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Mike Winchell, co-owner of LearningRx Fort Collins, working with a student.

“It is widely assumed you are born with a fixed amount of intelligence you carry with you the rest of your life,” Winchell says. “However, the things we do every day modify and improve the factors that make up IQ: how fast you think; your processing speed; how well your memory works, including short and long term memory; your attention skills, including the ability to focus for sustained periods and block out distractions; the ability to multitask; auditory processing, including key reading skills; visual processing; and logic and reasoning, which are important for math and arithmetic.”

Cassidy equates LearningRx techniques to the approach a physical trainer might use, pushing the client to go faster and become stronger. “We don’t accommodate weaknesses; we fix them and turn them into strengths. For example, we have a student who was diagnosed with ADD and learning disabilities. His mother used to have to sit at the table with him to get homework done. After brain training, she now enjoys an hour and a half of ‘me’ time while he completes homework on his own without distraction. Where accommodation of his weaknesses and modification of his learning environment were previously necessary, we have turned his attention weakness into a strength.”

LearningRx students work five days a week at the center and their skills translate into academic achievement and life skills, Winchell says. “Brain training is synergistic with what schools do; we work on strengthening cognitive skills and they work on teaching academic content. It makes a great partnership.”

“The LearningRx approach takes the struggle out of learning,” Winchell continues. “We work at a more fundamental level than schools and tutoring to fix the underlying problems. Most people don’t realize you can change basic cognitive skills, so when others talk about ‘underlying problems’ they don’t know what that truly means. Study skills, for example, are a second level skill, not an underlying problem.”

Discussion around gains differs as well. “When we talk about years of gain, we talk about cognitive gain and the ability to think faster and remember better. When others talk about years of gain, it’s typically about current academic gain and not if the brain can function better or if there is the ability to retain content after the test.”

The results of the LearningRx approach register cognitive gains, he adds. “We get between two and six years of gain per cognitive skill. For instance, if a 13-year-old is processing at the speed of an 11-year-old when she starts the program, six months later we can have her processing at the level of a 15-year-old. We have a recent student who gained even more than that.”

The training is not for everyone, Winchell admits. “We have turned people away, but,” he clarifies, “almost everyone can benefit from cognitive skill training no matter their age. For seniors it can mean getting their youthful feeling back with improved processing speed and better memory. For working adults is can mean faster, better work and more billable hours or more time with their family. For the unemployed it can mean a hiring edge. And for the struggling student it means faster homework and easier A’s.”

Winchell says LearningRx has improved the brains of over 20,000 students of all ages in its 57 centers across the country. “These techniques were developed over the last 30 years using the most advanced brain research. For families who struggle, this program can be an incredible gift. At the end of the day, the most important thing is how we have changed the lives of the families we touch. That is why we brought this program to Northern Colorado.”