sparkmygenius.com

There are many reasons to adopt an attitude of gratitude. Some have a philosophical basis, others spiritual, health, moral or even scientific.

Gratitude is a key component of popular movie “The Secret,” which demonstrated how gratitude can jump-start the “law of attraction” to bring more health, happiness and wealth into your life.

Gratitude is one of the key components of reducing stress with the emWavePC stress relief system.

Gratitude is also a key component to the healthful and beautiful “Journey to the Wild Divine”

Gratitude is a key component of health. In “Boost Your Health with a Dose of Gratitude” we learn that “Grateful people — those who perceive gratitude as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state of mind — have an edge on the not-so-grateful when it comes to health, according to Emmons’ research on gratitude. Grateful people take better care of themselves and engage in more protective health behaviors like regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular physical examinations,” care of themselves and engage in more protective health behaviors like regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular physical examinations.”

Gratitude is also a stress buster and an immune booster.

For an uplifting experience of gratitude see “A Good Day” at http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Zl9puhwiyw.

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

Musical intelligence has been defined as the ability to think in sounds, rhythms, melodies and rhymes. At Sparks of Genius www.sparksofgenius.com we use a variety of musical software and experiences to optimize brain functioning in children and adults.

Nine years olds use an ear training game called “Pitch Invasion.” Teens play violins and flute. Adults sing along to old favorites like “Home on the Range” on an electronic keyboard.

We also encourage students young and old to take advantage of the brain benefits of whistling, humming, singing and dancing.

There is a study by Daniel Amen in Making a Good Brain Great about the effects of music and meditation on the brain.

Link here.

Kritan Kriya is a 12-minute meditation based on five sounds: saa, taa,naa, maa and aa. Meditators chant each sound as they consecutively touch their thumb to fingers two, three, four and five. This is repeated out loud for two minutes out loud, two minutes whispering, four minutes silently, two minutes whispering and two minutes out loud.

Afterwards, brain images called SPECT showed:
1) Marked decreases parietal lobe activity – less awareness of time and space
2) Increased pre-frontal cortex activity –facilitating inner awareness
3) Increased right temporal lobe activity – associated with spirituality.

Music is processed in the right temporal lobe – also called the “G-d spot” of the brain. No wonder it can increase spirituality. Of course it depends what music you listen to!

When faced with a difficult problem, Dr. Amen recommends playing music. He notes that music helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. When his writing got stuck, Jefferson played his violin to get the right words from his brain onto the paper.

Playing the violin also helped Albert Einstein solve complex problems.

At age 60, I was given a great present- an electric violin. When my brain gets stuck from too much multitasking in this crazybusy world of ours, I play different styles of music and learn new ones. Believe me, sparking musical intelligence benefits brain fitness.

Whether you sing, dance, hum, whistle, meditate or play an instrument, we can conclude that if you want to make your good brain great, exercise your musical intelligence. There are so many ways to do it. Have fun!

–Rohn Kessler, Ed. D.

Is it really time for parents to get their kids back to school again? Let’s address the challenge head-on of how to optimize learning achievements and academic success.

My experience shows that the most important thing parents can do to maximize their children’s love of learning is to expose them to wide variety of learning experiences. Notice and nurture the ones they love.

To maximize their love of life and increase the probability that they will lead a successful and fulfilling life, teach your child to be a mensch—a really good person of noble character and deeds.

Guy Kawasaki writes in Art of the Start that a mensch 1) helps lots of people, 2) does what’s right, and 3) pays back society. On a scale of 1-10, ten being the highest and one the lowest, where do you rate yourself in these three areas?

Our in-house research shows that an increasing number of students are bored, frustrated, off-task and underachieving in school. Furthermore, most students with good and even great grades bored, frustrated and not optimizing their talents.

Many parents today are “CrazyBusy” schlepping their kids all over the place (http://sparkmygenius.com/?p=176).

Look at all this running around and then look at yourself from your child’s position. What does he see, hear, think, and feel? Most of us think we know; many of us do not.

Is there enthusiasm, confidence and motivation to start school? My personal and professional experience says “Probably not much.”

In fact, many students equate school with learning and believe when not in school they don’t have to learn anything. Worse, many children get turned off to learning completely.

That’s where Sparks of Genius can help, for we identify, ignite and nurture the many ways students are smart—often very smart. Students learn to set and accomplish goals they thought were unattainable. We aim to take them “over the top.”

It is my experience that by the age of eight (end second grade), most children with learning challenges know they are “different.” By the age of ten (end of forth grade), most have internalized the idea and the feeling that this difference is not good and they are to some degree slow, incompetent, bad or dumb.

By middle school, well, you get the idea.

Many parents ask “How can I be the change I want to see in my child?”

Here’s an example, more and more students “hate” to write. When was the last time your child saw you writing? What were you writing?

What do you say or do to encourage your child to write?

Have you taught your child that it is polite to return a letter or message he received? Try this. Sit down and write your child a letter. Put it in an envelope and mail it. When it arrives in the mailbox, give it to him. Any response? Tell him nicely and unemotionally to write a response, put it an envelope and mail it to you. Anything happen?

The goal is, of course, for your child to write anything, write a correct address on the envelope, and mail it you.

Of course, in today’s world, it’s more likely your child will respond to an email or instant message. If your child “hates” to write so much, it’s OK to start with emails or instant messaging. “Writing” does not have to be handwriting in the beginning.

Please let me know what works, what doesn’t work, and how you solved the problem.

Lastly, in-house research shows that many parents wait at least 2-3 months into the new school year before taking action to help their child. Some wait a year or more hoping “the problem will go away.”

Sparks of Genius is a computerized brain fitness center where students work to:
• improve attention, memory, organization and attitude
• ignite the many ways they are smart
• take more responsibility for their own learning
• use computer technology to reduce frustration and impulsivity

Don’t wait 2-3 or six months into the new school year before taking action to help your child. See if “working out” in our “electronic playground” with a personal trainer can increase your child’s grades, motivation and self-esteem.

If you live in South Florida call 561-859-4060 now to schedule a
FREE 30 minute workout in the Electronic Playground.

Curious and live outside the South Florida area? Take the free learning assessment at http://www.sparksofgenius.com/screens.html

-Dr. Rohn Kessler

There’s good news out there for folks who are looking to increase memory, stave off dementia, reduce the frequency of their “Senior Moments” and have fun doing it. What about training Attention (for Attention Deficit Disorder – ADD)?

In recent weeks, three new brain training games have arrived on store shelves, each one promising to give us neural networks of steel. There’s “Hot Brain” and “Practical Intelligence Quotient 2,” both playable on Sony’s handheld PSP. And then there’s “Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree” for Nintendo’s new Wii console.

Full article here.

But do these games really work?

Like most things in life, the answer is both yes and no. New and stimulating activities, including these video and puzzle games, can help you “use it” in lieu of “losing it.” So in that regard, yes they can help.

But once you’ve played a particular game enough times so that the activity is no longer novel, it loses some of its potency. In part this is addressed by offering a variety of games and puzzles. Ultimately, though, these games are not much better than the typical fare you can play online, often for free, at least as far as brain-training is concerned.

Don’t neglect your 9 IQs

We all have those 9 IQs: spatial, verbal, math, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, naturalist and spiritual. These types of games typically offer spatial, verbal and math style puzzles. That leaves two-thirds of your intelligence untapped.

If you really want to help “train your brain”, learn to play a new instrument!

Make new friends, write an article or life story, take up bird-watching, solve an old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle (or a new-fashioned 3D puzzle), play a sport, read something complicated. To train your brain, you sometimes have to STRAIN your brain. Just like a muscle, you’ve got to push your brain beyond its comfort zone and it will respond by making new connections and strengthening existing neural networks. That’s why most video games, television shows and pulp reading don’t help. Their too easy.

To train your brain, you sometimes have to STRAIN your brain.

Training executive function and attention, two vital higher-order skills, is a different story, and the Nintendo Wii doesn’t have anything to genuinely fit the bill. There are some games that we use here at Sparks of Genius in our Electronic Playground that you can use at home. You’ll find them on this page.

So work your brain hard…and if you’re a teacher or parent, then work your kids’ brains hard, too. They’ll thank you for it later (if they don’t forget)!

Good luck!
Allen Dobkin

Self-Esteem is always a hot topic: what does it really do for people? How is it developed? Is it good to have a lot, or can you have too much? What effect does self-esteem have on school performance? It isn’t always easy to spot. Why?

“A given person with high implicit [or inner] self-esteem may be outwardly self-promoting or may be outwardly very modest,” said study team member Anthony Greenwald, a psychologist at the University of Washington.

Full Article Here

Low Self-Esteem is often confused with learned helplessness. Learned helplessness develops when a child is in school and has difficulty with, say, math. He struggles in math, possibly due to a weak teacher or just doesn’t have the same internal aptitude that others do. Maybe he was sick for a key week at school. For whatever reason, the child does poorly. Spurred on, the child decides to try his best for the next exam. Math being recursive, his lack of understanding of the prior material keeps him from really understanding the new stuff, and he gets a bad grade again even though he tried his hardest.

The child concludes, “I’m bad at math.” That is learned helplessness.

Contrast that experience with low self-esteem. A child goes to school and, despite good grades and many friends, feels like he or she isn’t any good in general.

Both conditions can lead to lack of effort in school and reduced performance, but one is based on a faulty conclusion drawn from real evidence while the other is a conclusion drawn despite external evidence (or due to internal evidence only).

The outward symptoms may look and sound the same, and the two issues are very similar, but they require a different touch to handle effectively.

This is where Sparks of Genius shines. What we do in our Electronic Playground is help children uncover hidden strengths, then we leverage those strengths to make improvements in other areas. How do we create total transformation? Through the 9-5-4 Program.

Even though there are 9 Intelligences, schools only care about one or two; Sparks of Genius taps into all 9.

• Verbal intelligence
• Mathematical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Kinesthetic intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Spiritual intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence

Increase three or more [Cognitive Skills] and you’ve got a Total Transformation.

There are 5 Cognitive Skills. Increase one of these, and you increase cognitive ability. Increase three or more and you’ve got a Total Transformation.

• Attention
• Memory
• Learning
• Thinking
• Processing Speed

Finally, there are 4 Executive Functions. These are higher-order functions and essential for long-term success.

• Organization
• Planning
• Prioritizing
• Decision-Making

Students come to us, go through fancy, high-tech evaluations, and Dr. Kessler puts together a customized work-out regimen that plays on the student’s strengths and pumps up the areas that are weakest. 2-3 hours per week on a home computer, plus an hour in our high-tech, high-touch playground is usually all it takes. The results last, and they generalize to school, athletics, home, and the social realm.

Good luck!

Allen Dobkin

This is your brain on music.  Any questions?

Music is a universal language. Music has been recognized as a source of motivation, inspiration and guidance for thousands of years. Prophets of old would call for musicians as they sought to define the future. Musical groups were sent out first to prepare armies for war and to calm people for peace. It is used in restaurants to mold our eating habits. Opulent music in places of class and fast loud music to generate eating speed in fast food establishments. Music tells stories of love and of anarchy. Even with no lyrics our brains are hardwired to pick up the signals. Animals can be encouraged to perform better with the right music and plants listening to music grow and prosper.

It is no surprise that music can frame our minds to produce our future and increase learning capacity. Science is showing that music can be specially formulated to increase ability for motor skills, language skills and creative capacity. Take a look at this article by Advanced Brain Technology to see if music can be the next revolutionary in your life!

http://www.advancedbrain.com/Article_Spoonful_of_Music.asp

Dr Amy Price

The ears of a fetus are fully functional at twenty weeks, but an infant’s brain takes months or years to be fully functional.
Inside the womb the fetus hears sounds like the heartbeat of its mother.

A year after they are born, children recognize and prefer music they were exposed to in the womb.

According to Dr. Livitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music, the process goes something like this:

“You wake up from a deep sleep and open your eyes. The distant regular beating at the periphery of your hearing is still there. You rub your eyes with your hands, but you can’t make out any shapes of forms. Time passes, but how long? Half and hour? One hour?

“Then you hear a different but recognizable sound—an amorphous, moving, wiggly sound with fast beating, a pounding that you can feel in your feet. The sounds start and stop without definition. Gradually building up and dying down, they weave together with no clear beginnings or endings.

“These familiar sounds are comforting, you’ve heard them before. As you listen, you have a vague notion of what will come next, and it does, even as the sounds remain remote and muddled, as though you’re listening underwater.”

A fetus also hears music. A year after they are born, children recognize and prefer music they were exposed to in the womb.

Moreover, young infants seem to prefer fast, upbeat music to slow music.

How do we know this? In one experiment, mothers repeatedly played a certain piece of music (classical, reggae, Top 40 or world beat) during the last 3 months of their pregnancy. After birth, the mothers did not play this particular music for a year. At one year, the infants listened to both the music they heard in the womb and a novel piece of music in two different speakers. They looked longer at the speaker that was playing the music they heard in the womb than the other music.
Moreover, young infants seem to prefer fast, upbeat music to slow music.

Mothers take note: the music you listen to while pregnant does impact your child. So does the music you listen to during years one and two. What happens then?

That’s another story.

Dr. Rohn Kessler, Ed. D.

Why do we remember songs from our adolescence? Is it simply that our teen years tend to be emotionally charged, or is there something deeper happening in the developing brain? Do infants benefit from music? What about in the womb?

As adults, the music we identify with is the music we heard during those teen years.

I am reading a wonderful book called This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. The author is a musical neuroscientist who discusses how we experience music and why it plays such an important role in our lives.

If you are an adult, go back in your mind to music you listened to when you were a teen-ager. Do any songs come to mind? Of course they do. As adults, the music we identify with is the music we heard during those years.

By the age of fourteen the wiring of our musical brains is approaching adult-like levels of completion .

Around the age of ten or eleven most children become interested in music, and by the age of fourteen the wiring of our musical brains is approaching adult-like levels of completion. It seems that throughout adolescence our brains are developing and forming new connections at an explosive rate but this process slows down “substantially” after our teenage years.

Why do we remember songs from our adolescence? One reason is because these were years of self-discovery and very emotionally charged. “In general, we tend to remember things that have an emotional component because our amygdala and neurotransmitters act in concert to “tag” the memories as something important.”

While adults can acquire a taste for new kinds of music at any time, most of us have formed ours by the time we are eighteen or twenty.

What kind of music are your children and grandchildren listening to in these critical years between the ages of ten and fourteen? What about all the children in the country? In the entire world?

This Is Your Brain on Music is subtitled “The Science of a Human Obsession.” Because music is such a pervasive and powerful force, current neuroscience research suggests we pay close attention to the music our children are listening to, singing, dancing to and playing.

Next time we’ll discuss “safe” and “dangerous” music as well as music in the womb and the auditory world of infants.

Dr. Rohn Kessler

We’ve said it all along here at SparksofGenius.com: there are 9 intelligences, and if you want to get smarter you can work on any of them.

Scientists have completed a study that shows that musical training can strengthen your brain and help you interpret sounds better, be it music or speech.

You can read the article here: http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070319_music_brainstem.html
How does this all happen?  Neurogenesis!

It doesn’t take much training to make a difference. This is great news for anyone with a Learning Disability, especially Auditory difficulties such as:

1. Auditory Discrimination
2. Auditory Closure
3. Auditory Figure-ground Discrimination
4. Auditory Sequencing
5. Auditory Association and Comprehension

Underachievement in school is a common indicator of a learning disability.  If you, or someone you know, might have challenges in this area, visit www.SparksOfGenius.com and take the 30 Point Learning Assessment.  It’s free and invaluable for uncovering your challenge areas.Be well and good luck!

Allen Dobkin