Human cognitive neuroscience seminar

Speaker: Dr Alyssa M. Alcorn

Title: Talk about brains, but don’t make it scary: introducing neuroscience ideas as part of a primary school resource pack about neurodiversity

Abstract: ​Basic neuroscience findings are sometimes presented as small steps on a long pathway toward concrete applications that will impact people’s daily lives. This talk contains zero models or brain scans, and only a few neurons, because it is about the other end of that pathway: applying neuroscience ideas as part of a project within primary schools.

Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) is a new project led by the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre at UoE. We are developing classroom resources for primary schools about neurodiversity. At its simplest, neurodiversity means that we are all different in how we think, feel, and learn, because our brains process information differently. Human neurodiversity includes those with diagnostic labels such as “autism” or “dyslexia”, but it also includes neurotypical people and those who show cognitive differences but do not have labels. To our knowledge, LEANS is the first set of classroom resources to directly teach neurodiversity concepts, and use them to discuss differences in children’s school experiences.

Teaching about neurodiversity needs some “neuro” information—but what does that actually mean for primary teachers and for pupils age 8-11? What information (and what level of detail) is understandable and helpful? What facts or fictions might they already know?

This talk describes the LEANS resources, focusing on the choices we made in terms of what scientific information to include or exclude, and why. Our teacher feedback so far suggests that some ideas that may seem basic to researchers—such as thinking about the brain in terms of information processing--are both relatively novel and potentially powerful for considering why different pupils may have dissimilar challenges and experiences at school. We conclude with some suggestions other researchers may want to consider if they are planning public engagement, knowledge exchange, or educational projects that include neuroscience ideas.