to using rhetoric to amuse and confuse. A fuller description of each tactic can be found here at Butterflies and Wheels.

The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric

* Be Courageous
* Be dismissive
* Cheers and catcalls
* Claiming is Succeeding
* Clumsy sarcasm
* Define words in your own special way
* Develop sudden hearing loss
* Do a Procrustes
* Embrace contradiction
* Emotional Blackmail
* Evasive Tactics
* Fly under the radar
* Go Ahead, Contradict Yourself
* Histrionics
* Imply
* Mention the Armchair
* Moral One-upmanship
* Pat yourself on the back
* Pave With Good Intentions
* Play the theory card
* Pretend to be amused
* Repetition
* Say the methodology was flawed
* Say the outcome was predictable
* Translate
* Translate Even More When the Subject is Religion
* Use 'Obscure' as a First Name
* Use obscurity

Motivational talk is cheap

Conference organisers often seem to believe that their delegates need motivation and that it's best supplied by motivational speakers. I've just returned from an annual conference on cerebral palsy. As has often been the case in the past, the keynote event was a motivational speaker. I fortunately found something else urgent and pressing to do and was spared the fake "inspiring" attitude and the usual inane, tired cliches - "think outside the box"; "if you can think it, you can do it"; "if you can visualise it, you can have it", as was reported to me later.

The best (or worst) I've experienced was at a similar conference in Cape Town some years ago. The Minister of Education of the Western Cape province was the opening and keynote speaker. He had a "pleasant" surprise for us. He graced us with his presence and wisdom, but had brought along not only his own motivational speaker, but also his personal motivational singer. I sat through the motivational speaker with some difficulty, but when the singer burst loose found some pressing business outside (as did half the other delegates).

I suppose that there is a need for good motivational speakers, but I have been unable to find evidence as to the effectiveness of motivational talks. My experience has been that a good motivational speaker provides a short-lived "high" and some short-lived good intentions.

School children tend to be more easily influenced and suggestible - possibly making motivational talks by good role models more effective than for adults. I would suggest that the most effective motivational speaker would be someone who has achieved highly in another field, i.e. a sportsperson, disabled person, soldier, scientist, explorer, etc. This could give children and young people heroes and role models other than drug-popping popstars and celebrities who are famous because they are famous.

The science of thinking smarter

The Harvard Business Review has this excellent take on neuroscience and management by Dr John Medina in The science of thinking smarter. In the article some telling statements are made about the appropriateness of so-called brain based management:

"... there’s a lot of hype about the benefits that recent developments in brain science might bring—for example, the popular notion that executives can become better leaders by emulating the “management” secrets of the human brain. Unfortunately, if you truly emulated the management secrets of the brain, you would create an organization that ran something like the stock-market floor in the closing minutes of Black Friday."

and ...

"I would encourage businesspeople to be a little bit skeptical about what they read in the popular press. Occasionally, I’ll pick up an article in a magazine that says the new brain science can improve the practice of business, and I’ll say, “Really?” I speak several dialects of brain science and feel comfortable in behavioral, cellular, and molecular biology, and I know very little about how brain science can yet be applied to business. Obviously we all have brains and we use them all the time in business. But it’s just too early to tell how the revolution in neuroscience is going to affect the way executives run their organizations."

I believe that these statements are as true for school education as they are for management practices. Both education and management consultants have jumped on the brainwagon and are riding it for all they're worth - and through the gullibility of their clients, they're worth a lot (pun intended).

Dr Medina nevertheless has some established facts that he considers potentially useful for executives (teachers also take note!):

The effect of stress

He points out that the that the brain and the body are adapted to deal with acute stress, but not with chronic stress. The hippocampus is especially vulnerable to the effects of stress, which leads to decreases in cognitive performance in highly stressed people. This of course must impact on the performance of stressed managers. Dr Medina indicates that neuroscience cannot yet predict which people will be resilient to the effects of stress, but is starting to develope some idea of the genetic makeup of stress vulnerable people.

Is memory reliable?

According to Dr Medina, the brain is geared to survival and will therefore change the perception of reality to serve the purpose of survival. The brain does not record reality reliably, but both short and long term memory are easily modifiable. The way to "fix" long term memory is through repetition, specifically elaborative rehearsal.

Are our childhood experiences our destiny?

Education has many meaningless slogans, but Dr Medina shows that one at least is true: "We are lifelong learners". He points out the greater optimism currently about brain plasticity up to old age. Activity and stimulation rewires and expands the brain. The implication is that our childhood experiences do not determine our destiny. This is a very complex issue, however, and may need to be looked into in more detail in future posting.

Is exercise good for the brain?

Medina strongly supports exercise as beneficial for brain health, specifically because of the benefit to the vascular system. He indicates that the majority of Alzheimer's cases are probably not genetic, but rather the result of multiple minor infarcts.

Is there merit in psychological testing, such as the Myers-Briggs?

Here again a direct quote from Dr Medina seems appropriate:

"I have a very specific objection to how these tests are sometimes hyped. I’ve heard people claim that tests such as Myers-Briggs are based on “sound neurological principles”—that brain science proves their validity, or even that these tests were designed with brain science in mind. The fact is that most of these tests—including IQ tests—were developed long before we knew very much about how the brain processes anything."