Barbara Arrowsmith Young's Lifespan Development

Life Span Development Current Issues Paper The Brain That Changes Itself One particular case involving a woman by the name of Barbara Arrowsmith Young illustrates an example of how this change can occur later in development. Barbara Young had areas of brilliance as a child; her auditory and visual memories were extraordinary. But her brain was “asymmetrical,” meaning that parts of her brain associated with her brilliance coexisted with areas of retardation which lead to an array of cognitive problems. Barbara’s most debilitating problems existed in her disability to relate symbols normally and to understand cause and effect. She could only understand symbols with effort and constant repetition and she could sense meaning everywhere but could
never verify because she could not interpret cause and effect. She therefore got through school by memorizing whole pages of work. Barbara’s extraordinary memory allowed her to progress through high school and gave her the opportunity to attend college.
Whilein college Barbara discovered a book written by Aleksandr Luria called, “The Man with a Shattered World”. Luria’s book summarized and commented on a diary written by a soldier Lyova Zazetsky and mapped which areas of the brain commonly processed mental functions. Zazetsky had sustained a bullet wound to the head which left him disabled in much of the way Barbara was. This association greatly interested her and lead her to link Luria’s research with the neuroplastic discoveries of Mark Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig was a scientist whohad shown, in essence, that the brain can be modified. Barbaraunderstood that if she could apply the discoveries of Rosenweig to the mapped brain graphs of Lyova she could solve her cognitive disabilities. This application became her life’s work. Barbara isolated herself and began toiling at mental exercises she had designed. She exercised her weakest function relating symbols in a wide variety of ways. One such exercise involved reading off cards with clock faces illustrating different times. When she couldn’t get the time correct, she’d spend hours practicing with a mechanical
clock. When she would get the time correct she not only noticed improvements in her ability to understand time but noticed improvements with her other difficulties in relating symbols. She began to grasp grammar, math and logic by designing similar exercises which targeted her other abilities After months of rigorous exercises Barbara had brought her IQ up to the above average percentile and essentially treated herself. Barbara’s success was made by stimulating her weak areas of functions through developed strategies.
Barbara showed that the brain might be exercised as though it were a muscle and that underlying learning disorders thought to be permanent could be changed. This is just one of the many case studies that support the theory of neuroplasticity. Dr Norman Doidge goes on to show in a similar case how a man who tested in the lowest percentile in math as a child became a math genius and how a woman who could not stand due to a rare disability was cured through a cortical implant. Because neuroplasticity is such a new and still developing scientific discovery it is slow to become mainstream and therefore not mentioned in our course text. Still, many of the physical and cognitive developments in adolescents we learned in class apply well to Dr. Doidge’s scientific position that our brain is plastic. The psychoanalytic theories of Vygotsky come to mind in reading through “The Brain That Changes Itself”. In Vygotsky’s case the idea that culture and social interaction guide cognitive development in children is a major themein neuroplasticity. The amount of interactions and or experiences our brain gathers strengthens neuron connections in areas of our brains, therefore creating a reciprocal relationship. Neuron pruning or synaptic pruningacts on Vygotsky’s
theory. Neuron pruning is a process which facilitates a productive change in neural structure by reducing the overall number of overproduced or "weak" neuronsinto more efficient synaptic configurations. In essence Synaptic pruning eliminates weaker synaptic contacts while stronger connections are kept and strengthened. Experience determines which connections will be strengthened and which will be pruned; connections that have been activated most frequently are preserved. This allows the brain to adapt to its environment. The difference between Vygotsky’s theory and the theory of neuroplasticity Doidge promotes is that these changes due to social and environmental factors are not unique to adolescent development but rather a process which occurs (often on a smaller scale) throughout a life-span.