Abstract

Introduction:

Recently, mouth breathing has been related to bad school performance. This is one of the most common complains in childhood and may be caused by allergies or tonsil and adenoid enlargement.

Objectives: Compare the process of written language acquisition and behavior problems in children with and without mouth breathing.

Material and Methods:


This is a retrospective study of school folders from 152 pre-school students from a particular school in São Paulo, during 2002. Teachers classified the level of written language acquisition according to Emilia Ferreiro. We evaluated also behavior aspects and reinforcement classes referral. Visual and hearing disabilities and emotional problems were also evaluated and constituted a group called difficulties.


Results:

There were more boys than girls in the mouth breathing children group. The number of children with mouth breathing was higher among those referred to reinforcement classes and they were classified in the earlier stages of written language learning. There was no correlation between “difficulties” and mouth breathing or learning. Behavior problems were found to be related to mouth breathing, too.

Conclusion:

There is a correlation between mouth breathing and learning and behavior problems. So, it is very important that education professions be aware of breathing disorders in their students. This way, they can identify and refer them to search for treatment and improve learning.



Autors: Kátia A. Kuhn Chedid (Orientadora Educacional/ Pedagoga PUC-SP / Psicopedagoga )

Renata C. Di Francesco (Médica Otorrinolaringologista/Doutora em Medicina pela Faculdade de Medicina da USP)



Paula Andreya de Souza Junqueira (Fonoaudióloga/Mestre em Fisiopatologia experimental pela Faculdade de Medicina da USP)

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Hi, i have a question, a person that is neurotic can controlled his actions or this people that suffers this could reach the point where they can´t controlled them selves?.

thanks.

regards: edmundoe

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We have received the following question:
Is the Brain research group doing studies on the differences in learning online and in face to face environments?

Our answer:
We are not aware of any specific brain studies looking at the differences between e-learning and face to face. This is a most interesting suggestion. In the this phase of our project we are not conducting any research ourselves, but rather reviewing the potential implications of recent research findings into education. In a next phase of our project we are aiming to lead cross-cultural practise based research. As we are working towards compiling a research agenda such a suggestion and others of this nature from the education community would be most welcome for us.

The following question was sent to the forums:

In education we know that learning results are better if the students are motivated to learn and if they are willing to learn and to become skilled. In my educational design work we search for possibilities to stimulate this íntrinsic motivation for development. So far we have good results with enterprising education, that means education organized as small challenging enterprises. Who can explain me the relation with brain activity?!

Our answer:
We have just begun in the OECD Learning Sciences and Brain research project to explore the issue of motivation and learning, so I am excited to start a thread on this topic. You should take a look at our most recent report on the Emotions, Education and Learning Seminar which has just been put up on the main website: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/30/34098220.pdf
see especially pages 7-12 which deal with motivation. I am pasting an excerpt from page 9 of this report:

What is motivation?

Roughly, motivation can be defined as whatever causes to act. As such, motivation reflects states in which the organism is prepared to act physically and mentally in a focussed manner, that is, in states characterised by raised levels of arousal. Accordingly, motivation is intimately related to emotions as emotions constitute the brain's way of evaluating whether things should be acted upon; approached if pleasant or avoided if unpleasant. Thus, the emotional system (associated with the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex) is tapping directly into motivation by affecting our level of arousal (which again is controlled by structures in the brain stem). It is worthwhile to distinguish between external and internal (intrinsic) motivation. Both are dependant on emotions, but whereas external motivation is achieved by affecting the behaviour of the organism from the outside (through punishment and reward) intrinsic motivation reflects the organism's wishes to fulfill internal needs and desires (e.g., hunger, thirst, sex). A lot of the important things neuroscience has to say about motivation in the context of learning thus concerns emotions; and often the part that relates external motivation through punishment and reward. Nevertheless, there is also fairly good neuroscientific evidence suggesting that curiosity can be considered as an intrinsic motivational drive. Accordingly, novelty in the learning environment is probably an important element in motivation as novelty awakes curiosity. Interestingly, detection of novelty is associated with the hippocampus which, as we know, is an important structure in memory encoding and memory consolidation.

Humans like other animals have “motivational drives” which are linked to our emotions, and it has been proposed that one of these drives is curiosity. There are also strong indications that motivation and emotion affect the memory system. To a large extent, all animals including human
beings are driven by unconscious desires that are not fully understood by them, except when they go wrong (and you end up with people with addictions to alcohol, gambling, drugs, etc.), yet it is these very same mechanisms driving most of our behaviour. The impetus for this may be external stimuli such as rewards and punishers, but at the same time there are also internal drives, which drive those truly pleasurable things that you do just for the pleasure of it. Most people will have experienced this from something they did actively (usually using motor
skills), like learning to ride a bicycle for the first time, but without external reward. The mechanisms of these internal drives are not well understood, and are presently difficult to study with neuroimaging techniques.

We would love to receive more questions and views on motivation for learning from teachers.

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