03/10/2018
Dear Parents,
The Plastic Brain
This is addressed to you and to all children and young people with learning difficulties. We understand your difficulties and your fears. We commit ourselves to work together with you every day, not to do magic, but to understand your children so they can feel free to explore the world without fear and to make the life of your family unit lighter. The Waldon Approach is based on our working together - parents, professionals and children as one unit as there are no difficulties that we cannot reduce with a lot of hard work and love.
The importance of movement in The Waldon Approach.
Piaget explained that concepts develop as a result of actions that children perform acting on the objects and not from the objects themselves. The development of cognitive skills is based on movement which of itself creates new connections within the brain and reinforces the existing ones.
The synaptic plasticity of the brain results from the ability of synapses to change as a result of experience. If two neurons fire repetitively at about the same time then the synapse between them connecting the two neurons together. As Hebb famously said: “cells that fire together wire together”.
There is a neural pathway for each memory which is activated during information retrieval. These neurons are able to change their function and change the way in which they process information which is the basis of learning in the brain. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change its structure in response to movement experiences. Each experience activates the neurons to make structural changes, which strengthen the connections between the active neurons. The mental process of focusing attention can change the physical structure of the brain. This is why it is important not so much that the children perform all the activities during our lessons in perfection, but that at that precise moment they are concentrated as they explore the activities. We are looking for concentration and energy, the focus of attention on the exercises and on the movements that we encourage or cause the child to do. The scientist Merzenich the author of Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life found that when it comes to assigning the processing power of the brain the brain maps were governed by competition for precious resources. This is the basis of the principle: “USE IT OR LOSE IT.”
This in a nutshell is the basis of our method, movement-repetition of the experience-attention of neurotransmitters. We engage the plasticity of the brain to modify itself as it gains new information.
Thanks, and best wishes
Walter Solomon
Blerina Lalaj
October 2018
