The Learning Brain Memory and Brain Development in Children

196 Pages·2012·11.71 MB·English

by  Torkel Klingberg

he Learning Brain
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he Learning Brain
Memory and Brain
Development in Children
(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)
Torkel Klingberg, MD, PhD
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute
Stockholm Brain Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
Translated by Neil Betteridge
1
3
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© Torkel Klingberg 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klingberg, Torkel, 1967–
[Lärande hjärnan. English]
he learning brain : memory and brain development in children / Torkel Klingberg;
translated by Neil Betteridge.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–991710–5 (hardcover)
1. Memory in children. 2. Cognition in children. 3. Child development.
4. Learning. I. Title.
QP406.K55 2013
612.8′233083—dc23
2012012256
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Illustrations used with kind permission from:
IBL Bildbyrå/Science Photo Library 31
NordicPhotos/BSIP 16, 19, 62, 76
Scanpix/SVD/Tomas Oneborg 117
All other Figures and Graphs: Stig Söderlind
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
1. Being Unlucky When You hink: he Importance of
Working Memory 1
Remembering What to Concentrate on 2
Why Do Students Daydream? 3
he Working Memories of the Nynäshamn Children 5
Attention-Deicit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Children
with Low Working Memories 8
2. he Growing Brain: How the Brain Develops and Matures 13
he Development of the Brain 15
he Brain Matures 17
Genes and the Brain 20
he White Matter 22
3. hrough the Pyrenees by Motorbike: he Risk-Taking
Teenage Brain 25
Risks and Rewards 26
Neuroscience and the Law 29
4. Now I Am Really Awake for the First Time Ever:
Long-Term Memory 33
Children’s Long-Term Memory 34
he Key to the Memory 36
Improving the Long-Term Memory 43
5. Mathematics, Memory, and Space 49
Counting Babies 53
Retaining Numbers in Working Memory 56
he Mnemonic Map 58
Mathematical Areas 61
Mathematics and Gender 63
Dyscalculia—Does It Exist? 65
v
vi Preface
Premature Birth and Dyscalculia 68
Training Programs 70
6. Reading, Dyslexia, and Problematic Relationships 73
Learning to Read 74
Reading Areas of the Brain and Dyslexia 76
Dyslexia: Genetics and Displaced Cells 78
Why the Problems Are Interconnected 80
Dyslexia Training and Neuroscientiic Predictions 83
7. he Early Environment and Brain Development:
he Importance of Stimulation and Engaged Parents 87
Stimulating Environments and Brain Development 91
he Role of Parents in Memory and Stress 94
8. Skydiving and Expectations: What Acute and Chronic
Stress Do to Us 99
Stress Hormones and Nerve Cells 101
Social Stress 103
Chronic Stress 106
9. Cognitive Training, Memory Techniques, and Music 111
he Dream of the Perfect Memory 112
he Brain of a Memory Champion 114
Working Memory Training 116
he Art of Training 120
Can Everything Be Trained? 124
Music 126
10. Body and Soul 131
Jogging and the Brain 132
Intelligence and Infections 137
11. his Will Change Everything 141
Five hemes 142
A Schoolgirl of the Future 145
Notes 149
Bibliography 161
Index 173
PREFACE
It’s a hot June day in Manhattan in 2007. On Seventh Avenue,
people are jostling in the heat. But down in the conference room
where I’m sitting, the light is subdued and the air conditioning
seems set to frosty. I’ve been invited, as one of several neurosci-
entists, to lecture at a symposium titled “Cognitive Neuroscience
and Education.” Speaker after speaker projects images of gray
brains with orange patches illustrating which areas are active dur-
ing diferent tasks. here are a few minutes to go before I’m due
up on stage. It’s then that I suddenly get cold feet. Exactly how
relevant is all this research, my own as well as other people’s?
Admittedly, I’d accepted the invitation to deliver a talk on the
subject. But I should add that I don’t take too much persuading
if someone else is going to pay for the light to New York. Had I
been asked to talk on “How Neuroscience Can Bring about World
Peace,” I’d no doubt still have turned up in Manhattan with my
suitcase and my PowerPoint presentation—not that that would
mean I’d have any great hopes of my research giving rise to some
global Shangri-La, of course. But now, just as I’m about to step up
to the podium and attempt to convince the audience with my rea-
soning, the question sinks ever deeper into my mind.
On the one hand, all learning is about something happening in
the brain, so what can be more relevant than brain research? On
the other hand, just what can I say to a teacher that will improve
her ability to teach her class next week?
If what we have learned from cognitive neuroscience could be
put to practical use, it would trigger a pedagogical revolution. But
if our knowledge cannot be thus translated, what relevance does
the research to which I and thousands of other neuroscientists
vii
viii Preface
devote our lives then have? Once a question like this has entered
one’s mind, it’s hard to cast aside—and the result, in my case, is
this book.
he conference, as I was later to understand, was part of a surge
of interest in the links between neuroscience and education. he
subject has been discussed in scientiic papers and debate arti-
cles, at congresses and conferences the world over. Organizations,
research centers, and journals have been created to deal exclusively
with this issue. What could have triggered this wave of interest in
a new pedagogy is the recent fervor that has made research into
the child brain one of the hottest ields in cognitive neuroscience.
New methods now enable us to study how the infant brain devel-
ops and what occurs there during the learning process, and to
identify the problems that cause learning diiculties.
Yet interest in a new science of learning is also driven by neces-
sity. here are many statistics to suggest that levels of knowledge
in children have stagnated and in some cases receded. Sweden, the
United States, and several European countries are losing ground
against Asian nations. International assessments of children’s
reading and mathematical skills are conducted at regular inter-
vals, and in one such (the 2009 PISA [Program for International
Student Assessment] study) Sweden ranked twentieth in math,
underperforming all participating Asian countries (South Korea,
Japan, China) and even many European ones, such as Slovenia,
Denmark, Estonia and Finland. he United States ranked twenty-
seventh.
If countries such as the United States and Sweden are una-
ble to compete as knowledge nations, on what will we base our
economies? It’s not surprising, then, that decision makers have
started to seek new solutions, and that their gazes have some-
times turned to neuroscience.
Neuroscience already has a degree of inluence on theories of
child development and learning. In America, a conference on
child development was arranged in 1996 at the White House for
a select group of neuroscientists, during which Hilary Clinton
(wife of then-President Bill Clinton) made reference to some of
the latest results in the ield. In Britain, experts have been citing
PREFACE ix
neuroscience studies to advocate earlier learning targets. Here,
the main question has been the importance of early stimulation
and the receptive phases of cerebral development. he way that
politicians have interpreted research indings has engendered a
focus on early schooling and learning targets, and it has led to
preschools, at which three-year-olds are “stimulated” daily with
pedagogical toys and lash cards designed to boost their neuro-
logical development. he results are, at best, inconclusive.
One problem is that when politicians, teachers, or the general
public apply what they believe to be neuroscientiic knowledge,
it is often misunderstood. Clinton’s initiative was perfectly well
intentioned, but many academics are doubtful whether the con-
clusions drawn were the correct ones. he general public seems
as resistant to scientiic knowledge as they are willing to spread
misconceptions, such as that we only use ten percent of our
brains, that men think with their left hemisphere while women
think with both, and that creativity resides in the right side of
the brain. Worse than these misconceptions is the outright mis-
leading education programs that use scientiic terminology but
use methods without scientiic support, such as Brain Education
in the United States and Brain Gym in Britain. In the hundreds of
schools that apply Brain Gym methodologies, children learn that
they can think better if they stimulate the blood low to their
brains by placing their thumbs under their collarbones and mas-
saging the carotid artery. Luckily for them, no one has told them
that the only way to massage the carotid artery under the col-
larbone is with those sharp scissors that mommy won’t let them
play with.
My interest in children’s learning began with a grant I received
for leading a major study into child development. he aim of the
project was to explore the relationship between brain maturity,
the children’s environment, their mnemonic development, and
their achievements in the classroom. his we were to do by repeat-
edly examining children and young people between the ages of
six and twenty and monitoring their development during the
next four years. We decided to conduct the study in Nynäshamn,
a town of approximately 13,000 residents an hour’s drive south