THERE are many students who fail all subjects in school despite remedial classes and tuition. Then, there’s the other category which wants to improve but nothing even remotely good happens.
The story sounds familiar. The heart of the problem: the low level of beta (2nd letter in the Greek alphabet) waves in the brain.
This is the mantra that Singapore psychologist Dr Kenneth Kang, 46, has been chanting recently in Kota Kinabalu at the Seri Mengasih Centre for special children. His visit was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu.
“By understanding children’s brain activity, parents and teachers can understand them better and with brain exercises, they can help turn in better academic performances,” says Dr Kang who was conducting a basic programme for those who have to work with problem children.
“Beta wave activity in the brain is essential for studies. In the case of failures, the brain virtually shuts down. In the case of failures who want to improve, the challenge is to sufficiently increase the production of beta waves.”
Aside from Beta waves, emitted when there is a lot of mental activity, there are other brainwaves like alpha (1st letter) when the brain is in a calm, resting state, delta (4th letter) when we sleep and theta (8th letter) when the brain is not active.
For example, a theta rhythm is an oscillatory pattern in electroencephalography (EEG) signals recorded either from inside the brain or from electrodes glued to the scalp.
Dr Kang specialises in neurofeedback (brain exercise) and brain mapping and can train anyone in both areas to better equip themselves for working with problem children.
“We can map the brain to find out what the organ is doing, which part is active, which part is not active, which part has shut down and which part is exhausted,” says Dr Kang. “This procedure can help us work out what is happening inside the brain.”
“In brain mapping, we can simultaneously measure the brainwaves coming out from 19 locations on the head. After the brainwaves have been measured, the person will be able to know what is actually happening with his brain.”
Brain mapping employs fairly sophisticated but easy-to-operate Quantitative Electro and Encephalogram (QEEG) equipment.
Dr Kang particularly feels that parents with “special needs” children need to understand their condition better. Even such children can experience a marked improvement in their studies after going through brain mapping and brain exercises as recommended by specific modules.
Brain exercises have to be customised to ensure that a particular target area of the brain can either “recover” or at least be more active.
Brain areas can also be exercised directly by placing a sensor on a particular spot that needs special or more attention. But only one or two locations can be done at a time in this manner.
The method is very safe and non-invasive, according to Dr Kang, and does not involve discharging anything into the brain since it only involves reading the brainwaves emitted by the brain.
Potential employers may also find brain mapping useful since it can “characterise a person’s ability according to the brain structure”. For starters, brain mapping will identify whether a person is left or right brain oriented and this can help match jobs and people. If the right pre-frontal part of the brain (FP2) is too active, the person would be more of a risk-taker and usually a bit more mischievous as well.
The left pre-frontal (FP1), middle pre-frontal (FPZ) and right pre-frontal (FP2) controls social behaviour. Autistic children are impaired in these areas which involve social interaction and therefore cannot socialise.
Dr Kang cites cerebral palsy as an example of a messy brain. This is evident from the plotted graph of the front part of the brain which is associated with motor functions and planning. The remedy is to calm that area of the brain so that it can process the information that would enable better motor functions and planning abilities.
In dyslexic children, the language and comprehension area in the left brain – the Wernicke area after Polish neurologist Dr Carl Wernicke -- would be in permanent shutdown mode. In such cases, even if the children can read, they would not understand what they are reading.
The solution: training Perital 3 (P3) on the left side of the brain to be more active and Perital 4 (P4) on the right side to relax and calm down has been found to improve vocabulary with the usage of more flowery words in dyslexic children.
There are even cases of children who have a very active Wernicke area but at the same time other parts of their brain are not active, qualifies Dr Kang.
“Their language capacity is good. They can speak and when you talk to them, they can understand you. But when you ask them to do things, they just can’t,” explained Dr Kang. “This is because other parts of the brain can’t increase in activity.”
“Many teachers would have experienced this peculiar situation where children refuse to co-operate. Actually, their brain can’t fire up enough to get things done.”
Dr Kang cites the specific case of a boy who used to be in the 15th to 20th position in a class of 30 students in Singapore. After going through a few modules of brain exercises, the same boy finally topped his class and continued to remain among the very few at the top.
The Singapore psychologist foresees staff of Seri Mengasih Centre eventually being able to help children with a variety of special needs besides autism, cerebral palsy and dyslexia. This includes ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), a neurobehaviourial developmental disorder; and Down’s syndrome which is characterised by mental retardation because of the presence of an extra chromosome. Human beings have 46 chromosomes but children with Down’s syndrome have 47 while the great apes, our nearest relatives, have 48.
The story of human intelligence apparently begins with some of the great apes somehow making the great leap from 48 to 46 chromosomes i.e. the so-called missing link in the emergence of human intelligence.
“A trained person can help a Down’s syndrome child by brain exercising three areas of the top part of the brain i.e. central left (C3), central midline (CZ) and central right (C4) to increase his or her awareness of the surroundings,” said Dr Kang. “Impulsive children can be taken through calming down brain exercises to reduce their impulsiveness.”
Dr Kang, according to his curriculum vitae, did psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine where Professor Barry Sterman, as a researcher in the 1960s, stumbled on brain mapping and exercises while studying cats while they were asleep.
Dr Kang (
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) is the first to bring brain mapping and exercises to Asia from the United States. That was in 1995.
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THERE are many students who fail all subjects in school despite remedial classes and tuition. Then, there’s the other category which wants to improve but nothing even remotely good happens. 
