An Introduction to a Neurodevelopmental Approach to Teaching and Learning

Without understanding how children learn, we will continue to be challenged to meet the needs of the approximately twenty percent of children for whom learning in school is a daily struggle (US Department of Education, 2000).

Millions of children struggle in school daily because of differences in learning – approximately twenty percent, according to the US Department of Education (2000). The causes are often unknown, specific problems difficult to pinpoint, and strategies for effectively supporting these children elusive. The implications for the lives of those children, and for society, are enormous. Consider the following:

• More than 35% of students who struggle with learning drop out of high school – twice the rate of their peers.
• Over 31% of academically struggling adolescents will be arrested 3-5 years out of high school.
• Greater than 50% of young women with learning struggles will be mothers within 3-5 years of leaving high school.
• No less than 50% of incarcerated juveniles have been found to have undiagnosed learning difficulties.
• Up to 60% of adolescents in treatment for substance abuse have had trouble with learning.

Over the past thirty years, Dr. Mel Levine, developmental pediatrician and co-founder of All Kinds of Minds, has developed a conceptual framework for looking at the various ways children learn. The framework includes the examination of eight complex neurodevelopmental “constructs” (brain functions) and how they affect learning and performance over time. The constructs include attention, higher order cognition, language, memory, spatial ordering, social cognition, neuromotor function, and temporal-sequential ordering, each of which has multiple subsets of cognitive performance. By using a neurodevelopmental approach to teaching and learning, educators can learn to identify specific brain functions that affect the ways a student learns and performs in school.

Each of us has a unique neurodevelopmental “profile”, a balance sheet of strengths and weaknesses in each construct that describes our learning profile. Simultaneously, the dynamic connections between academic content, curriculum, and pedagogy establish the neurodevelopmental demands found in a particular subject or classroom. Successful, differentiated teaching and learning strategies must take into account the neurodevelopmental demands of a given lesson in combination with an understanding of the learner -- and the accurate identification of strengths that can be leveraged to overcome areas of weakness. This strategic approach to teaching and learning is transformative.

Given the current educational landscape of Response to Intervention, Personal Literacy Plans, and high stakes standardized testing, teachers require the ability to effectively identify and accommodate common and unique breakdowns in learning that often mystify educators and result in inefficient problem-solving and often costly interventions. Most of the phenomena that determine student proficiencies, deficiencies, and preferred ways of learning cannot be found on a test. Programs such as All Kinds of Minds’ Schools Attuned Program offers educators a greater understanding of potential learning breakdowns -- how to detect them, how to leverage strengths, and how to make effective accommodations to promote academic success for students with “all kinds of minds.”