What Is the Arrowsmith Program?

The theory behind the Arrowsmith Program is that students with learning disabilities can be helped by focusing on their particular cognitive weaknesses. First, the Arrowsmith Program conducts a thorough assessment of the student's learning strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a personalised learning profile. Then, it employs the principles of neuroplasticity to create a set of personalised exercises for the student that is geared specifically towards his or her areas of need. Students who have had trouble with reading, writing, comprehension, mathematics, problem-solving, logical reasoning, visual and auditory memory, non-verbal learning, attention, processing speed, and dyslexia have benefited from the programme, and it has the potential to change their lives.

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Three decades' worth of breakthrough studies in neuroplasticity form the basis for the Arrowsmith Program. Students' cognitive strengths are improved through the Arrowsmith Program by identifying and focusing on specific areas of weakness that contribute to their academic struggles.

Specific learning difficulties can be addressed by the Arrowsmith Program's intensive and progressive cognitive exercises, which target weaker cognitive areas. The mission of the Arrowsmith Program is to help students become effective, confident, and self-directed life-learners so that they can realise their full potential in school and in their chosen fields of work.

What the Arrowsmith Program Has to Offer

• the Arrowsmith cognitive programme suite, which includes over 12,000 discrete levels of computerised, auditory, and pencil and paper exercises that are refined and updated on an annual basis
• the Arrowsmith Program Web Assessment, which identifies cognitive strengths and weaknesses in your students
• each student's initial learning profile
• a programme of cognitive exercises tailored to each student
• the web-based Arrowsmith Record of Program, which allows teachers to enter monthly quantitative and qualitative data for each student's programme
• a monthly data analysis comparing student progress to Arrowsmith benchmark goals for each exercise
• a year-end assessment that assesses student progress in all cognitive domains
• a year-end Learning Profile based on each student's progress in the specific cognitive areas being addressed
• a modified cognitive exercise programme for each year a student is enrolled
• aach school is assigned a Program Coordinator who provides guidance in teacher and student selection, answers teacher questions, analyses student data, and monitors student progress.
• a three-week teacher training course at Arrowsmith School in Toronto, including a comprehensive Reference Manual, as well as year-round web-based professional development seminars

What exactly is the Arrowsmith Program, and what are the results?

The Arrowsmith Program is an umbrella term for a group of cognitive interventions developed to help with a wide variety of learning issues. For more on the idea behind the Arrowsmith Program, please refer to the Methodology section. There are 19 different facets of brain function that contribute to learning that are being addressed by the programmes.

More than 12,000 levels spread across all cognitive programmes are meant to target a specific aspect of cognitive performance. The cognitive domains listed above are defined in the Learning Disabilities Outcomes Chart.

A key objective of the Arrowsmith Program is to pinpoint and fortify a variety of vulnerable cognitive domains that impede education. Each student engages in customised cognitive programmes based on their unique areas of weakness.

After participating in the programme for three to four years, students are able to take use of their enhanced learning abilities and return to a regular academic curriculum. It may take some pupils up to two years of practise using their enhanced learning capacities, and others may need tutoring at first to get their academic skills up to grade level. If a student cannot devote three or four years to the programme, they will still profit from their participation.

The end goal is to help students become lifelong learners who are capable of pursuing their own interests and advancing their own learning.

Goal of the program

The Arrowsmith Program is designed to enhance a student's capacity for learning through a series of targeted drills, making it possible for the learner to absorb new information quickly and readily. If a student is having trouble grasping concepts, remembering information, or applying what they've learned, the Arrowsmith Program can help them improve their learning abilities. This fortifies fundamental cognitive capabilities, paving the way for future learning.

There are three distinct activities that make up the Arrowsmith Program:

• Computer exercises - improve your numeracy, reading, and visual memory.
• Auditory exercises - improve short and long-term auditory memory, as well as written and oral output.
• Pen and paper exercises - enhance the capacity for motor skills associated with the mechanical side of wiring, for executive function, and for nonverbal communication.

Where and How is it Delivered?

Teachers with special education experience implement the Arrowsmith Program in classrooms.

The brain training courses come in three different formats:

Computer games and exercises that target reasoning, logic, and comprehension, as well as arithmetic, reading, and visual recall for symbol patterns, faces, and landmarks.

Training the ear and the brain to better retain and absorb information through activities that focus on the auditory system, the phonological system, the production of speech, and the expansion of vocabulary (working memory)

Activities with a pen and paper that focus on developing the brain's motor, language, organisational, planning, and executive functions are all beneficial.

Each of the cognitive programmes has its own set of predefined performance requirements based on measures of precision, reliability, velocity, and automation. Every level has its own set of requirements that must be met before moving on to the next. Changes are made to the curriculum during the year according to the student's development.

Who is the Arrowsmith Program for?

Children with challenges in the following subject areas are encouraged to participate in the Arrowsmith Program:

• Visual Memory
• Reading
• Auditory Memory
• Mathematics
• Writing
• Comprehension
• Dyslexia
• Non-verbal Learning
• Auditory Processing
• Logical Reasoning
• Executive Function
• Attention

Individuals who have difficulty with organisational skills, processing speed, problem solving, communication, memory, and/or independence may benefit from the Arrowsmith Program even if they have not been diagnosed with a specific learning disability.

Advocacy related to the Arrowsmith Program

Arrowsmith Program implementation has been kicked off with the help of volunteer advocates, who have been an integral part of the process. School administrators can have productive conversations with parents and teachers of children with learning issues, as well as other professionals, regarding the impacts of students' difficulties and the challenges they experience in the classroom. They recognise and value the contributions made by these unpaid champions in raising public understanding of the programme and its mission to aid kids with learning disabilities. These materials are meant to aid advocates during the process at hand.

History

In 1978, the Arrowsmith Program of cognitive exercises was made available to children in Toronto who were having trouble with their schoolwork. In 1980, Arrowsmith School was founded, and it has been constantly open ever since.

The Arrowsmith Program has been available in Toronto public schools since 1997, when it was first made available by the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB). In 2002, the Arrowsmith Program was introduced to several Ontario and British Columbia independent schools.

Vancouver's Eaton Arrowsmith School was founded by Howard Eaton in 2005. As of 2008, the Eaton Brain Improvement Centre is the only location where the Arrowsmith Program is offered solely to adults. Victoria, Canada's Eaton Arrowsmith School opened in 2009.

In September 2008, the Arrowsmith Program was made available at the Saskatoon location of the Learning Disabilities Association of Saskatchewan, making it the first such location in all of Canada.

In 2005, the Arrowsmith Program was introduced to the United States, and since then, it has expanded to other locations across the country.

Here at Participating Sites, you can find a complete directory of every location that currently hosts an Arrowsmith Program class.

Barbara Arrowsmith Young's struggle with significant learning difficulties inspired the development of the Arrowsmith methodology; Young's story of self-discovery and creative problem-solving is recounted in her book, "The Woman Who Changed Her Brain."

Barbara Arrowsmith Young has a Master's degree in School Psychology from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and a Bachelor's degree in Child Studies from the University of Guelph (O.I.S.E.). Barbara spent two years as the Head Teacher at the experimental preschool at the University of Guelph after finishing her bachelor degree, during which time she began to notice learning discrepancies among the preschoolers she worked with.

In her 1982 Master's thesis, A Follow-Up Study of a Clinic Sample, Barbara Arrowsmith Young tracked the progress of 62 students who had been evaluated at the O.I.S.E. psycho-educational clinic between nine months and five years prior to the study's inception. Parental interviews, as well as interviews with the student's current teacher and ratings on social, emotional, behavioural, and academic characteristics, were collected during the follow-up phase. Children who scored below their age-appropriate grade level on academic tests administered at the O.I.S.E. clinics (math, word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension) continued to perform poorly in those same subjects compared to their peers, as rated by their teachers at the follow-up assessment. No correlation was established between the duration or severity of educational remedial intervention and improvement in the children's academic difficulties or performance. Students who got more than the median intensity of assistance (more than 10 hours/month) performed even worse than those who received less intervention in the follow-up assessment. These findings corroborated Barbara Arrowsmith Young's own observation that traditional academic remediation measures have limited success in treating a wide variety of learning issues.

While a graduate student at O.I.S.E., she got familiar with the work of Russian neuropsychologist A.R. Luria and American psychologist Mark Rosenzweig, whose findings inspired her to create the Arrowsmith Program's methodology.

Major research by A. R. Luria into how the brain works began during the war and continued until his death in 1978. According to A.R. Luria's research, complex mental activities like reading, writing, and arithmetic are the result of the cooperation of multiple brain regions. Furthermore, A.R. Luria's work also established that each brain region plays a very distinct and important role in the learning process, and that issues in any one region can have far-reaching consequences for the student's ability to learn in general.

The Arrowsmith Program is the name of both the educational system and the network of organisations that brings it to public and private schools across Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea, and Malaysia.

The theory behind the Arrowsmith Program is that students with learning disabilities can be helped by focusing on their particular cognitive weaknesses.

The intensive and progressive cognitive activities in the Arrowsmith Program are designed to improve a spectrum of deficient cognitive capacities that underlie a variety of specific learning issues. A comprehensive evaluation is performed to determine each student's unique learning challenges.

Through a comprehensive evaluation, the Arrowsmith Program determines each student's unique learning profile, which is then used to tailor a set of specialised activities to address those areas of weakness.

In addition to helping children who struggle with reading, writing, math, comprehension, logical thinking, problem solving, visual and auditory memory, non-verbal learning, attention, processing speed, and dyslexia, the curriculum has also helped students who struggle with these and other skills.

Their mission is to help each student become an independent, lifelong learner who is successful in their chosen fields.

The Arrowsmith Program is a set of cognitive exercises, but it also includes a teacher training course, ongoing professional development, year-round support for all Arrowsmith Program classroom teachers, a thorough web-based assessment for all students, ongoing monitoring and supervision of student progress over the internet, and liaison with Arrowsmith Program Coordinators.