Frequently Asked Questions About Brainjogging® (FAQs)
How is Brainjogging® tailored individually to each Client?
Brainjogging® simultaneously enhances cognitive processing speed, visual recognition, spelling and assimilation, and understanding of the material. Even so, Brainjogging® is designed so that it can increase understanding within given subjects based on each client’s personal learning material.
As clients receive information in their daily lives, they are trained by a Brainjogging® coach to generate word lists containing that information in a condensed format. The lists make information more accessible than other programs; definitions are abbreviated to make information concise, usually in two-word sequences. Clients can generate lists for every topic they deem necessary, in addition to the material that is otherwise relevant to them. Brainjogging® even contains lists of “direction” words and their specific meanings so that clients, particularly those with a Language Processing Disorder, are well-equipped to follow directions they might otherwise misunderstand.
For students, Brainjogging® allows them to make specific word lists for each subject. For example, students generate lists for each spelling vocabulary unit; these lists contain the vocabulary word and its synonyms. These lists provide the words that students see during eye movements, and students thus see these particular lists when they Brainjog. They are repeatedly exposed to information on which they will be tested or otherwise evaluated. Studying for final exams is easy because students are constantly reviewing information! Brainjogging® negates the “learn and forget” syndrome.
Brainjogging® can be used to enhance the retention and understanding of any information: academic information, schedules, Bible verses, etc. It is truly an ideal tool for all people, as it can be applied to any and all information.
How long will it take for recognizable changes in the brain to be seen in outward appearances?
It is not uncommon for clients to realize changes in themselves within one week. However, we ask that you give the program 90 days. The longer you or your child is on the program, the greater the changes will be.
How long will my child need to be on the program?
No two clients are alike. It is impossible to determine exactly the time period during which a child will need to Brainjog. However, it is likely that your child will improve after every Brainjogging exercise. Like an athlete exercises to improve his body’s reaction time and coordination, so does Brainjogging improve the brain’s reaction time and coordination. Brainjogging improves the reaction time and flexibility of the thought processes required for “life” skills.
Please do remember that your child has spent many years relying on his or her present behaviors. Your child’s behavior pattern has taken years to develop; it will not change overnight. However, committing to Brainjogging twice daily will help your child change his or her behavior over time. Brainjogging is the answer for parents of children with learning disabilities.
Is there anything that may hinder Brainjogging’s effects?
Yes! Sleep deprivation and video games will hinder progress. All people need sleep; no program can overcome sleep deprivation. Additionally, video games will cause regression for most clients; some children even develop autistic behaviors as a result of extended screen time. While Brainjogging enables many clients to discontinue repetitive behaviors, these individuals will often begin manifesting stemming behaviors again almost immediately after re-exposure to digitized media.
How does Brainjogging help students with Dyslexia?
Developmental dyslexia is a disorder that is defined as an individual’s difficulty learning to read even though they have the intelligence, motivation, and education necessary for successful reading.
Children with dyslexia have an inactive V5/MT area in the occipital lobe of the brain when compared to a control group (Eden 1998). Brainjogging focuses on activating this specific area of the brain. Within weeks, children with dyslexia see diminished effects of the disorder.
What is dyslexia? Are many children dyslexic?
Dyslexia has a prevalence estimated between 5% and 17% (Shaywitz 1998). Children with dyslexia often have difficulty reading and spelling isolated words more so than reading paragraphs and understanding the overall plot. However, children with dyslexia may skip words or even entire lines when reading. They may look at only the beginning of a word and then guess at the remainder of the word or fill in words to make sense of a sentence. While children with dyslexia may not be able to read a sentence efficiently, they can often answer comprehension questions correctly.
Children with dyslexia may have difficulty learning to recognize letters of the alphabet when learning to read. They might confuse left from right, flip letters (for example, printing “b” instead of “d” or “p” or “q”) or jumble letters within words. As these students progress, they are often plagued by an inability to acquire adequate reading skills or by a tendency to read more slowly than expected. It is not uncommon for a parent or grandparent to have reported similar difficulties.
Brainjogging’s patented computer program is designed to retrain the brain of dyslexic students. Neuroimaging substantiates that there are phonological processing deficits and visual processing deficits among dyslexics (Eden and Zeffiro 1998). Brainjogging is designed to address these deficits. Dyslexia, more so than other learning disabilities, appears to be the most rapidly improved by Brainjogging. Brainjoggers with dyslexia also tend to have the greatest LTP (long-term prediction) when compared with Brainjoggers with other learning disabilities.
Brainjogging is the answer for students suffering from dyslexic characteristics!
How does Brainjogging help students with Language Processing Disorder (LPD)?
Oftentimes, children with LPD may process speech at a slightly slower rate than others. Brainjogging has been found to increase processing speed, which decreases the difficulty children with LPD have in following spoken directions, multi-step directions, or classroom lectures. After beginning Brainjogging, students report enhanced ability to focus. Teachers and parents often report students having greater communication and participation. Whereas students with LPD once lost track of oral lines of communication, Brainjogging allows them to no longer miss important lesson components or significant words in conversations.
Students who suffer from LPD often find themselves unable to comprehend verbal and written communication. They may misunderstand sentences with more abstract meanings; they seem to understand in a more concrete, literal sense. Sometimes, these individuals may be described as more “hands-on” in their approach to learning.
My daughter’s teacher says she does not follow directions on worksheets, chapter tests, or verbal instructions. Will Brainjogging help my child follow directions?
Following written directions is particularly difficult for children with LPD because directions are to be followed sequentially. In addition, children with LPD do not always grasp the importance of specific direction words within the greater context of a series of directions. Therefore a student with LPD may misinterpret directions’ meaning or do only part of an assignment without realizing that he or she has entirely neglected another part of the assignment. Reading and writing are often difficult for students with LPD because they attach significance to words, rather than to phrases or complete sentences. This causes students with LPD to struggle with interpreting and conveying thoughts through a print medium.
Brainjogging is designed to enable students to close the delayed processing speed gaps and understand “direction” words. Research presented by the University of Arizona at the 2009 Learning Disability Association Conference confirmed delayed processing speed to be the commonality among students with reading difficulties (Urso 2008). By enhancing these students’ cognitive processing speeds, students with LPD overcome many of the everyday difficulties in academic arenas. With continued use of Brainjogging, they can follow speech and respond appropriately to it. In addition, they are pleased to become more proficient in their ability to follow written directions.
How does Brainjogging help students with ADD/ADHD?
Students with ADD/ADHD suffer from an inability to attend to one thing at a time, especially for a prolonged period of time. Brainjogging increases attention levels by forcing students to narrow their focus and attend to the letters appearing on their computer screen. In order to replicate the letter sequences during the letter flash exercises, students must focus their attention and respond to the flash stimulus. They receive positive reinforcement in the form of moving on to the next level when they correctly replicate the letter sequence.
Our staff also provides students with ADD/ADHD with strategies for time management and prioritizing tasks. Students learn how to break large tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks. Over time, we build students’ planning abilities in addition to their cognitive processing speeds.
How does Brainjogging affect Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
"Autism has been our greatest challenge and produced the most amazing success stories. We've yet to have a child who hasn't improved significantly, within weeks. The saddest aspect of treating autistic children is the number of treatments parents have already tried. By the time they arrive at our door and hear our success rates, they do not believe it could possibly be true. Then, when they see the results for themselves, they are upset that they did not know about us sooner."
- Shirley Pennebaker, M.Ed.
Children with ASD have some brain responses that are too small or that are completely missing. With new tools, such as Independent Component Analysis software, researchers have begun to realize why this occurs. Researchers have come to believe that in people with ASD, there is no coherence or reorganization among the neurons that permit individuals to focus.
Brainjogging has had unprecedented success with children on the Autistic spectrum. Among Brainjogging’s many success stories are those of nonverbal children becoming verbal; children obsessed with repetitive behaviors breaking out of their behavioral ruts; children that formerly exhibited anti-social behaviors displaying an interest in siblings’ play activities and sustained relationships; and children increasing their learning potential in regular academic environments without the need for specialized personnel.
Please do keep in mind that video games will hinder progress, particularly for children on the spectrum. While these children may discontinue repetitive behaviors known as stemming as a result of Brainjogging, if they are exposed to digitized media, these children often begin stemming immediately.
Is Brainjogging effective with high school and college students?
A successful collegiate academic career hinges on students’ ability to be productive without receiving constant reminders from family and teachers. Even more so in college than in high school, students are responsible for their academic success. College challenges students with heavier workloads, including writing several papers; large quantities of reading materials; and exams with varied formats.
The increased scholastic demand of high school and then college is often staggering for typically developing individuals; a learning disability compounds the stresses of this demand.
Parents and students alike are often anxious about a child, particularly one with a learning disability, leaving the safety net of the home environment and teachers a parent can reliably contact. Students will find that college confronts them with more work and higher expectations related to quality and accountability; students must plan and prepare accordingly. Brainjogging is the answer. Brainjogging not only helps students assimilate new information but also enhances their cognitive processing speed. As students’ cognitive processing speeds increase, it becomes easier for them to assimilate and understand new information. The combined impact of constant exposure to academic material increases students’ understanding of said material while simultaneously improving students’ spelling. By enhancing cognitive processing speeds, Brainjogging bolsters students’ ability to survive and thrive in their new academic environment.
In addition to fostering students’ academic success, Brainjogging promotes accountability. Students must Brainjog at least twice a day. Adding Brainjogging to students’ daily schedules encourages them to organize their time and use it wisely. Better grades within weeks encourage students to continue Brainjogging. In turn, continuing Brainjogging continually enhances cognitive processing speeds, spelling and understanding, and retention of material. Brainjogging also continually reinforces the necessity of time maintenance.
College students need to understand that they are responsible for their own scholastic success. Brainjogging not only contributes to students’ ability to succeed in a demanding collegiate environment, but also teaches children to shoulder that responsibility themselves. Brainjogging is the answer for high school and college students!
How does Brainjogging work?
Brainjogging is not a miracle program, nor is it a “quick fix” for severe learning disorders. It is an incredibly successful program for re-training the brain to learn more efficiently, block out extraneous stimuli, and enhance learning and memory. If used twice daily for five to seven minutes, this cutting-edge, research-based program will gradually train the brain to process new information efficiently.
Since its inception, Brainjogging has achieved extraordinary success when implemented and followed properly. Brainjogging’s success is due entirely to its scientific foundations. The program was designed based on the brain’s basic functions. In order to transmit information, brain cells act as both senders and recipients: the sending cell dispatches a transmitter molecule, which binds to a receptor molecule on the receiving cell. These molecules are called neurons, or transmitters, which act as messengers for cell-to-cell communication. Neurons cross over gaps called synapses. These synapses are not static; the frequency of their use dictates their strength of effectiveness in transmitting the information. Thus, these synapses become stronger with increased use.
Brainjogging strengthens an individual’s neural connections. The eye movement exercises increase the eye muscles’ strength and train the eyes to move quickly and efficiently. The eye movement exercises also strengthen visual recognition. Because clients must say, spell and then say again the displayed word, they pay close attention to letters’ orientation within words. The letter flash exercises measure the accuracy and speed of an individual’s visual letter recognition. Brief, repeated exposure to letters further enhances cognitive processing speeds, thus enabling Brainjoggers to assimilate and understand new information with greater ease.
If you are interested in the Brainjogging Program or would like more information, please fill out the information survey HERE or contact us at 706.884.4492.
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