Are the left brain right brain ideas a myth? Is there evidence to support the claim that babies are right brain dominant?
It seems more likely that our brains function mainly in an integrated fashion under all circumstances.
Chris
Chris,
These same questions have been plaguing me ever since I learned about right brain education for babies. I have been studying the human brain, imaging it, and doing surgery on it for the last 10 years but I have never once come across this theory in the medical literature until I read about Shichida, Doman, Tweedlewink, etc on this forum. On the many functional MRIs of baby brains that I have seen over the years, I have never seen preferential perfusion to or activation of the right cerebral hemisphere of normal babies - which is what you would expect if babies WERE right brain dominant, right? That being said, I have been showing my toddler Doman math cards and TW dvds for the last year… lol . I figure - there is SO MUCH we do not know about the human brain and I don’t see how it could hurt her development if I were to be open-minded about these things. Still, I would really love it if someone would point me towards some concrete scientific evidence! :biggrin:
I cannot imagine any benefit to only training one side of the brain.
I am completely supportive of, and use frequently, right brain training methods.
I also, however, incorporate a lot of daily left brain activities.
My son came out of the womb left brain dominant. I guess almost all of us are going to be dominant one way or the other.
Over many years of training children in many different skills I have observed that if we only teach one side not only will the other side not develop as time goes on it becomes worse. Eg beginner training cartwheel. Children mostly have a preferred side, especially once they have set handedness.
If at this point I train both sides of the cartwheel, they develop almost evenly, the dominant side will be the side the child chooses when asked to perform without being specifically told which side but to an outsider both look equal.
If however I choose to train only the dominant side down the track not only is the sub dominant side more difficult to train the children feel very uncomfortable trying it and will often mid way through the skill attempt to swap sides and their body and subconscious will fight the learning process the whole way.
But if I was to train the sub- dominant side at this point (as many teachers will - let’s say we all want right handed cartwheels - bit like only training the right hand to write back in the old days) I can actually develop this to be the preferred side, though it is still easy for me later to teach the dominant side.
I have observed this phenomenon more so in teaching children to spin or pirouette and trying to retrain this skill is very very difficult indeed.
As a result I train my son to use both sides of his brain to the best of his ability and both sides of his body equally. Only time will tell if my hunches and observations will prove true.
Will someone please elaborate a little about Pamela Hickein’s Right Brain book? I am doing the Tweedlewink Overview course, is it more or less the same thing mentioned in the book? I plan to do the Wink program some time later, is the content of the book similar to the course… lots of overlapping?
I know this is a very late reply on this post, but I just wanted to correct a misconception…
Right brain education may be called “right” brain education, but that doesn’t mean they neglect the left brain. The program is designed to develop the right brain along with the left brain through “whole brain” development because it is through whole brain usage that we realise our genius. Right brain education also works to develop the corpus callosum - the bridge between the two hemispheres so we can have better communication between the two halves.
aangeles is right - in essence, the activities they do in right brain school does NOT specifically develop only the right brain. The activities develop both left and right.
I think the reason why they call it “right brain” education is to give focus on the often neglected right brain.
That’s my understanding anyway…