When my son, Kareem, was four-years-old, he struggled to cope with the mainstream academic program. His first symptoms were difficulty following through on instructions and motor coordination (not able to follow gym class or stay in the queue with other children on outings). Kareem would always be out of place, or off task. The school he was attending in London at that time told us they were unable to accommodate him because the number of students in a class (24) would not allow the teacher to have the extra time required to meet his learning needs. They advised us to look for a school for ‘special kids’. Here started our long road in search of a solution as we investigated a range of schools.

Kareem changed schools in total 5 times, from London to Switzerland to Abu Dhabi, until we had to have him homeschooled in order to recuperate from what the ‘special schools’ were not able to teach him. A one-on-one teaching situation worked better (because of fewer distractions) but the problems were still unresolved. My son still struggled to retain information, to keep his attention focused when performing a task and math symbols were not absorbed, therefore mathematical information could not be processed automatically. He was under a lot of stress. When a student has to struggle with learning, one becomes frustrated and tends to lose motivation and this certainly doesn’t promote self-confidence. For our son to become a self-directed student seemed to be just a dream for my husband and I at that point; despite all our efforts, and all the possible solutions we had explored in every city where we lived in (London, Geneva, Lausanne, Abu Dhabi).

My experience with my son led me to conclude that in the area of addressing learning difficulties there is a general belief that the brain is fixed and not changeable, therefore the student has to learn to bear his or her problems of dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, etc. and the best to be expected is to use strengths to support the areas of difficulty and to find ways to compensate for the problems. My son often felt singled out as even with accommodations he was unable to keep up with the curriculum.

One day, I happened to read a book that would change our lives, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young. I found the story of this woman fascinating and inspiring and I had a strong feeling that the program she invented could open a door to effective resolution for my son.

I barely knew about neuroscience. I finally felt there was a potential solution for his problems rather than the compensations and accommodations that had been offered with limited benefit such as more time allowed to write a test, using voice recognition software to write essays, more repetition of material or to record lessons instead of taking notes. I was determined to learn more about her methodology based on neuroscience and neuroplasticity.

I booked my flight to Toronto because I wanted to have a meeting with this woman of vision. Her program offers an assessment to identify 19 of the cognitive areas involved in learning and after having identified the weak areas, the student follows a tailored individualized program designed to strengthen these areas in order to improve the underlying learning capacity. Her school in Toronto was fully booked so I enrolled my son in Vancouver where another school had adopted her program successfully for 15 years. As a result of this program, my son is now attending an international school. He is finally a self-directed student and is finally able to keep up with the mainstream program.

During my two years in Vancouver, I met with parents from different countries, all sharing their stories (similar to mine) of hunting for a solution and then finally happy to see changes in their children, to see them be self-confident and become positive because of their cognitive improvements. Students who have struggled with learning were now engaged in and enjoying school.

As a result of my experience and deep commitment to making a difference in the lives of children struggling with learning problems, I am now working as the European representative of the Arrowsmith Program.

I am working to create awareness of this program and to introduce it to schools in Europe, to make it accessible so that students have the opportunity to learn effectively and with ease. Research has demonstrated that the brain is not fixed, it can change, and this has application to addressing learning problems – so that they do not have to be a lifelong challenge.