Learning disabilities may respond to fairly general prescriptions that provoke the brain’s functional reorganization, but in fact should be considered as somewhat distinct. There are many different ways in which learning disabilities may arise in children, and these may have to be targeted very specifically in neurofeedback training.

 

Most of what is known about specific learning disabilities was obtained with the generic methods, which are also called protocols. The benefits of doing so are sufficient to recommend that approach in future, but that is not the end of the story. If learning disabilities remain after the standard interventions, a targeted approach should be tried. This involves characterization of brain activity while the child is under cognitive challenge, to discern in which respects the child’s brain is responding differently. The training is then directed toward the specific targets thus identified.

 

The consistency with which gains have been achieved in past studies suggests that we have at our hands an effective method for remediating most of the common learning disabilities. Once the brain training has removed the block to functionality, other help needs to be made available for the child to catch up on cumulative academic deficits.