| Type | Nonprofit 501(c)3 in Education |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1987 |
| Location | Ventura, California, USA |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Focus | Movement-Based Learning |
| Method | Experiential Courses |
| Website | Brain Gym International |
The Brain Gym program is based on the concept that people are natural learners, and that learning challenges can be overcome by carrying out certain playful movements, the use of which will, over time, improve stability, mobility, and sensorimotor coordination. The repetition of the 26 Brain Gym activities (each of which takes about a minute to do, and each of which addresses different learning skills), is said to foster flexibility, eye teaming, and hand-eye skills, and so "activate the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information."
The Brain Gym website refers to more than a hundred pilot studies, case studies, and anecdotal reports, done with people of all ages and abilities, that explore the effects of the activities in such areas as reading, writing, memory, self-reported anxiety, and computer-related eye-and-muscle strain, to name a few. Numerous books have been written describing research and case studies in which use of the Brain Gym activities has benefited specific populations, including children recovering from burn injuries and those diagnosed with autism.[1]
The 1994 Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition was criticised as pseudoscience ([2][3][4][5] and see below) for the lack of clear references for a few of its theories, and the absence of peer review research that doing the activities has an effect on academics (most of the academic studies mentioned above were done independently, voluntarily, and without grants, and did not have the benefit of peer review). A new edition of the book was published in 2010, with updated references to educational and neuroscientific theories, and anecdotal stories from around the world as to how people are using the activities to create dynamic learning.[6]
John J Ratey, in "Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain," suggests that research increasingly supports the efficiency of Brain Gym and programs like it.
The Brain Gym 26, used by people of all ages, have been incorporated into many educational, sports, and business programs in the United States, Canada, and throughout the world. They are also widely used in British state schools.[7]
Contents |
What became the Brain Gym program began with Paul Dennison’s work as a public school teacher and reading specialist in the 1960s, researching more effective ways to help learning disabled children and adults. At that time, he worked in East Los Angeles with the innovative educator Dr. Constance Amsden, Director of the Malabar Reading Project for Mexican-American Students, which focused on the development of individual sensory modalities (visual, auditory, and tactile skills) for reading instruction.[8] In 1975, at the University of Southern California, Paul received the Phi Delta Kappa award for Outstanding Research; he was granted a Doctorate in Education for his research in beginning reading achievement and its relationship to cognitive development and silent speech (thinking) skills. [8][9] In the early 1980s, Dr. Dennison began a teaching and writing partnership with Gail Hargrove, later to become Gail Dennison. They call their field of study, which they founded during this period, “Educational Kinesiology” (Edu-K). They define Edu-K as “learning through movement".[8]
The Dennisons say that Edu-K draws from the educational philosophy of Jean Piaget and the sensory-integration works of educators Maria Montessori, Anna Jean Ayres and pediatrician Arnold Gesell, as well as the work of movement pioneers F.M. Alexander and Moshe Feldenkrais. Some of the specific movements the program uses have been, according to the Brain Gym website, developed from Paul Dennison's "knowledge of the relationship of movement to perception, and the impact of these on fine motor and academic skills." Others are adapted from movements he learned during his training as a marathon runner, his study of vision training (learned from developmental optometrists with whom he shared referrals in the 1960s), his study of Jin Shin Jitsu (a form of acupressure), and his study of Touch for Health (a form of kinesiology developed for laypeople by chiropractor John Thie).[10][6]
The Dennisons present their program under its current name in their books, e.g. Brain Gym: Simple Activities for Whole Brain Learning (1986) and Brain Gym: Teacher’s Edition, 1987, 1996, and 2010.[11]
The Brain Gym activities are now used in more than 87 countries; the Edu-K works have been translated into more than 40 languages.[8][12]
The program is based on the premise that all learning begins with movement. The repetition of specific activities is said to "promote efficient communication among the many nerve cells and functional centers located throughout the brain and sensory motor system."[13] There are 26 of these activities, which are designed to "integrate body and mind" in order to improve "concentration, memory, reading, writing, organizing, listening, physical coordination, and more."[8]
Educational Kinesiology draws on basic anatomy in teaching that movement occurs along three planes of motion, each plane describing the axis along which an action is performed. These three planes intersect to create three movement dimensions. Brain function is defined in terms of three dimensions: laterality being the ability to co-ordinate the left and right sides of the body, focus being the ability to co-ordinate the front and back of the body, and centering being the ability to co-ordinate the top and bottom of the body. The Brain Gym activities are said to work by giving people an experience of moving in order to interconnect the body in these three dimensions. According to Brain Gym, people can use the three dimensions to learn more easily; for example, they can use their lateral movement (left to right co-ordination) to improve their ability to move and think at the same time.[14] As another example, the Belly Breathing activity can be used as a reminder to breathe instead of holding the breath during focused mental activity or physical exertion. The activity teaches how to expand the rib cage front to back, left to right, and top to bottom. When breathing is shallow, lifting only the scalenes, oxygen to the brain is limited.[6]
Brain Gym International / the Educational Kinesiology Foundation is a non-profit educational organization, established in 1987 and based in Ventura, California. The names of the members of the board of directors are listed on the Brain Gym website. Brain Gym is a registered trademark of Brain Gym International.[15]
The Brain Gym instructor program is open to anyone. To become qualified as a consultant there is a four-stage training program that consists of fourteen courses of between twenty-four and forty hours each, in which students validate the effectiveness of the 26 for themselves by using intentional movement to improve their own sensorimotor skills and achieve personal goals. The trainee must also complete fifteen case studies and attend six private consultations with a qualified instructor.[16][17]
In 2007, certain statements from the Dennison's 1994 edition of Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition were criticized as being unscientific in a review of research into neuroscience and education published by the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme.[18] The Dennisons have since published the 2010 Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition which offers explanations based on the latest thinking on movement, learning, and neuroplasticity.
The UK report noted that doing any exercise can improve alertness, and exercise systems like Brain Gym, may help for that reason.[19] The Dennisons note that muscles are able to contract most effectively from their lengthened positions, supporting relaxation and ease of moving or sitting. They further note that “ . . . the Brain Gym 26 aren’t exercises in the usual sense . . .. Although some can be used for aerobic benefit, they’re more oriented to balance, alignment, and coordination than to muscle building or cardiovascular toning. . . . they’re often more subtle than traditional exercise—for example, when they involve directional skills, fine-motor dexterity, or visual and auditory attention.”[20]
In 2008, Sense About Science published a briefing document in which thirteen British scientists responded to explanations taken from the 1994 Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition. Each rejected a hypothesis as to why an activity was effective; overall, the statements given were described as "pseudo-scientific". The Dennisons wrote a public response addressing each concern,[21] and also updated the statements in question in their 2010 version of the teacher's edition. One of the scientists, Professor of neuroscience Colin Blakemore, said that "there have been a few peer reviewed scientific studies into the methods of Brain Gym, but none of them found a significant improvement in general academic skills."[22] Based on concerns about the 1994 version of the book, Sense about Science, along with the British Neuroscience Association and the Physiological Society, wrote to every Local Education Authority in Britain to warn them about the program.[23]
In 2007 Dr. Keith Hyatt of Western Washington University wrote a paper in which he analysed the few available peer-reviewed research studies into Brain Gym and found them to be poorly designed, as well as citing research from the 1970s and 1980s into the work's theoretical basis: the field of Perceptual-Motor Learning, including Vision Training. He concluded that Brain Gym's theoretical basis as stated in the 1994 Teacher's Edition (since revised) did not stand up, and that the work is not supported by peer-reviewed research. The paper also encouraged teachers to learn how to read and understand research, to avoid teaching material that has no credible theoretical basis, such as that of perceptual learning.[24] In their latest book, the Dennisons refer to the work of several scientists[25] who, in their writings cite more recent evidence of the brain's plasticity for perceptual (sensory- and motor-based) learning.
In 2006, some concepts in the 1994 version of Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition were heavily criticized by Dr. Ben Goldacre of The Guardian's Bad Science pages, who found no supporting evidence for the assertions put forward by Brain Gym proponents in any of the main public research databases.[26] Upon learning that the program was used at hundreds of UK state schools, he called it a "vast empire of pseudoscience" and went on to dissect parts of their teaching materials, refuting, for instance, claims that "processed foods do not contain water", or that liquids other than water "are processed in the body as food, and do not serve the body's water needs."[27] (For further discussion regarding the assertion that some liquids are processed as food and not water sources, see the item on Newsnight, below.) Many teachers responded by writing letters in support of Brain Gym based on their first hand experience and its effectiveness in classroom settings. Goldacre reiterated his point that exercises and breaks were good for students, and that he was merely attacking "the stupid underlying science of Brain Gym".[28]
Again in 2006, in a separate column, Guardian writer Philip Beadle sided with him, adding that Goldacre's "argument is with what Dr Barry Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, describes as 'commercial ventures promoted by hucksters who mislead consumers into thinking that their products are sound applications of scientific knowledge'."[29]
In early April 2008, Newsnight did a piece on Brain Gym which included an interview between Jeremy Paxman and Paul Dennison. During the course of the interview Dennison was questioned as to why some of the statements in the 1994 version of Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition were "arrant nonsense". Dennison said that he "leaves the explanations to the experts", and, when challenged on his assertion that "processed foods do not contain water", his defence was that such foods do not contain available water."[30] The Dennisons refer to biologist Carla Hannaford, who states that: “ . . . fruit juice, soda and milk are high in sugars and salts, which bind up water in the body, depleting the supply available for maintaining electrolyte levels in the nerves. The body treats these as food rather than water sources. . . .”[31]
In April 2008, Charlie Brooker, also writing in the Guardian, expressed incredulity that the Department for Children, Schools and Families is supportive of Brain Gym, despite its broad condemnation by scientific organisations, and despite it sounding "like hooey".[32]