Whole Brain Development

Whole Brain Development – The Outlook is Bright When Left Brain Meets Right

Most brain development in children occurs primarily before the age of 14, with much of that development taking place in the first several years of life. Children retain significant “neuroplasticity”, meaning brain adaptability that allows growth and inter-connection of brain neurons.

 

The UCMAS Program is designed to develop the integrated and motoring functions from both sides of the brain. When children manipulate the beads of the Abacus, communication between the hands and the brain stimulates the brain’s right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere – abstract side – creates an image memory of the beads on the Abacus while the left hemisphere – logical side – applies the requisite rules to perform the calculation.

 

Because the right hemisphere of the brain is much faster than the left, when the students exercise the right side through ‘visualization’, this results in strengthening the right-brain capabilities such as:

•     Photographic memory

•     Perform complex calculations

•     Conversion of images to words, numbers and symbols and the reverse

•     Ability to process information on an intuitive level

 

When both sides of the brain are activated through the UCMAS training, students can achieve calculations speeds previously only attainable by math geniuses.

 

Beyond math, our whole brain development technique ignites a cognitive firestorm in our students, who apply skills learned through our program in every area of their life. Better focus and concentration coupled with enhanced creativity and memory help students swiftly determine the component parts of a problem and devise a viable solution – and not just in Math – but in navigating effectively through every day life.

Left Brain Vs Right Brain
Basic Characteristics of Left and Right brain
In general, the left and right hemispheres of our brain process information in different ways. While we have a natural tendency towards one way of thinking, the two sides of our brain work together in our everyday lives. The right brain of the brain focuses on the visual, and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The focus of the left brain is verbal, processing information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole.

 

Left brain thinking is verbal and analytical. Right brain is non-verbal and intuitive, using pictures rather than words. The best illustration of this is to listen to people give directions. The left brain person will say something like “From here, go west three blocks and turn north on Vine Street. Go three or four miles and then turn east onto Broad Street.” The right brain person will sound something like this: “Turn right (pointing right), by the church over there (pointing again). Then you will pass a Hospital and a Grocery Store. At the next light, turn right toward the Petrol Station.”

 

Though right-brain or non-verbal thinking is often regarded as more ‘creative’, there is no right or wrong here; it is merely two different ways of thinking. One is not better than the other, just as being right-handed is not ‘superior’ to being left-handed. What is important is to be aware that there are different ways of thinking, and by knowing what your natural preference is, you can pay attention to your less dominant side to improve the same.

 

By learning abacus through the systematic training approach at UCMAS, children can fully realize their potential by activating both sides of their brain. By consciously using the right side of our brain, we can be more creative. More so , because left brain strategies are the ones used most often in the classroom, right brain students sometimes feel neglected.

 

By activating the power of both hemispheres, a child will be able to retain knowledge better and become proficient in any subject, especially math.

 

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Workings of Our Brain

The human brain is made up of two halves. These halves are commonly called the right brain and left brain , but should more correctly be termed ‘hemispheres’. For some reason, our right and left hemispheres control the ‘opposite’ side of our bodies, so the right hemisphere controls our left side and processes what we see in our left eye while the left hemisphere controls the right side and processes what our right eye sees.

 

The concept of right brain and left brain thinking developed from the research in the late 1960s of an American psycho biologist Roger W Sperry. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. One (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The other (the left brain) is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. Sperry was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1981.

 

So as you know, the human brain consists of the right brain and the left brain. The shapes of these two parts are similar, but differences have been gradually found in their functions. The left brain is also referred to as the digital brain. It controls reading and writing, calculation, and logical thinking. The right brain is referred to as the analog brain. It controls three-dimensional sense, creativity, and artistic senses. These two work together, to allow us to function as humans.

 

Q. What is right brain development all about?

Modern society and the educational system tend to discriminate against the right hemisphere and nonverbal forms of intellect.

 

Experiments show that most children rank highly creative (right brain) before entering school. Because our educational systems place a higher value on left brain skills such as mathematics, logic and language than it does on drawing or using our imagination, only ten percent of these same children will rank highly creative by age 7. By the time we are adults, high creativity remains in only 2 percent of the population.

 

Recent studies have shown that the abacus method of mental calculation is effective in the development of the right brain. At first, this idea was only a hypothesis, but the recent development of high-tech brain imaging equipment has helped provide tangible research data. Thanks to the development of cerebral physiology and imaging equipment that can accurately measure the amount of blood flow in the brain, recent studies have proven that the abacus method of mental calculation is extremely effective in activating the right brain. According to the research, the learning and thinking process is enhanced when both sides of the brain participate in a balanced manner.