Thursday, March 31, 2011

Tips for teachers from the neurobiology of learning

The term "brain based education" seems to be redundant, a no-brainer, what else could education be based on, the liver? Yet it is one of the the biggest sources of quackery in education, also in South Africa. I list the advice by Prof. Michael Friedlander with some trepidation therefore, lest some quack latch onto something he or she does not fully understand and build a new mythology on it.

Prof. Friedlander offered advice based on the neurobiology of learning for medical educators. I briefly list his ideas of factors important for learning below, summarised from Brain Scientists Offer Medical Educators Tips on the Neurobiology of Learning. Read the article itself for more information.

  • Repetition, appropriately spaced

  • Reward and reinforcement

  • Visualization

  • Active engagement

  • Stress (moderate)

  • Fatigue (the importance of sleep to consolidate learning)

  • Multitasking (provided tasks are relevant)

  • Individual learning styles
  • Here I would differ, there is ample evidence that teaching to individual learning styles is ineffective.

  • Active involvement: Doing is learning

  • Revisiting information and concepts using multimedia

  • Note that brain profiling, whole brain learning, the triune brain, brain blockages, etc., does not appear in the list!

    Sunday, March 20, 2011

    Facilitated Communication, what's the harm?

    "Facilitated communication (FC) is a process by which a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or other devices with the aim of helping the individual to develop pointing skills and to communicate." (Wikipedia)

    It is, to my knowledge, not commonly used in South Africa. It is very controversial, the main issue being just who is communicating, the communicatively impaired person or the facilitator? The danger of misrepresentation and even fraud (even if unconscious) by the facilitator is obvious. FC has in the main been rejected by professional organisations, including the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

    So, what's the harm? There have been numerous cases of false accusations by facilitators of physical and sexual abuse by parents or other care-givers. Were they actually communicating the intent of the disabled person, or injecting their own (twisted) opinions? The role of therapists in the false recovered memory scams are analogous.

    That is exactly what happened in a case in Michigan , USA, as reported by Kim Wombles and Dr. James Todd in Science2.0, Facilitated Communication: A price too high to pay. I highly recommend reading the full article and the comments for a terrifying account of the damage created by a (probably) mentally disturbed facilitator, assisted by the vicious abuse of authority and lack of critical thinking skills by school staff, prosecutors and even the judge.

    I quote just the first paragraph of Dr. Todd's account:

    "I was one of the defense experts in the original criminal case against the Wendrows, along with Howard Shane, both of us testifying and consulting. It is hardly possible to describe how bizarre,vicious, and unjust the prosecution of the family was. In a rational world, accusations arising from facilitated communication would never be used in court. Facilitated accusations would summarily dismissed, and those who advanced them would be the ones in trouble. After more than a quarter century, there remains not a single methodologically sound study showing that FC has worked for a single individual. Dozens of studies have shown it reliably fails to produce genuine communication. The output is the facilitator's. That is what the science has shown--over and over. That's the reality of FC."
    This was not the only case of its kind.

    Wednesday, March 16, 2011

    How to complain about quack claims in South Africa

    The excellent work of the Treatment Action Campaign in the fight against HIV-quackery is well-known. The TAC now sponsors a blog, Quackdown, run by Nathan Gethen.

    Gethen recently posted a very useful Quick guide to lodging complaints with ASASA, the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa. It covers when to complain, how to complain and explains the process. Individuals can lay complaints free of charge. If I only had this information when I took on BioStrath's claims on ADHD.

    A hat tip to Dr. Harris Steinman from the excellent CAMcheck for alerting me to Quackdown. CAMcheck has many examples of complaints about quack advertisements and the outcomes.

    Monday, March 7, 2011

    The Edge's question for 2011

    Every year The Edge asks prominent scientists and other thinkers to answer a specific thought provoking question. The answers are always diverse and make for stimulating (if humbling) reading. Profound thoughts in byte sized chunks that even non-scientists can take heed of. These were the questions posed over the years:

  • 2005 - What do you believe is true, but cannot prove?

  • 2006 - What is your dangerous idea?

  • 2007 - What are you optimistic about?

  • 2008 - What have you changed your mind about?

  • 2009 - What will change everything?

  • 2010 - Is the internet changing the way you think?

  • The question for 2011 is very topical in a time where anti-science attitudes and irrational thinking seem to be proliferating across the globe:

    2011 - What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?

    Now, if that could really happen, but don't hold your breath.