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The Audiblox program has already been
used for considerable time with great success for almost any form of
learning problem. The program been applied successfully for learners whose
problems range from a mild learning problem, where one would normally
expect quick results, to more severe cases of learners in a special class
or remedial school. Naturally, the more serious the nature of the problem,
the harder one would have to work in order to achieve noticeable results.
From the foregoing it should not be concluded
that Audiblox is only aimed at learners with learning problems. The
learner with a learning problem will certainly greatly benefit from
sustained exposure to Audiblox. However, one should also consider
that we do not provide athletics training to children and adults who are
lame or uncoordinated. We take the talented ones, and through judicious
training and exercise, we are able to turn them into great athletes. The
same applies on the mental plane. If we take the talented, intelligent and
creative children and expose them to Audiblox training, we shall be
able to turn them into great mental athletes.
Whether the words “great mental athletes”
should be interpreted in the extremely optimistic terms that one often
encounters nowadays in the writings of experts all over the world who have
become engrossed in the intricacies of the human brain, and who, inter
alia, state that the “human brain is over-endowed” (Rose 1993: 5), is a
question. Some of these authorities state that we use less that 10% of our
brain potential (Rose 1993: 5), whereas others claim that it is less than
1% (Buzan 1977: 11). If this were true, it would mean that a person with
an IQ of 100 would actually have a potential IQ of 10, 000! It is perhaps
of importance to realize that a human being is far more than just a brain.
It is not a brain that learns, but a human being. We do not teach brains,
but people. Furthermore, it is probably true that human potential in all
respects, not only intellectually, is far greater than we realize. One is
often astounded to learn of the physical feats that children, who had been
raised by wild animals, are capable of. The circumstances, under which
they grew up, were conducive to the development of the potential. If
circumstances can be created that are conducive towards developing the
potential of man’s mental capacity, then certainly human beings will be
better able to perform mental functions, like learning, thinking,
remembering, reading and calculating. There are already several methods in
existence through which it is possible to create circumstances that are
conducive towards the development of mental potential. Audiblox is
one of these.
Research: Mental Functioning
Research has demonstrated
a link between mental functioning and social functioning, educational
performance, economic status and commitment to marriage. One study
examined the lives of 123 African Americans born in poverty and at high
risk of failing in school. From 1962-1967, at ages 3 and 4, the subjects
were randomly divided into a program group that was exposed to a
high-quality preschool program, and a comparison group that received no
such exposure. In the study's most recent phase, 95% of the original study
participants were interviewed at age 27. Additional data was gathered from
the subjects' school, social services, and arrest records.
By age 27, only one fifth
as many program group members as non-program group members had been
arrested five or more times (7% vs. 35%), and only one third as many had
ever been arrested for drug dealing (7% vs. 25%). Four times as many
program group members as non-program group members earned $2,000 or more
per month (29% vs. 7%). Almost a third as many program group members as
non-program group members graduated from regular or adult high school or
received General Education Development certification (71% vs. 54%).
Although the same percentage of program males and non-program males were
married (26%), the program males had been married nearly twice as long as
non-program males (averages of 6.2 years vs. 3.3 years). Five times as
many program females as non-program females were married at the time of
the age-27 interview (40% vs. 8%).
However, the link between
mental functioning and social functioning, educational performance,
economic status and commitment to marriage does not only apply to at-risk
children, but also to the “great mental athletes.” This is clearly
demonstrated by a Terman study.
In 1921, psychologist
Lewis Terman received a grant from New York City to conduct a
longitudinal study of more than fifteen hundred children whose IQ’s were
above 140. (Please note:
An IQ score is certainly not the only measurement of talent, intelligence
and creativity.) Terman collected his subjects from grade schools
in California. The 1,528 subjects that he eventually selected had an
average IQ of 150, and 80 possessed IQ’s of 170 or higher. Follow-up
studies were conducted in 1927-28, 1939-40, 1951-52, 1960, 1972, and 1977.
Since few women were
encouraged during the 1920s to seek professions, most of the follow-up
studies have concentrated on the approximately 800 men chosen in the
original selection. By 1950, at an average age of 40, these 800 men had
written and published 67 books, over 1,400 articles, 200 plays and short
stories, and obtained over 150 patents. Seventy-eight of them had received
a Ph.D., 48 an M.D., and 85 an LL.B. Seventy-four were university
professors, and 47 were listed in American Men of Science. As
Terman noted, “Nearly all of these numbers are 10 to 30 times as large as
would be found for 800 men picked at random.”
When in their seventies the Terman “kids,” compared
with the average person of that age, were healthier, happier, and richer,
and they had a far lower incidence of suicide, alcoholism, or divorce.
These studies also dispel the myth that genius is closely related to
insanity, since far fewer of the Terman kids suffered from serious
behavioral disorders compared with the average populace. |
