• 07Aug

  Want Your Children to be Smarter in School This Year?

  Sparks of Genius, homework, intelligence, learning disability, parenting, school, teacher No Comments

  Tell them to Think of Their Brain as a Muscle

  Research shows that students do better in school when they are told they can get smarter by training their brains to get stronger— like a muscle.

  Article here.

  Does your child see intelligence as something fixed or something expandable?

  Students who think intelligence is fixed become preoccupied with whether they look smart or dumb. They also tend to avoid difficult tasks. |Not good!

  But students who believe they can develop and expand intelligence usually like being challenged. They try harder, are more persistent and worry about making mistakes and looking dumb. This is good.

  In one experiment of 12 year old students with similar math achievement scores, those with a fixed mindset did worse in math than those who were taught that the brain is a muscle. And, the gap between the two groups widened over the years.

  Carol Dweck, a psychologist and researcher at Stanford University said:

  “We taught them that the brain forms new connections every time they applied themselves and learned,” she explained. “It gave them a new model of how their minds worked, and how they had control of their brains and could make it work better. The idea is to free them from the tyranny of fear of looking dumb. The name of the game is learning.”

  Students need to understand that their intellectual potential is not fixed. So do parents and educators.

  Some games that exercise the brain to get stronger can be found here.

  Moreover, there are many ways to be smart that are undervalued in school and at home—so-called multiple intelligences.

  Students at Sparks of Genius learn that their brain forms new connections when they work hard to learn and learn. They also learn how to take full responsibility for learning buy controlling their mind and their brain to work better.

  Sparks of Genius personal trainers use a high tech (software) high touch (character development) formula to help students train their brain for success

  We identify, ignite and nurture many intelligences. It’s a great way to increase student achievement.

  To learn more about your child’s learning potential

  fill out the FREE 39-Point Learning Assessment now. http://sparksofgenius.com/screens.html.

  Dr. Rohn Kessler

• 31Jul

  Sparks of Genius Program for Iraq Vets

  Sparks of Genius, mTBI No Comments

  Sparks of Genius, a Boca Raton-based brain-training company is offering free attention testing to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with head injuries. Test results will give veterans and family members important information about to improve attention and other cognitive skills.

  Brain damage is the “signature wound” of the Iraq war. Many brain-injured veterans with mild and moderate can “work out” at home on a personal computer to improve attention, memory, listening, mental processing speed, impulse control, and thinking skills.

  A special 6-month program is now available to these veterans. Sparks of Genius programs are uniquely effective because they identify, ignite and nurture the many ways people are smart. In addition to great software and personal trainers, each veteran receives a customized, success-based program and learns how to:

  • Defy labels
  • Tap into inner resources
  • Create one’s own destiny
  • Move beyond limitations decided by others

  If you are a head-injured veteran, please call 561-859-4060 for more information.

  If you know of a veteran who could benefit from doing daily brain-building exercises on a home computer, please make them or their families aware of this special FREE ATTENTION TESTING OFFER by having them call 561-859-4060.

• 24Jul

  Brain Training Video Games in the News

  ADHD, ADD, Alzheimer's, Sparks of Genius, aspergers, auditory, cognitive decline, learning disability, mTBI, memory, music, parenting, spatial intelligence, teacher 1 Comment

  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

• 18Jul

  Yehudi Menuhin’s Kinesthetic Intelligence: A Spark of Genius

  Sparks of Genius, music No Comments

  One a recent mini- vacation of sorts, I decided to spend some time playing the violin. Something fun, new and challenging: a Gypsy melody.

  I wound up where I did not intend to be —back at the computer—and discovered another spark of genius.

  There I was on YouTube.com watching a master violinist give students a series of incredible yoga-derived exercises here.

  Kinesthetic intelligence has been defined as “the ability to think in movements and to use the body in skilled and complicated ways for expressive and goal directed activities.”

  Dr. Branton Shearer, a member of the Sparks of Genius Community, explains it as “…a sense of timing, coordination for whole body movement and the use of hands for manipulating objects.”

  A little background may shed some light. Yehudi Menuhin made his violin debut at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony. By the time he was thirteen, he had played in Paris, Carnegie Hall, Berlin and London.

  His career took him all over the world, and he was known as an exceptional musician master educator and great humanitarian.
  In 1948, Yehudi Menuhin he discovered a book on yoga in an osteopath’s office and around 1950 he went to India and met the yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar.

  At the time, Menuhin was very busy and somewhat fatigued. It was supposed to be a quick five-minute session, but five minutes turned into an hour and Menuhin was completely uplifted. That evening, Menuhin and Iyengar forged a friendship that lasted nearly 50 years, until Menuhin’s death in 1999.

  Menuhin was intrigued with the science of motion and sound as they related directly to the improvement of his violin performance. This lifelong study was both inspired and enhanced by his practice of yoga.

  One needs to work through the poor sound and video quality and actually do these exercises to appreciate the sparks of genius in them.

  You do not need to be a violinist or a musician to benefit from them. Go watch. Now.

  To learn more about the 9 intelligences in our 5-4-9 formula, visit http://sparksofgenius.com/sparks.html

  -Dr. Rohn Kessler

• 06Jul

  Beating ADHD Students

  ADHD, ADD, Sparks of Genius, cognitive decline, learning disability, parenting, school, teacher No Comments

  It happens in classrooms and homes all over the world: through no fault of their own, ADHD children are beaten with Sticks. Sadly, many of these children grow up and become romantically involved with a spouse who all-too-eagerly takes up the Stick-bashing role. Some even learn to beat themselves.

  Of course the Stick I have in mind is the proverbial Stick whose natural predator is the Motivational Carrot. ADHD sufferers get the stick even more often and, tragically, it just doesn’t create lasting results. So why do we (and we all do) use it?

  The Stick is used so often due to the (false) belief that it is more effective than the Carrot.

  Here is a phenomenal example of how powerful the Carrot can be. The number one fear of American’s is not Osama bin Looser, it’s public speaking. I’ll let Scott Adams of Dilbert fame take it from here as he describes his experience at a Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course:

  I think there were about 25 people in the class. On day one, our instructor described the method he would use. It was simple to the point of making me think it couldn’t work. The Dale Carnegie approach to teaching public speaking is to compliment the speaker for whatever he or she does well, and never mention any flaws.

  That’s it. That’s the entire technique.

  The theory is that when you focus on flaws, you don’t address the underlying problem of being uncomfortable in front of people. If you tell someone to take his hands out of his pockets, he will, but he’ll transfer his nervous habit to some other mannerism. At best, you end up with robotic speakers afraid to do something wrong. I had already taken a few public speaking classes that focused on flaws, and I can confirm that the successful graduates were a bit like R2D2.

  Most of my classmates in the Dale Carnegie course were basket cases when it came to public speaking. Some knew they had a serious problem and others were forced by their bosses to attend. The first day was grim. One woman stood frozen in front of the group, unable to generate an intelligible word. Beads of sweat literally dripped off her chin. It was horrible to watch. She choked out a few words and returned to her seat, defeated. Our instructor came to the front of the room and said, “Wow. That was really brave.”

  And it was. We all knew it was true. This woman had put her head in the lion’s mouth. Suddenly we all realized we had witnessed something important. We applauded. And it changed her. Each week, she managed a little bit more. And each week the instructor and the class recognized her achievement. By the end of the course, everyone in the class was an exceptional speaker, and we all looked forward to our few minutes in front of the class. It was like witnessing a frickin’ miracle.

  What I am taking away from this story is how powerful the Carrot is when wielded properly. This is the secret to Sparks Of Genius’ success in working with Challenged children, many of whom have attentional issues. They come to us with a track record of failure and scars from the Stick. We find their strengths and help them build a track record of success while playing Cognitive Training Video Games in our Electronic Playground. The transformation is amazing and gratifying.

  I’ll be looking for more ways to use the Carrot in my own teaching and parenting, and hope you will, too!

  -Allen Dobkin

• 05Jul

  Adult ADHD

  ADHD, ADD, Sparks of Genius, aspergers 5 Comments

  I am back & this time writing about me. Yes, I am an adult with ADHD. My late husband had ADHD, my oldest son has ADHD, my younger son has ADHD and my daughter has ADD. So is it any wonder that the subject of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has special meaning to me? I can’t get away from it no matter how hard I try!!!

  I was not diagnosed until I was thirty-five years old. Wow! How did I survive all those years? When I was growing up I was the daughter of fabulously involved, loving parents. I was active in sports, never enjoyed reading, unless it was comic books, could not understand the “concept of math” and survived by way of calculator. But, back then they didn’t have the knowledge in reference to ADHD as they do today.

  I didn’t know from anything else. To this day I am unable to understand written instructions of more than two sentences. I need to read it at least five times to get any understanding or need to ask someone to explain it to me. In addition, I need to see visuals as I am a much better visual learner, then auditory learner.

  I can say that I am the most “organized-disorganized person in the world.” It is my drive for what I believe in that makes me successful. I work best under pressure as I never had any other choice, or never knew of any other way. If I have twenty things to do in one day, I may complete one job and the other nineteen remain unfinished. If a project is due in reference to my special needs color guard team I may have two weeks to complete is but finally finish the remaining ninety percent only because I started the evening before it is due and having no sleep, completing it wee hours of the morning.

  I still have become fairly successful and am very successful advocating for those with developmental disabilities. But, it is not without an amazing amount of anxiety.

  Help has come my way and the best part is that it is never too late! I, as well as my three children, are all students of The Sparks Of Genius Program. Wow!! Can it be? I am anti-medication and here is a program that is making a significant difference in all of our lives, minus meds. Computerized Cognitive Training works!!! YEAH!!!

  I have learned that when processes like attention, memory, listening, language and executive functioning are trained on a regular basis, new neural networks are strengthened and cognitive restructuring actually does occur! If someone told me this and I did not experience it myself I would have said, “Yeah, sure, that’s nice.”

  It is true! I have seen a significant difference in all of my children, especially my oldest son, Wes. Others are actually approaching me and asking me, “What is going on with Wes, he seems so much sharper and I am able to carry on a conversation with him.” Oh my G—D, this is nothing less than music to my ears!!! Beautiful music, to say the least.

  As for myself, I am absolutely drained when I finish training for the day. I can equate it to training at my fitness club. I am really “exercising my brain.” It is not easy. I really put lots of effort into it. As I continue to live my busy life, I feel myself more “sharper”, less anxious, and “putting things together” in a way I could never do before. I am accomplishing more. I am actually finishing one project before going to another. This is miraculous.

  So, here it the moral of this particular blog……be patient……it is never too late to be the best you can be. This goes for you, me and our children.

  Hang in there. We CAN survive in the face of adversity & become better people for it. Don’t give up…..your kids are depending on you!

  And, remember…to put it in perspective….no matter how tough you think things are, someone out there has it worse. And, things do get better…THINK POSITIVE!!!!

  All the best,

  ELLEN

• 29Jun

  How Sparks of Genius works

  Sparks of Genius No Comments

  This is your brain:

  This is your brain on Sparks of Genius:

  Any questions?

• 15Jun

  How to Boost Your Child’s Self-Esteem

  ADHD, ADD, Sparks of Genius, aspergers, auditory, cognitive decline, homework, music, school, teacher No Comments

  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

• 11Jun

  Video Games as Alternative Therapy

  ADHD, ADD, Sparks of Genius, aspergers, cognitive decline, learning disability, mTBI, memory, parenting 2 Comments

  A new video game might prove to be a very productive use of time for young cancer patients: It helps kids fight their diseases figuratively and literally.The game, called “Re-mission,” is a 20-level journey through the bodies of fictional patients suffering from different types of cancer, and of course, it can be played by adults and healthy folks as well. But the primary idea is to give patients a sense of control over their disease.

  Click here for article.

  Children and adults around the world have embraced video games, with both positive and negative results. Here’s another shot in the arm for the folks who see video games as more than just an excuse to stay inside on a sunny day. Sparks of Genius uses video games as alternative therapy for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD), Asperger’s Syndrome, Memory training, to fight off Cognitive Decline, and build any number of Cognitive Skills including executive function.

  Click here to check out their new Summer Brain Training Boot Camp!

  ---

  This article reprinted with permission from Rotten Apples: News from the front lines of America’s War on Education.

• 04Jun

  Get the Biggest Advantage for Your Child

  ADHD, ADD, Sparks of Genius, aspergers, homework, learning disability, parenting, school, social skills, teacher No Comments

  Our nation has shifted its educational focus to standardized testing performance, for good or bad. One result is that parents, schools and districts are all looking for ways to play the system. If a school can massage the numbers just right, they get more funding. If parents can have their child diagnosed ADHD or with a Learning Disability, then the child can get extra time on the FCAT and SAT, which leads to a higher score and better college prospects. Plus, a little Ritalin or Adderall goes a long way. For anyone. Are your children getting lost in the shuffle? We hope to show you a trick or two to make sure that your kid has the best advantages, no matter what gimmicks are used by other parents and schools.

  Are the children getting lost in the shuffle?
  We hope to show you a trick or two to make sure that your kid has the best advantages, no matter what gimmicks are used by other parents and schools.

  The NY Times ran an interesting feature highlighting the advantages in redshirting: keeping a child out of kindergarten until he or she is a little older, as much as a year.

  Click here for the full article.

  Tool #1: Train your child to think that he or she is the boss.

  This may seem counterintuitive. After all, we often fight our kids to get them to do their homework. You want to transition your child’s current thinking from the perspective of “Educational Victim” to “Educational Entrepreneur”.

  Educational
  Victim	Entrepreneur
  Homework is an imposition	Homework is a challenge/tool
  Teachers are authority figures	Teachers are like employees
  I’m never going to use this in real life	How can I use this in real life?
  No dreams beyond play	Big, earth-shaking dreams
  High level of concern with appearing smart or cool	High level of concern with overcoming challenges
  Parents complain about school system	Parents participate in school system

  The institution of education, whether by accident or design, tends to create Educational Victims. In order to transition your child to thinking like an Educational Entrepreneur, requires adult-to-adult conversation. Your child doesn’t have the tools to change their own attitudes, so you must show them the way. Here’s how you do it.First, fix the “Stinking Thinking.” When you hear your child say things like, “I’m never going to use this in real life”, or “Miss Stinkyfoot is a rotten teacher” or “I hate homework”, take ten minutes and walk through this process. First, ask them exactly what is bothering them. Make them get specific. “He’s a jerk” doesn’t cut it. Once the complaint is out in the open, you must reframe it from the perspective of an Educational Entrepreneur. Here are some common translations.

  Translate Stinking Thinking
  Stinkin’ Thinkin’	iThoughts
  Homework is boring	Let’s turn it into a challenge: how much can you finish in 15 minutes (then take a fun break).
  Mr. Soandso is mean to me	Let’s find a way to make him a friend…just like we would as an adult with a mean employee
  I’m never going to use this in real life	Sometimes the content isn’t what is important, but mastering the PROCESS is. The best businesses have the best processes, not necessarily the best products.
  The subject is boring.	Tie the subject in to real life and show how it is important.
  I’m bored/hate school.	This student is stuck in victim mode. Reframe the school experience so that the child is the boss. Consider that the child may be overwhelmed and need some one-on-one help.

  To be continued tomorrow.

  -Allen Dobkin

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