How Brain Training Can Prepare Your Child for Back to School

While genetics, inadequate instruction and low motivations can contribute to learning and reading difficulties, science confirms that by far, the most common root cause of learning struggles is underlying cognitive skill weakness.

“Cognitive skills are the underlying tools that enable kids to successfully focus, think, prioritize, plan, understand, visualize, remember and create useful associations and solve problems,” says Jim Goryeb, Director of LearningRx.

A child’s cognitive skill set is made up of auditory processing, visual processing, short and long-term memory, comprehension, logic and reasoning, and attention skills. Each can also be divided into identifiable sub-skills, such as sustain attention (staying on task), selective attention (ignoring distractions) and divided attention (handling more than one task at a time). “Each skill and sub-skill play a specific and necessary role and must work in concert before one can learn effectively.”

Parents and teachers can watch for these traits that children with weak cognitive skills display:

- Difficulty paying attention
- Poor test scores, grades or reading comprehension
- Poor memory
- Difficulty organizing activity
- Poor study and work habits
- Taking a long time to complete tasks
- Disinterest (or dislike) in school

A ten-year study by the National Institute of Health found that 88% of learning-to-read difficulties resulted from weak phonemic awareness, the ability to blend, segment and analyze sounds.

A professional cognitive skills test is the only way to pinpoint the exact cause of learning problems. These tests may help further identify a child’s weak cognitive skills and better prepare them for the school year.