Brain Training: Do It Yourself or Do It with a Trainer?
curtisrogers877 October 25, 2021Today we live in a DIY world. From furniture building manuals to becoming a chef, we can do all. In this rush of standardizing teaching for everyone, which they can access anytime they want, we ignore the importance of individual attention each learner needs.
Watching YouTube tutorials of swimming, reading a few articles about various tips will not necessarily enable you to become a swimmer. We need that human touch too, a mentor who will carefully study our weaknesses, guide us towards confidence, notice and enhance the wrong strokes, even motivate us when we don’t have the will – and gradually lead us towards perfection.
Similarly, in brain training, self-training tools like videos and online games might work to an extent, but these tools show the best results when handled and modified by trainers to suit each child differently. They know when, how, and with whom to use it. And that makes a vast difference in the outcomes of cognitive training.
Sudoku, puzzles, and other mind games might help, but they don’t usually lead to noticeable improvements in everyday attention to detail, real-life memory tasks, or smoother relationships. We might notice boosted attention as they occur on the computer items, but these performance gains don’t consistently move past the computer, where people want them. This is where expert trainers are required. They not only polish the decision-making power in the brain but also enable us to apply it when we are in a four-way traffic situation.
THE SCIENCE OF COGNITIVE TRAINING.
To be able to understand the need for a physical trainer who caters to every child individually, we need to first look into the science of cognitive training.
Brain training aims to enhance a person’s cognitive functions. The basic tasks of acquiring, processing, storing, and using information are achieved through fun hands-on training. Some examples of these functions include attention, memory, visual perception, reading comprehension, and language production.
The level on which our brain functions can vary in every individual, and external factors such as stress, traumas, or accidents can also lead to weak functioning.
In brain training, we train these functions in a carefully structured and controlled environment to improve the brain’s capacity. For example, training in attention includes intentional concentration on just one stimulus for an extended amount of time to increase the ability to focus and ignore distractions.
Take the example of a car wash with 10 different brushes and mops to work together from all angles to give you a shiny new look. Similarly, the fun environment, the emotionally supportive trainers, the different techniques, and the tools used all coalesce and train a child’s brain. In this clinical and academic manner, many skills are being groomed consciously and unconsciously.
Personal training thus offers a few primary benefits that self-training or brain training games might not be able to provide.
1) Personal training develops cognitive skills like memory and attention and trains to apply the acquired skill in day-to-day life.
2) Having a personal trainer helps a child deal with his own different needs through custom-built specifically tailored exercises, rather than tutoring him in a generalized manner.
3) Expert trainers identify the underlying issue a child is facing, and rather than seeing him as a weak student, they address his problem. This builds confidence in the child, and they feel an urge to strive.
4) Trainers understand each child is different, and so is each day for the same child as well. Keeping this in mind, they challenge the child by studying their capacity.
5) You might not always have the motivation to attempt the IQ-building puzzle and end up skipping it. Trainers are known to bring that motivation back and keep us on track until we reach our goal.
6) Sessions with trainers are more engaging and rewarding as they address the diverse needs of children.
At the Brainnovation center, our vision is to develop a child’s cognitive skills using a blend of both techniques. One is to challenge them one-on-one with training from expert trainers, and the second is to teach them the balance of self-training through virtual and online programs. The combination of the two helps them with the right mix of having someone to look up to while also being self-built to DO IT THEMSELVES.
Hence, we do not believe in giving our clients a cloak that says “one size fits all”. To put it in a nutshell – according to years of research and brain science, training the underlying weak skills through consistent, intensive, and 1:1 personalized training has reflected optimum long-lasting gains to both kids and adults.
