Brain Gym is a commercial training program that claims that any learning challenges can be overcome by finding the right movements, the use of which will create new pathways in the brain. They claim that the repetition of the 26 Brain Gym movements "activates the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information." Its theoretical foundation has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community, who describe it as pseudoscience. Peer reviewed scientific studies into Brain Gym have found no significant improvement in general academic skills. Its claimed results have been put down to the placebo effect and the benefits of breaks and exercise. Its founder, Paul Dennison, has admitted that many of Brain Gym's claims are not based on good science, but on his "hunches". It is widely used in British state schools It is also offered to both children and adults in parts of the United States and Canada.
History
What became Brain Gym began in Paul and Gail Dennison's work in the 1970s, researching more effective ways to help learning disabled children and adults. They call their field of study, which they founded during this period, "Educational Kinesiology" (Edu-K), a form of applied kinesiology. They define Edu-K as "learning through movement"..
Some of the specific movements the program uses were, 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 were learned during his training as a marathon runner, his study of vision training, his study of Jin Shin Jitsu (a form of acupressure), and his study of Applied Kinesiology.
The Dennisons presented their program under its current name in their booklets Switching On: A Guide to Edu-Kinesthetics (1980) and Brain Gym – Simple Activities for Whole Brain Learning (1986).
Brain Gym is now used in more than 80 countries.
Claims
The program is based on the premise that all learning begins with movement, and that any learning challenges can be overcome by finding the right movements, to subsequently create new pathways in the brain. It claims that the repetition of certain movements "activates the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information" and "promotes efficient communication among the many nerve cells and functional centers located throughout the brain and sensory motor system." There are 26 of these exercises, which are designed to "integrate body and mind" in order to improve "concentration, memory, reading, writing, organizing, listening, physical coordination, and more."
Educational Kinesiology teaches that brain function is defined in terms of three dimensions: laterality is the ability to co-ordinate the left and right sides of the brain, focus is the ability to co-ordinate the front and back of the brain, and centering is the ability to co-ordinate the top and bottom of the brain. According to Brain Gym, people whose brains are not interconnected properly in the three different dimensions suffer from corresponding deficits; for example, the ability to move and think at the same time is dependent on laterality (left to right co-ordination). The Brain Gym exercises are claimed to work by interconnecting the brain in these three dimensions. Anatomical, physiological and neurological research does not support this model.
Organisational structure
The Educational Kinesiology Foundation is a non-profit educational organisation based in Ventura, California. It was established in 1987. It has a board of directors, but their names are not listed on the Brain Gym website. Brain Gym International is also based in Ventura. The relationship between the two organisations is not explained on the Brain Gym website. Brain Gym is a registered trademark of Brain Gym International.
The Brain Gym instructor program is open to anyone. To become qualified as a consultant there is a four stage training program, which consists of fourteen short courses of between twenty-four and forty hours long. The trainee must also complete fifteen case studies, and attend six private consultations with a qualified instructor - these can be completed over the telephone.
Scientific criticism
Brain Gym has been criticized as being wholly unscientific in a wide-ranging and authoritative review of research into neuroscience and education published in 2007 by the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme. The report noted that doing any exercise can improve alertness, and exercise systems like Brain Gym, regardless of their pseudoscientific ideas, may help for that reason.
In May 2006, Professor Usha Goswami, the director of Cambridge University's Centre for Neuroscience in Education, wrote an article published in Nature , in which she says that BrainGym and similar programmes are based on "neuromyths" that "need to be eliminated". She attributes the "success of the brain-based learning industry" to "inspirational marketing" which "ensures that teachers who attend these conferences do get 'sold' on the supposed benefits of these programmes" and to "placebo effects" that "may indeed bring benefits to children in the short term." In summary, she says that teachers are very interested in neuroscience, but science is not yet ready to offer practical advice.
In 2008 Sense About Science published a briefing document in which thirteen British scientists responded to statements taken from the "Brain Gym guide (Teacher’s Edition)". Each of them entirely rejected the statements that were put to them. Brain Gym's scientific content was described as "pseudo-scientific". 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." 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.
In 2007 Dr. Keith Hyatt of Western Washington University wrote a paper in which he analysed the available research into Brain Gym, as well as its theoretical basis. He concluded that Brain Gym is not supported by research, and that its theoretical basis does not stand up. The paper also encouraged teachers to learn how to read and understand research, to avoid teaching material that has no rational basis.
Criticism in the media
Brain Gym has been 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. 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 rubbing the chest would stimulate the carotid arteries, 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." 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".
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'."
Newsnight did a piece on Brain Gym in early April 2008, which included an interview between Jeremy Paxman and Paul Dennison. During the course of the interview Dennison was challenged on the fact that many of the statements in the Brain Gym Teachers' Manual are "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 "15 years ago that was the best information I had, and no-one has complained about the teachers edition so far".
Charlie Brooker, also writing in the Guardian , has 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 being apparently nonsense.
See also
- Pseudoscience
- Alternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilities
- Kinesthetic learning
References
- ^ a b "Sense About Science - Brain Gym". Sense About Science . http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/233/ . Retrieved 2008-04-11 . "These exercises are being taught with pseudoscientific explanations that undermine science teaching and mislead children about how their bodies work. ... There have been a few peer revie
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