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Thoughts About Thinking Have you ever wondered about how you think? Most of us just do it, until a situation like a brain injury occurs. Suddenly, we have difficulties that we know involve our thinking skills but we often don't know how they are involved. We may decide that we need words in order to think, sort of an internal conversation. Thinking involving words is called auditory-verbal processing. But, we also can think in pictures, images that run through our minds like little movies. Can you remember a favorite Christmas or the views from a vacation trip? Thinking in pictures is called visual processing. Remember how to tie your shoes, ride a bicycle, or turn a cartwheel? That kind of thinking is in movement and is called kinesthetic processing. We can also remember things by smell, taste or touch but we don't often use these senses for thinking other than forming new traces or remembering old traces. Each of our senses is called a modality and each way of thinking is called a processing system. All of us have these various processing systems available to us and we use different systems for different information. But, we each prefer one system of processing information, or thinking and use it more than any of the other systems. Usually, this processing system is also our learning style and our preferred way of storing information to remember it later. There are tests available that determine your preferred learning style. We've begun using the 'Self-Assessment of Modality Strength' test in Learning to Learn by Gloria Frender. This was not originally designed for brain injury survivors but we use it to help survivors learn about themselves. Brain injury survivors are asked to take their time with this multiple choice test and they are asked to complete the test twice. First, we ask that they answer each question viewing themselves before their injury. They are to try to think of specific related examples before they choose their answers. If they like more than one answer, they can mark both but they are to number them in order of preference. Also, if they use a different method than those listed, they describe it so that we can discuss which modality they likely used. After they have completed this first trial (and often on another day), they complete the test again, this time viewing themselves now and thinking in terms of their successes, or what works now. For example, they may have learned a new activity by listening to directions before their injury. Now, they still try to just listen to instructions but they are rarely successful unless they can also see a diagram or watch someone else demonstrate. Again, they are to think of specific related examples before they choose the answers. The end of the test explains how to evaluate oneself, lists 'Characteristics of Learning Styles,' and 'Suggested Aids for Learning Modalities.' In general, auditory-verbal processors learn information best through words or sounds. Visual processors learn best through pictures, patterns and mental images. Kinesthetic processors learn best by demonstration, movement and practice. Next we discuss what to do with this information. Suppose one person was mostly an auditory-verbal processor with some visual processing skills before his injury and now he keeps trying to use auditory-verbal processing and fails. He notes successes now are usually when he uses kinesthetic processing and some visual processing. Learning this information will assist him in many ways. First, he has learned that his brain prefers to use auditory-verbal processing. Many of our students find that the more they understand their brain and their injury, the more they feel in control of their improvements. Knowing that they have developed a preference for a processing system over the years helps them understand what they consider 'thinking.' From the 'Suggested Aids for Learning Modalities' and from discussions with friends in the lab, this survivor can try out some ideas to improve his auditory-verbal processing skills again. But, he has also learned - and this surprises many students - that there are other ways of processing information. For example, he has used some visual processing in the past and continues to use some now. Perhaps he can improve his visual thinking skills to assist his goal of faster learning and better remembering information. His kinesthetic thinking skills have been of some assistance since his injury, so perhaps strengthening those skills will also assist him in his goals. As a simple example, let's use phone numbers. Perhaps this same individual always used to remember his friends phone numbers when they gave it to him. He may have repeated it to himself a few times and then he could remember it anytime (well, almost) that he needed it. Using the same process now, the phone number is quickly forgotten. He can experiment with ways of strengthening his auditory-verbal retention of it by repeating it several times, pausing briefly and retrieving it, then pausing a little longer and retrieving it, each time increasing the duration of distraction. He could also recite it in a 'rap' beat, or with a melody as additional auditory-verbal techniques. To use a visual process, he might ask that they write it down for him to look at repeatedly, or to find a pattern in the numbers. To use a kinesthetic process, he might write it himself, repeatedly, or move his fingers in the pattern of dialing on a touch-tone phone. While strengthening a preferred process is often what the survivor chooses to try first, Frender and others have noted that the more varied ways information is processed, the better it is remembered. For example, a visual processor who, after a brain injury, has difficulty remembering the spelling of words can not only try additional ways of remembering visually (such as drawing a shape around the word or enlarging the letters he confuses) but also try auditory-verbal approaches such as learning to improve his phonetic approach to spelling, making songs of certain words' spellings (like is done with the word Massachusetts), or reciting the spelling aloud a few times. He can also try kinesthetic approaches to spelling, such as writing the word repeatedly, learning fingerspelling, or tapping out a rhythm while spelling each word. It is believed that each different way of sending information to memory storage improves a person's chances of retrieving the information later. Thinking about how we think, how we remember and how we learn is called metacognition. Metacognition can help us understand how our brains process information, as well as understand which of our processing systems are stronger or weaker in the time following a brain injury. In addition, metacognition can help us develop ways to improve our abilities in thinking, remembering and learning. Reference: Frender, Gloria. Learning to Learn: Strengthening Study Skills and Brain Power. Incentive Publications, Inc: Tennessee, 1990. |
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