What Good is Right Brain Training?

In the last decade, many centres in Singapore have sprung up to provide the so-called Right Brain training for infants, little tots, and kindergartners. Right brain trainings focus on areas such as mental imaging, observation training, memory linking, photographic memory, speed reading, and photo eye play.

There is also a significant number of online brain training programmes that have come up the last five years seeking to improve similar areas in our right side of our brains. Thus, for time-constrained parents, the alternative may be a good and value for money online brain training programme which they could subscribed to. Right brain training is a good investment especially for young kids between the age of 0 and 3.

A third alternative is for parents to do the right brain training at home. If you google words like ‘right brain training’, ‘right brain resources’, ‘right brain for kids’, it’s rather easy to purchase right brain products for your child. For one, there is a very comprehensive site that sells resources needed to carry out right brain activities at home - http://www.rightbraineducationshop.com/. Another that we found is TweedleWink at http://www.rightbrainkids.com/_new/home.php. (Guru Kids Pro is in no way related to these two companies so please find out more on your own prior to purchase.) There are in fact many more resources on the internet.

According to a few recent studies, while training in those mentioned areas will usually help sharpen children’s cognitive abilities on specific tasks, such trainings won’t bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps children to reason, solve problems and think abstractly. In other words, right brain training alone does not increase fluid intelligence or working memory which is the intelligence needed to do well in (academic) work and in life.

We have quite a number of students who had started on right brain training when they were young. However, the concerned parents started seeing their children’s lack in areas especially in logical and mathematical reasoning when formal schooling commenced. Alas, they had to provide the children with a great amount of tuition to keep up with academic work which made them perplexed. They would often lament, “Why is he unable to cope with Math? He had been to right brain training for 4 years!” Actually, the poor child has excellent cognitive skills, but the lack of exposure to many different types of reasoning and problem-based questions at an earlier age had disadvantaged the child. With high demands from the subjects, the child who is in formal schooling now, may not find sufficient time (to make up for the loss of time) to do problem solving tasks. Easily, he becomes an underachiever!

SO, is Brain Training Worth It then?

Given the results of those studies, you might be wondering if brain training has any value. After all, if it doesn't increase intelligence, then what good is it? While such brain training might not result in an increased intelligence, it does increase help someone improve cognitive abilities in specific areas.

So go ahead, sign up for that brain training programme or download that brain-boosting app. Just be aware of what you are likely to get out of using such tools. Ignore false promises that suggest your child’s IQ will soar and instead, focus on sharpening the specific skills, challenging oneself, and having a bit of fun.

The Gifted Parents that I know generally are able to couple both the right brain and left brain lessons with their children. (By left brain trainings, it definitely DOES NOT refer to tuitions in academic subjects. That’s not what left brain training is about at all. Left brain lessons at Guru Kids Pro introduced children as young as 4 to more logical, sequential, rational, & analytical problems, and focused on the parts of things rather than the whole.) In other words, they know exactly the importance of the Whole Brain activation for optimal learning. In the next post, I’ll talk about the importance of having a Bipedal Mind which I frequently share passionately with our students’ parents.

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BrainWise™ - Singapore’s ONLY Decision Making Course for All Ages

Have you ever said to yourself, “Why did I just do that? What on earth was I thinking?” Perhaps you’ve engaged in an argument that exploded into a war of words. Or maybe you’ve stormed out of a room in a fit of anger or frustration. Or you’ve been so excited that you babbled like an idiot. If so, welcome to the human race.

None of us is perfect – children to adults. From the president whose affairs make headlines to the friend who does not take the car keys away from a buddy who has had too much to drink, we all do things we regret later.

Why? Why do we at times react emotionally rather than respond rationally?

The answer lies in the brain, the way it’s wired, and the short-circuiting that occurs when we don’t stop to think.

BrainWise™ course makes it easy to understand the brain and why people act the way they do. Termed the 10 Wise Ways (http://www.gurukidspro.com/brainwise-singapore.htm), each way explains how it is part of our problem-solving process.

If the letters of the alphabet are a reading tool, the 10 Wise Ways are a thinking tool. Like letters, these concepts are easy to remember, but knowing them does not men you know how to think. It’s just like knowing the alphabet does not mean one knows how to read. We use the Wise Ways to learn how to think in the same way you use letters to learn to read.

You had depended on your family and other adults in your life to teach you how to think. If you were raised in a family or an environment where people hadn’t learnt thinking skills, or had learnt them incompletely, you probably grew up without learning important problem-solving strategies.

Until now, this information has been a well-kept secret – not because people who know about thinking skills won’t share them, but because people who have learnt how to make good choices and decisions are unaware that they learnt skills others have not. They do not realize that people who respond using emotions and impulse are acting on basic “fight or flight” instincts, the only response they know. BrainWise™ lets you in on this secret. The 10 Wise Ways will teach your children how to stop and think, helping them make better choices so they (and you) have fewer problems.

BrainWise™ course will help your children quickly grasp these techniques and use them in their daily lives. Better yet, they will have the tools to teach these important skills to you and others.

The ideas BrainWise™ presents are universal and can be applied to any problem situation. You may already know or be familiar with many thinking skills. This course will help you and your children understand how the 10 Wise Ways work, why they are important, and how you and your children can incorporate critical thinking into everyday life.

Today, ways to prevent problems are not systematically taught at home and school. The BrainWise™ programme has given thousands of parents, educators, counsellors, social workers, and many others the methods to teach the skills necessary to stop and think. They have found the techniques useful for everyone, regardless of race, age, or culture.

As with all learnt skills, the more you and your children use them, the better all of you will become. It takes practice to master thinking, but soon you will be automatically stop and think before you react. This AHA! experience will make your life and your loved ones’ lives at home, work and school happier, healthier, and more productive.

Parts of this article are excerpts from the book How to be BrainWise™ – The Proven Method for Making Smart Choices by Dr Patricia Gorman Barry.