HELP! My child is slow.

A parent on the phone commented that the son needs more attention because he is slow. The last to hand in assignments in class; staying back to complete work when the rest had packed up and gone out. Familiar?

What is the cause behind slow brain processes?

In two words: Cognitive Deficiency.

Whatever the brain perceives has to be processed in time for central processing and in conjunction with all the other information that needs to be filtered and prioritised. If I put a hand over a naked flame and move it away only when I smell burning flesh, my pain receptors are not communicating with my brain fast enough to send a corresponding signal to the motor neurons to tell the muscles to move away from danger. The same example applies to academic performance.



While it is commonly understood that the left hemispherical cortex controls the right side of the body and vice versa; it is seldom realised that cognitive inputs from which the brain receives signals to process come from the opposite sides too. The reading eye is a prominent example.

Eyes need to team. The dominant or leading eye sees first. The non-dominat eye teams up and follows. Somehow the brain puts these signals together and create the appropriate picture. You would read SAW and not WAS if this process works well. Any one with a right dominant eye will have no trouble reading or learning to read. This is because the right eye traverses from right to left. As a consequence, the left dominant eye person is in trouble, big time. Adults with a leading left eye, who have learned to read are under a brain process that is not "natural"; they are in a sense stressed when ever they read. Non optimal situations would easily cause an adult to copy a phone number with a couple of digits reversed. Then we wonder why we could not make the call and days may pass before it is realised.

I am left eye dominant. Can't tell you why - borned with it.

Parents, before you scream at them for careless mistakes - realise your child may be physiologically challenged.