One Brain's journey

A month or so back I wrote that one of the first neuroplasticity programs, Arrowsmith, was about to be dropped by the Toronto Catholic District School Board fo reasons of cost. It’s a little more complicated than that. The Board had asked Arrowsmith to waive their fees over the next two years while the Board conducted a study to see specifically if the program made a difference to subjects in the classroom. There is a similar program using Cogmed Working Memory Training currently running at Sick Children’s’ Hospital in Toronto under the auspices of Rosemary Tannock. Arrowsmith refused and the Board dropped it. Well now it seems that the parents of the children who were enrolled in the program, there are about 70 of them, are taking the Board to court to get them to reverse the decision saying, according to an article in the Toronto Sun, that “the children enrolled in the program will be irreparably harmed.” Named in the suit are: Education Minister’s provincial supervisor Norbert Hartmann, associate supervisor Norm Forma and the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Michael Watson, a partner at Gowling, Lafleur, Henderson LLP, speaking on behalf of the parents said, the case, which has yet to be proven in court, isn’t about money, it’s about helping those children. ” Parents can disagree with decisions of the board … what’s really different about this case is we say this decision was made completely unlawfully and contrary to various provisions of the regulations under the Education Act and beyond the jurisdiction of the supervision team,” Mr Watson says that this team has interfered with and meddled in a very important special education program of the board under the guise of a budget matter. He went on to say that the parents fundamentally believe in the Arrowsmith Program and that it has achieved results.

Simultaneously with the Toronto Catholic District School Board axing the Arrowsmith Program, four other neuroplasticity programs are being considered for adoption by the non-sectarian Toronto District School Board. The four are Arrowsmith, Cogmed Working Memory Training, Fast ForWord and Wasdell SMaRts. Two of the programs, Cogmed and Fast ForWord are being used in Toronto schools now. Arrowsmith has been employed in the Catholic Board for the last ten years and had previously participated in a number of studies of effectiveness although none of these studies measured changes in the actual classroom.

Another study assessing Cogmed is scheduled to start this fall under the supervision of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children researcher Rosemary Tannock. This study in Ontario’s demonstration school will track 120 students who are severely learning disabled. According to Tannock, “The big question is not just whether Cogmed can improve working memory but will it really improve classroom performance.” A further study using Cogmed is set to begin with students at the University of Toronto.

I have a very clear memory from grade eight when the teacher, who I really liked and knew was a good teacher even at 14,  called each student up and pointed to her desk where there was a sheet of paper with each student’s graduating mark. My average was just over 75% so it was at the honors level but she was not satisfied. “You can do better,” she said.

I knew I was lazy. I didn’t like doing homework, but grade eight was the first time I realized I was fairly bright. I had only just started to read on my own and almost immediately began to devour books at the rate of one-a-week.  I could do the homework at the same time the teacher put it on the blackboard and so it was completed at the same time as she finished.  One day she stopped in the middle of putting the homework on the board and turned around.  She caught me but I thought she would be impressed at how quickly I was completing the work.  She wasn’t.   She said. “It’s homework. You do it at home.” Another teacher might have been impressed but not Miss Hamilton. She knew about potential and she knew I was operating below mine.

In high school, it caught up with me in grade ten which marked the first time I failed a test. It was French Grammar, and I found memorizing vocabulary painful. I was in an experimental accelerated program at the time, the goal of which was to complete four years of high school in three. The entrance requirement was a minimum IQ of 125.  I had no trouble in grade nine. Grade ten was a different story, however, I completed the program and graduated with what was then referred to as junior matriculation in the three years. Only half of the 42 students who began the program in grade nine graduated with grade twelve in the three years.  Back in those days there was grade thirteen and you needed grade thirteen to get into university.  I went into a grade thirteen class a year younger than most of the other students.

I thought I was going to Royal Military College and so took the courses that matched the entrance requirements: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics and chemistry. I had a minor interest in chemistry but the rest of the subjects bored me to tears. I failed all of those required subjects except chemistry and it was a water shed moment in my life.  I can still remember what happened as I settled in to study, much too close to the actual exams.  There was too much to cover and I found that as I read something in a text book, or in my notes, I would come to the bottom of the page and realize I hadn’t retained a thing that I just had read.  I would start again only to have it happen again.  I panicked and went to tell them at the office at school. I got a strange reception because of my school record up to that time and the fact that I had done four years of high school in three and, of course, they had no idea why I was there. Neither did I. Looking back now I think I was probably looking for some understanding of what was happening to me.  Back then I was just another lazy kid who had got as far as I had on brains but didn’t have he staying power to excel.  I still have nightmares about that time.

I know now what happened but it has baffled me most of my life even though my university experience was worse. It was the maths and the sciences. It was the first instance for me of what my performance is like doing something that es not stimulating or in which I have no interest.

There was a lot more to come…

The day I was diagnosed with ADD I left the psychiatrist’s office and sat in my car in the parking lot and cried. In an instant I had the answer to all the accusations from age 12 to that moment of how I was lazy of how I didn’t apply myself of how I didn’t measure up. Now I knew for the first time that it wasn’t my fault. I was infinitely relieved to the point where it brought the tears. Unfortunately the feelings of relief didn’t last and within a month or two I was in the same psychiatrist’s office telling him that I was depressed. What I was now thinking about was of the promise of a good and interesting life that had gone unfulfilled.

I remembered the psychologist who did a complete psycho neurological, psycho-educational assessment after I had failed my second year in university, who told me that I had the intellectual capability to be successful in any course of action I should choice and in any educational program I might choose. I asked what she meant and she replied that I could study medicine, law, architecture, physics…anything. However, she had also picked up indications that there something quite wrong and recommended that I spent some time and effort finding out what that was. I didn’t. I was so relieved to find out that I wasn’t an idiot, not that they would have had the knowledge back then to find out anyway.

On yeah I had gone to night school and slowly, painstakingly acquired a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and then completed the BA at the university from which I had been debarred years before but these were not difficult programs and I still had trouble with them.

I realized, gradually, that most of the major choices in my life had not been made by me but by the disorders, ADD and the social anxiety subsequently diagnosed. I had jobs instead of a career. I had not chosen to stay single, to not raise a family, to not own property. I had not chosen to live most of my life alone. These things had been forced on me either by ADD or by social anxiety. Of course I also realized that there were thousands, maybe millions of people on the planet who would change places with me in an instant but quite frankly it didn’t make it any easier. It wasn’t about the quality of life, the opportunities or even about having a choice. It was about being deprived of the power of choice.

It cost me—mentally, emotionally and eventually financially. I filed for personal bankruptcy and spent too much of my time in regret for things that never were.

It took a few years, but then the medication, I was on both a stimulant and an antidepressant, began to work. I started to follow some of the other suggestions I had received, like taking a martial art and I came to terms with the past and began to look to the future…