When we are overwhelmed, we turn away, don’t we?

So do our kids.

This link to a study by Vanderbilt University shows how the ears and eyes don’t get their information to the brain for processing at the same time—-for those with learning differences:

http://video.dailymail.co.uk/video/1418450360/2014/01/1418450360_3055499925001_8.mp4

Explains why our kids can’t look at us when they are processing the audio stream of instructions.  All these words we throw at them, full of our expectation for immediate action, and they have a full-time job of trying to fulfill it.

And we want them to look at us also, as their eyes give their brains out-of-sync data?

So, if you have a heavy cognitive load processing in the best case, and your eyes betray your mission, who would want to look?

The good news is that our brains are able to build new neural pathways with practice.   Not easy, but as long as we are alive, the brain can do its magic.

So, build a bridge!   This season has a lot of watching media.  When I turn on the subtitles / captions, my son pays attention in a completely better way.  His brain can better blend all the streams of data, and figure out what is going on.  He stays glued, not turning away.

So we keep practicing.   So can you, and turning on captions / subtitles may really help.

Peace be with us,

Gayle