Posted: May 17th, 2015

Brain Behaviour Relationships

Essay Topic 1: Brain Behaviour Relationships

Professor Simon Crowe

 

Your nephew has recently been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. His psychologist has suggested that he should have working memory training using a commercially available brain training program. Your sister knows that you are studying psychology and asks you whether you think the cost of the training will be worth the considerable effort that it will require having him sit before the computer for the duration of the training. Using the best available research evidence on this topic, how do you answer your sister’s question and why do you think so?

 

Starting reference: Melby-Lervåg, M., & Hulme, C. (2013). Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review.Developmental Psychology, 49(2), 270-291.

 

GENERAL ISSUES

As discussed in our first lecture, many claims about whether it is possible to improve intelligence and other forms of cognitive functioing have been made over the years but many of these have proven to be of little value.Some experts have contended that brain training programs, whichinclude products such as Lumosity®,may be more effective working memory (WM) training tools as they are developed to improve performance on intellectual tasks through what may be referred to as training-induced neural plasticity or training-induced learning. The aim of this essay is for you to evaluate these claims and to argue whether you would recommend brain training programs to enhance WM function in individuals with ADHD. Are brain training programs effective?

It is important in the context of this essay that you do not devote too much of your time to irrelevant issues. This is a rich literature and it will be easily for you to be overwhelmed by detail. My strongest caution is to make sure that you address the question asked rather than present all that you know about brain training.

 

That said, an approach to the issue could look something like this:

 

INTRODUCTION

  • Begin with a general orientation to the topic and outline how you intend to approach the question paragraph by paragraph. In this introduction you should define your terms including:
  • What is ADHD? (Be careful not to get carried away by the discussion of ADHD which is only a minor part of the issue that I want you to address).
  • How does ADHD affect cognitive processing?
  • What is working memory and how is it affected in ADHD?
  • What is brain training?
  • What does it do?
  • Briefly outline the lines of evidence you will discuss
  • What might be the problem with someone with ADHD in undertaking working memory training which is computer administered?
  • How might this affect someone with ADHD ability to be able to benefit from the program?
  • Does successfully completing a brain training program lead to benefits in cognitive processing, most notably working memory functioning? Yes/No? Why/Why not?
  • Would the performance on the training tasks themselves transfer to other aspects of functioning, for example how your nephew is doing in school?
  • Re-iterate the main points of your argument, conclude and sum up indicating what sort of recommendations you would make taking into consideration all of the evidence that you have examined.
  • Remember you have been asked to provide an opinion to your sister about the issue, so indicate what you would say to her.

BODY

CONCLUSION

 

OTHER ISSUES

 

Be very careful about:

  • Make sure that you actually answer the question.
  • Presentation, spelling and grammar; getting this right is easy marks
  • Appropriate APA-VI referencing style.
  • The use of second referencing (i.e. citing a paper that has been cited by someone else that you have read). If the paper is important enough to be included then you should go to the trouble to actually read it.
  • Determining the veracity of the methods used in the papers that you cite. It may be that a paper does not support the majority of the literature that you have cited, possibly because the methods used were in some way flawed or limited. It is appropriate for you to ensure the methodological quality of all of the papers that you discuss.
  • Minimise the use of summarizing textbooks, original material, experimental papers and scholarly reviews are preferred.

 

 

 

 

 

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