Posted on November 5, 2024
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Processing from the Top – Down, 5 Ways to improve Your Child’s Processing
Three Stories
First, my middle son is a Junior in college and is taking a Cognitive Psychology class. While preparing for an exam he came to me a bit stressed. The information was new and complicated and he was having difficulty applying the principles to scenarios laid out in the book. He told me the topic was processing and asked for guidance.
Let’s see, time with my adult son while nerding out to cognitive science? You don’t have to ask me twice!
Second, I had coincidentally been reading a book called Seeing What Others Don’t; The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights, by Gary Klein. In it, he attempts to solve the “mystery” of how remarkable insights occur to some and not others.
Third, I think of all the intellectual programs we did when Lucas was a baby. I remember having the honor of meeting Glen Doman at the Institutes when I was in Philadelphia for the Developmental course, and remember the discussions around intelligence. The Institutes impressed upon us to read nonfiction, make intellectually stimulating materials, see our babies’ brains as sponges – should we let them soak up a talking dog cartoon or information about an inventor or science, or history?
I remember teaching all sorts of things to my little boy… and I would get questions. Why did I care that he knew about trees indigenous to North America? Or the geography of Africa? Or the biography of Abraham Lincoln? Honestly, at the time I only had a vague idea why I cared.
I have had a great week of papers, books, and computers, all over the kitchen table with my 20 year old diving into different theories of processing, reflecting on what I have learned over the past 17 years, and thinking about great insights.
And then I had my own.
The Comings and Goings of Processing
Processing is both a Bottom-Up and Top-Down system. Simply:
- Bottom – up is the visual stimulation of an object coming into our eyes as light, the retina receives the image and sequentially relays it through various brain centers until it gets where it is going – the visual cortex. Literally, bottom – up. This allows for processing the attributes of something such as color, shape, number, size, etc. It allows us to play a game like Blink as processing speed increases. It is visual stimulation coming in, and being processed for a motor output.
This is where we spend a lot of our time with our children, and rightly so. This system can be slow, and the connections need to be strengthen. It is impacted by any limitations of the visual system and to be sure, efforts here are imperative to improving visual processing.
Bottom – up processing is the brain receiving the image of an object in the environment and “making sense of it.”
- Top – Down is when we bring expectations to the table based on prior experience or knowledge we have stored in our brains. For example, if we see a long object sticking out of a snow drift (Bottom – Up), we subconsciously assume it’s a snow shovel. This works to keep us safe as well. If we are hiking and see something coiled up in the distance, Top – Down processing acts as a warning system for danger. In all likelihood, it is a snake.
For Top – Down Processing we need experience, background knowledge (Ah, that is one reason I cared about those intelligence programs), and information.
Over the years this has been impressed upon me from many sources. Dr. Joqueta Handy discussed the importance of creating a brain full of “files” filled with information. In order to comprehend reading (processing task) we must have access to background knowledge. This makes so much sense.
Lucas is a die hard Star Wars fan. I used it when he was little to build knowledge. I once got my hands on a book that discussed all the technical aspects of the ships in the various movies. Of course the ships were fictional, but the information about aerodynamics was not. Because he had extensive background knowledge of the ships, he was able to process science concepts by relating it.
The book I’m reading on insight formation reinforces this for all of us. What is insight? It is a unique idea or approach to something based on our specific knowledge and experience. Why is insight important? Not just for novel ideas in science, it is necessary for things like inferencing, abstract thought, and comprehension.
Processing must be Bottom – Up and Top – Down. The bottom – up is our detection system, our Top – down is our ability to take the information we have stored and combine it with what we see (in this case) to understand our world, and in turn, act on it.
Finally, these are significant considerations that traditional approaches omit. Look no farther for an example than difficulty with reading comprehension. The Special Education approach is to use different color highlighters for important words, or circling words, or attempting to create a “checklist” way of finding the sentence that introduces the main idea.
These approaches are woefully inadequate because they do not even consider Bottom – Up processing, let alone Top – Down. Traditional approaches are focused on the output. And we know the brain can never change by working on the outbound road.
5 Ways to Boost Processing
1. Reinforce the pathways and speed of Bottom – Up Processing
This is all the neurodevelopmental aspects of visual processing such as visual motor abilities (the 22 components of functional vision), visual attention, speed of processing, working on qualities of an object such as color, number, shape, size, Stroop activities that reinforces the ability to attend to some visual stimulation while ignoring others, etc. Of course also focus on the neurodevelopmental core foundations of crossing midline, Right and Left Discrimination, and reflex integration.
2. Teach Reading Early using Visual Stimulation Method
We commonly refer to this method as the Doman Method. It is outlined in his book Teach Your Baby to Read . The discussion of “Sight word method vs Phonics,” is not the issue. Flooding the visual system with “word maps,” fills the brain with the mature ability to understand what a word is even without many of the letters (Think Hangman or Wheel of Fortune). It is a function of Bottom – Up processing.
3. Sure they’re fun and sweet, but balance out children’s fiction with factual non-fiction
Our baby is able to soak up a book about talking bears or the history of the Roman Empire all the same. If we spend the first five years of life filling file cabinets with copious amounts of information, it will be there for use when the child needs to comprehend reading, improve processing, infer, and problem solve.
Knowledge is necessary for processing. Top – Down.
4. Screens vs. Print; No Contest
Learning on screens uses a completely different set of processes than print materials. Typing on a keyboard is a completely different motor act than handwriting. We all know that there is down time and fun to be had, and I know it is unreasonable with so many things going on in our lives, but for ages 0-5 there should be zero screen use. There are numerous reasons, but for purposes of this writing screens wire the brain for screens. Screens are not how we live in the world. We must be able to process the world as it is.
5. Have Fun
As an Occupational Therapist, I understand that children’s primary occupation is PLAY! So many times parents tell me that they tried a reading program or an intelligence program and their child refuses, or throws the materials, or runs away. Of course they are! If we turn processing and reading and intelligence into WORK (which usually takes on a “school” feel with sitting at a table) the child is not interested.
Have fun with your child! If they are old enough – play games, if they are babies – throw pictures around the floor and crawl from one to the other, turn maps into puzzles and put them on a vertical surface like a wall. Snuggle up with all the comforts of security and love and dive into a biography. (There are so many book series out there that introduce historical people and concepts to children.) Give them the joy of learning real information.
By the way, the epigenetic inputs of happiness, joy, security, and love will help encode the information and build the files much faster than sitting at a table!
I hope you are as inspired as I am to think about tiny changes to improve overall processing whether it is for our children or ourselves. Neuroplasticity is a lifelong gift. Our brains grow by use … feed them well!
Best,
Geralyn
