Educational neuroscience aims to use insights into brain function to shape educational practices – how can it help children with special educational needs?
-
1
Birkbeck University of London, Psychological Sciences, United Kingdom
The fledgling field of educational neuroscience falls within the broader context of the learning sciences, where the goal is to bring together multiple disciplines (neuroscience, psychology, computer science) to inform education. Educational neuroscience involves a dialogue between neuroscientists, educators and policymakers. There are potential risks in the dialogue, such as scientific evidence being misconstrued by teachers (as in so-called neuromyths) or exaggerated by commercial interests (as in so-called brain training programs). There are also potential rewards, such as identifying new teaching activities based on an understanding of the brain’s learning mechanisms.
In this talk, I discuss the relevance of neuroscience to Special Educational Needs (SEN). There are two pathways that link neuroscience to education. The first is direct, viewing the brain as a biological organ, and considering the impact on learning of factors such as diet, exercise, sleep, stress, and drug treatments. The second route is indirect via psychology, and considers how emerging findings from neuroscience can modify our understanding of how the mind works.
To exemplify the first, direct route, I consider recent attempts to derive drug treatments targeting learning disabilities in genetic syndromes such as Fragile X syndrome and Down syndrome. I discuss the methodology for developing drug treatments, through an understanding of gene expression pathways, mouse models, and then human trials. I then consider reasons for the low success rate of developing such drugs. Case studies include drugs to decrease mGluR5 activity (Fragile X), bumetanide to encourage the inhibitory role of GABA (autism), and epigallocatechin-3-gallate to inhibit DYRK1A expression (Down syndrome). I also consider the risks of the direct route, such as the marketing of expensive dietary supplements purported to alleviate learning disabilities, but without solid scientific evidence (e.g., anti-oxidants).
To exemplify the second, indirect route, I consider examples of how brain constraints impact on the learning of academic domains such as reading, mathematics, concept development, and science. Within neuroscience, the study of developmental disorders defined on behavioural grounds (such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, dyscalculia, conduct disorder), has argued against these disorders being separate, discrete categories. Both genetic and brain imaging evidence point to these disorders lying on a continuum with variation in abilities in the typical range. This has led to the advance of a ‘dimensional’ approach to such disorders, in opposition to a diagnostic approach. In dimensional approaches, individual symptoms are treated, rather than whole disorders. I consider the relative merits of these two approaches, both theoretically for scientists and practically for parents seeking the best educational outcomes for their children.
In the final section, I briefly discuss the current state of teaching strategies for SEN in the UK, and identify potential places where neuroscience may be informative in the future. Most notably, teaching strategies for SEN do not appear sufficiently differentiated from those that are used to teach all children to justify a distinct SEN pedagogy (Davis & Florian, 2004). There do not appear to be suites of teaching activities tailored to specific learning difficulties. The message that emerges from this review is that the most important factors are responding to individual needs of the child, and combining multiple strategies to deliver the most powerful outcomes.
References
Davis, P. & Florian, L. (2004). Teaching strategies and approaches for pupils with Special Educational Needs: A scoping study. Department for Education and Skills Research Report RR516. London, UK: The Queen’s Printer.
Keywords:
educational neuroscience,
special educational needs (SEN),
developmental disorders,
autism,
fragile X syndrome (FXS)
Conference:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 11 Mar - 12 Mar, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation (invited speakers only)
Topic:
Educational Neuroscience
Citation:
Thomas
MS
(2018). Educational neuroscience aims to use insights into brain function to shape educational practices – how can it help children with special educational needs?.
Conference Abstract:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.225.00007
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
30 Jan 2018;
Published Online:
14 Dec 2018.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Michael S Thomas, Birkbeck University of London, Psychological Sciences, London, London, WC1E7HX, United Kingdom, m.thomas@bbk.ac.uk