The American Youth Circus Organization (AYCO) Biennial Meeting was August 17-20 in sweltering 95^o, 95% humidity Sarasota, FL with no air conditioning, but the 300 kids from all over the US who worked their butts off from dawn to dusk were not deterred in the least by the heat and humidity.  They were having the time of their lives.

BDL Conference Organizer, Adele Diamond, went to AYCO Meeting to learn about Youth Circus.

Circus Harmony of St. Louis, Missouri, says that youth circus “teaches the art of life through circus education. We work to build character and expand community for youth of all ages, cultures, abilities and backgrounds. Through teaching and performance of circus skills, we help people defy gravity, soar with confidence and leap over social barriers, all at the same time.”

Amazing Grace Circus of Nyack, NY says youth circus is about building “Confidence. Imagination. Respect. Cooperation. Understanding. & Success” (CIRCUS).     
“Their mission is to offer youth the opportunity to…develop positive relationships using circus arts as the common bridge of communication and cooperation among diverse communities…To give teens the opportunity to build their self-esteem, learn how to cooperate, support and challenge each other to excel, and learn how to promote the use of their imaginations.”

If addressing all parts of the child is critical for children to excel in school and in life, then might programs like youth circus be important for academic success?

See a new article by the BDL Conference Organizer, Dr. Adele Diamond, in the foremost science journal, Science.

Link to the article

Link to SOM (Supporting Online Material)

from the article:

“Four of the qualities that will probably be key to success are creativity, flexibility, self-control, and discipline. Children will need to think creatively to devise solutions never considered before. They’ll need working memory to mentally work with masses of data, seeing new connections among elements. They’ll need flexibility to appreciate different perspectives and take advantage of serendipity. They’ll need self-control to resist temptations, and avoid doing something they’d regret. Tomorrow’s leaders will need to have the discipline to stay focused, seeing tasks through to completion. All of those qualities are ‘executive functions’ (EFs),”

“The best approaches to improving EFs and school outcomes will probably be those that (a) engage students’ passionate interests, bringing them joy and pride, (b) address stresses in students’ lives, attempting to resolve external causes and strengthen calmer, healthier responses, (c) have students vigorously exercise, and (d) give students a sense of belonging and social acceptance, in addition to giving students opportunities to repeatedly practice EFs at progressively more-advanced levels. The most effective way to improve EFs and academic achievement is probably not to focus narrowly on those alone, but to also address children’s emotional and social development (as do all 4 curricular-based programs that improve EFs) and children’s physical development (aerobics, martial arts, and yoga).”

Dr. Dan Siegel is ANOTHER of the amazing speakers who will present at the Brain Development and Learning Conference in 2013.

In this video, Dr. Siegel talks about the need to totally re-vamp education, adding 3 more R’s: Reflection, Relationships, and Resilience.

In this video Dr. Maté discusses the mind-body relationship of how stress can affect the body, and how suppressing emotions and feelings can cause medical problems such as cancer.

Watch this video of Dr. Adele Diamond, the BDL Conference Organizer and one of the Canada’s leading experts on developmental cognitive neuroscience, explaining the importance of early childhood education and how it can make a positive life-long impact.

Click here to watch the video.

Welcome to the Brain Development and Learning Conference Blog!

We are excited that the 4th Brain Development and Learning (BDL) Conference has been scheduled. It will be July 24-28, 2013 at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in the beautiful city of Vancouver, BC, Canada. For more information about making reservations at the Westin Bayshore Hotel for the conference, click here.

To start things off, here is ONE of the sets of themes for the BDL Conference 2013, and some of the amazing speakers relevant to this set of themes who have already agreed to present at the conference.

Keep in mind that this is just one of the sets of themes! More surprises to come

ONE subset of themes for BDL 2013 will be:

• Mind-Body Interrelations & Holistic Approaches to Health and Healing: that for good health, school success, and personal development it is critical to address ALL the aspects of a person — social, cultural, spiritual, cognitive, physical, and emotional.

• Childhood Trauma: understanding its deep and diverse effects but especially how we can help children recover, prosper, and shine

•  Maternal Depression: effects of a mother’s depression on her child and what to do about it

•  Neuroplasticity: the brain is plastic; it changes throughout life based on what you do and experience

• Epigenetics: most of your genes are turned off; experience affects ‘gene expression,’ that is, it affects which genes get turned on and when

Some of the Amazing Speakers who have agreed to speak at BDL 2013 on one or more of the above topics include:

• Gabor Maté, an expert on mind-body interrelations, and author of When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

• Bessel van der Kolk, his book Psychological Trauma was the first integrative text on the subject, setting out far ranging impact of trauma on the entire person and the range of therapeutic issues that need to be addressed for recovery

• Pat Ogden, founder of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, an expert on mind-body interrelations, and author of Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy

• Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Professor Emerita University College London, author of Re-thinking Innateness and Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science

• Moshe Szyf, Prof. of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, McGill U., studies epigenetics

• Bill Beardslee, Prof. & former Chairman, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Med Sch, author of When a Parent is Depressed: How to Protect your Children from the Effects of Depression in the Family

• Ian Gotlib, Prof. of Psychology & Sr. Assoc. Dean, Stanford Univ., studies how and under what circumstances a mother’s depression affects her children

• Greg Miller, Prof. of Psychology, Co-Director of the Psychobiological Determinants of Health Laboratory Association at UBC, studies Biological Embedding of Early Life SES and the Psychobiology of Caregiving.

• Sonia Lupien, is the Founder and Director of Centre for Studies for Human Stress; her research interests focus on the effects of stress on people and their lives.

This year, our lab, the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab was chosen as one of several labs to be filmed for Celebrate Research Week. This film offers insight into what Dr. Adele Diamond’s research is trying to accomplish and the important message she is trying to get across to parents, educators, psychologists and researchers. The mission of the BDL Conference is to bring together these different groups of people to brainstorm ways to make the lives of children better.

To view the film, click here.

Adult ADD Strengths:

Pete Quily, an adult ADHD coach in Vancouver, British Columbia, provides current information and advice for adults living with ADHD/ADD.

Assistance for Body, Mind, and Soul:

A blog for people that use assistance/service dogs. The blog’s primary aim is to help people relate their experience and provide information to others that utilize service dogs in their daily lives. Affiliated with West Coast Assistance Teams Society, which provides BC-certified assistance dogs for people with physical and psychiatric disabilities.

CHADD Leadership Blog:

Written by CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD) CEO, E. Clarke Ross, the CHADD Leadership Blog provides a regular commentary on topics pertaining to ADHD.

Curious Dad:

A former staff writer for the Vancouver Sun discusses issues related to parenting and being a dad in Vancouver.

Teen Mental Health Blog:

Dr. Stan Kutcher (renowned teen mental health expert), and David Venn share scientifically-validated information about adolescent mental health. Affiliated with www.teenmentalhealth.org

You and Me…and Adult AD/HD:

Gina Pera, author of Is it You, Me, or Adult ADD, explores adult ADD and its impact on family and relationships.

At the 2008 BDL Conference he led a talk entitled “The Plastic Human Brain: Implications for Translational Neuroscience and Education”.  The presentation focused on the mechanisms of brain plasticity at the systems level as they relate to the acquisition of new skills and memories across the lifespan. He also discusses brain plasticity as a ‘double-edge sword’ with consequences that can be adaptive or maladaptive for the individual.  He introduces the concept of modulating or guiding plasticity to promote the optimal behavioral outcome for each individual, and discusses non-invasive brain stimulation methods as a means for guiding plasticity.

Below is a ten minute excerpt from his talk: