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Learning Styles of Gifted Children
By Lauri Robins,
Founder of Bright Kids World
Introduction
There are many different theories for learning styles. How do gifted kids fit in? Dr. Linda Silverman established the Gifted Development Center (GDC) over 30 years ago, and has tested thousands of gifted kids. As a result of her experience, she has concluded that the primary difference in learning styles of gifted kids depends upon whether a child’s thinking is dominated by their left-hemisphere or right-hemisphere of their brain. In 1981 she coined the term “Visual-Spatial Learner” (VSL) to represent people that are right-hemisphere dominant, and “Auditory-Sequential Learner” (ASL) to represent people that are left-hemisphere dominant. In this article we will talk about the brain processing in the left and right hemispheres, and VSL and ASL learning styles.
Not all Brains Work Alike
All people utilize both left and right hemispheres, with each hemisphere performing specific brain functions yet both hemispheres working closely together.
Although this article will make generalizations of what functions are typically performed in the left and right hemispheres, there must first be an acknowledgement that not all brains act this way. For example, although 95% of right-handed men and 90% of right-handed women have left-hemisphere dominance for language, there have been test reports that only 73% of left-handed men and 61% or left-handed women have left-hemisphere dominance for language. In addition, if there is a brain injury, the brain functions normally within the injured area may be assumed by a neighboring region in the brain. Although certain brain functions of most people are performed by a certain area in the brain, this is not true for all people.
Let’s review what functions, in general, are performed by the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain.
The Left Hemisphere
- The left hemisphere is verbal. The left hemisphere understands words. Grammar and vocabulary, and literal meanings of words are all processed here. The left hemisphere will quickly coming up with words to use while speaking in public.
- The left hemisphere is auditory. The left hemisphere is auditory. Words that are heard, whether heard by the right or left ear, are all processed here. Words that are heard are processed efficiently.
- The left hemisphere processes in sequence. Processing goes from a part to the whole. Pieces are lined up and arranged in a logical order, and conclusions are drawn. Spelling, a sequential process, is effortless. Building words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into essays is easily learned. Number processing in math is sequential, and the left hemisphere will easily compute exact computations and comparisons. Lists, master schedules, daily plans, and outlines of materials are easily put together. Following directions is natural.
- The left hemisphere is logical. Information is interpreted in a systematic, logical manner. Pieces are looked for, and logical conclusions are drawn.
- The left hemisphere uses symbolic processing. Symbols are easily understood. Letters, words, and mathematical notations are all symbols. Phonics is an excellent approach to learn to read. Mathematical formulas and words are easily processed and memorized for future use.
People with injuries on the left side tend to have difficulties with complex problems, organization, and using language.
The Right Hemisphere
- The right hemisphere is non-verbal. Thoughts are in images rather than words. If speaking, people may have trouble coming up with the exact word that they seek. Thinking is focused on words in context so meanings can be interpreted, and math formulas being used so there can be a “big picture” understanding how it works.
- The right hemisphere is visual. Thoughts are in images and pictures and videos. Diagrams and colors are used for better understanding. Learning is efficient when visuals, images, and pictures are used.
- The right hemisphere is holistic. Processing starts by seeing the whole picture and then seeing the details that make up the whole. First is the answer, and then the pieces are explored. Students need to know why they are being asked to do something before they proceed.
- The right hemisphere processes in a random manner. Developing priorities and sticking to them is difficult. Many projects are worked on at the same time. Math problems needing approximate estimations are processed on the right.
- The right hemisphere uses concrete processing. A right-hemisphere person wants to see, feel, or touch a real object. They may have trouble using phonics, which “represent things” rather than “be the thing.”
- The right hemisphere uses intuition and emotion. Attention is placed on the meaning and cohesiveness of the whole, and to see the big picture. Therefore, an answer to a problem may come, but you may not be sure how you got it, it just “feels” right. Memories are sharp when emotionally involved in the learning process.
- The right hemisphere is fantasy-oriented, creative and richly imaginative. A right-hemisphere person, when learning about the digestive system, may decide to become a piece of food! The right hemisphere will create visual characters, plots, and settings for use in creative writing and storytelling.
People with injuries on the right hemisphere have trouble seeing the big picture and fail to process important information. They may say, “There’s nothing wrong with me,” and not even realize they can’t see anything.
The Hemispheres Communicate With Each Other
The corpus callosum is a thick band of 200-250 million nerve fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres. A smaller band of nerve fibers, called the anterior commissure, also connects parts of the hemispheres.
The left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body, and in general, sensory information from the right side of the body crosses over to the left side for processing. So, sounds from the right ear cross over to the left hemisphere, and since the left hemisphere is the auditory processor, sounds are immediately “heard”. Sounds from our left ear cross over to the right hemisphere and the right hemisphere says, “you are a sound and need to be processed in the left hemisphere”, and the sounds have to cross back over to the left hemisphere for auditory processing. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that most people are right ear dominant since sounds on our left side must make two crossings in the brain and sounds on our right side just cross our brain once. If different sounds are coming into each ear, we generally hear sounds coming into our right ear better than the sounds to our left.
Some kids with auditory processing issues have weak “connection fibers”. The corpus callosum may be under-developed so sounds from their left ear literally never get processed. Sounds from their right ear just have to cross the connection fibers once and ZAP! are immediately processed by the auditory functions in the left hemisphere. Sounds from their left ear must cross twice – first to their right hemisphere, and then again back to the left hemisphere. With under-developed connection fibers, the connections are too weak and slow. Therefore, when kids have competing sounds on their left and right sides, they literally only hear with their right ear. This kind of issue will not show up in a hearing test because the left ear hearing is fine. The issue is how the sounds are processed in the brain. Only an auditory processing test will uncover this situation.
Functions Where Both Hemispheres Work Together
There are numerous ways that the right and left hemispheres work closely together. Let’s explore three areas – language, music, and math.
Language
Using language as an example, the left hemisphere processes words and vocabulary and the right hemisphere interprets the meaning of the words.
Simply put, the left understands the text, and the right understands the context. If a mother says to her child, “Do you hear me?” the left hemisphere understands the words, grammar, and vocabulary. The right hemisphere interprets the meaning. Is Mom communicating, “Am I speaking loudly enough for you to hear me?” or is she saying “Stop watching television NOW and do your homework!”
The organization and structure of the left hemisphere helps people write structured sentences, paragraphs and essays. The creativity and imagination of the right hemisphere helps people create characters and plots in creative writing and story-telling activities. The right hemisphere visualizes the images and pictures how characters and settings appear, visualizes the emotions that characters feel, and works with the vocabulary from your left hemisphere to come up with descriptive text.
Music
Did you know that Mozart visually “saw” entire movements of a symphony in his head, and then had to laboriously write down all the notes? Doesn’t this imply that music is visual and a function of the right hemisphere? But on the other hand, isn’t music auditory, and isn’t auditory a function of the left hemisphere? Isn’t it true that many mathematically gifted people are also musicians? But then again, don’t mathematically gifted people have to have equally strong computation AND visual spatial skills, to both visualize and compute complex math?
The answer is that both right and left hemispheres play an important role in music. The role of the right ear is to receive higher frequencies and send them to the left hemisphere for processing. The high frequencies control verbal and sequencing activities in music like lyrics and rhythms. Tests that show brain activity and blood flows show that the left hemisphere increases in activity when playing musical scales or listening to rhythms. The role of the left ear is to receive the lower frequencies and send them to the right hemisphere for processing. The lower frequencies control intonation and emotion, which some people feel is the “beauty” of music. Timbre (tone) and chords are processed in the right hemisphere.
To some, the left hemisphere is Bach and the right hemisphere is jazz improvisation.
Quite literally, the left and right hemispheres make music together!
Math
Although many people associate math with numbers, computations, and logic, math is equally visual spatial in nature. Both left and right hemispheres must work together as progress is made through an entire K-12 math curriculum.
The left hemisphere takes front stage in elementary school where the focus is to build number skills. Math skills start with simple number recognition, addition, and subtraction. In a highly sequential fashion, kids learn more and more about numbers, relationships, and how computations work. The left hemisphere is the workhorse to build these skills. Although some visual spatial skills are included in elementary school, such as with measurement and geometry, the focus is generally on building increasingly complex logic and computation skills to prepare kids for introductory algebra.
The importance of visual spatial ability and right hemisphere processing becomes more important in middle school and high school. The right hemisphere visualizes math and provides ability for higher level thinking. The right hemisphere not only “sees” geometry, it visualizes trigonometry and calculus. The right hemisphere provides the higher level, more complex thinking required in advanced math.
Therefore, to be successful in math, the left and right hemispheres must work together to visualize geometric figures and use logic to put geometric proofs together in sequential steps. The hemispheres must work together to combine visual-spatial skills, sequential logic, number calculations, and higher level thinking as math becomes more and more advanced.
Educators, particularly those working with gifted children, are increasingly recognizing the importance of developing visual-spatial skills in elementary school to properly prepare kids for middle and high school math. How to build stronger visual spatial skills is the topic of our next newsletter. It comes to no surprise that research shows that kids with stronger visual spatial skills, and right hemisphere processing, are more successful in advanced math than those with weaker visual spatial skills.
Gifted Kids & The Importance of Left- and Right- Hemisphere Dominance
People have a dominant hemisphere, either their left or right, for many reasons. When learning is difficult, new, or stressful, they prefer to learn in a certain way. Brains seem to go on auto-pilot and the preferred side dominates. People are sometimes more comfortable with the learning strategies in one hemisphere or another. A dominant side is likely to have more neural connections and learning is faster.
Dr. Linda Silverman is an internationally recognized expert on giftedness. She created the Gifted Development Center over 30 years ago and has tested thousands of gifted kids. From her experience and research, she has come to identify two primary learning profiles, based upon whether a person is left or right hemisphere dominant. Dr. Silverman coined the terms “Visual-Spatial Learner” (VSL) for right hemisphere dominant learners and “Auditory-Sequential Learner” (ASL) for left hemisphere dominant learners.
Before exploring these learning styles in more depth, there are several additional points to make. First, at about the time that Dr. Silverman started writing about these learning styles, with a focus on Visual-Spatial Learners, there were other psychologists publishing books that concerned “spatial” kids. Shortly after Dr. Silverman’s first paper, “The Visual Spatial Learner” was first published in 1982, John Dixon published “The Spatial Child” and Howard Gardner published “Frames of Mind” where he talked about multiple intelligences of children, including “Spatial Intelligence”. In the early 1980’s, there seemed to be a collective concern that more understanding of visual-spatial kids was needed; this concern continues to this day.
Why is it important to understand Visual-Spatial kids, and Auditory-Sequential kids? Where left hemisphere dominant kids (Auditory-Sequential Learners (ASL)) were more readily identified as gifted in elementary schools, Dr Silverman and others were finding that Visual-Spatial Learners (VSL) were often over-looked. Research by Dr. Silverman to validate how many kids in schools were VSL suggested that around 1/3 of kids in schools were actually strong Visual-Spatial Learners, a fairly significant number! The concern wasn’t just that there were gifted kids not being identified. VSL kids, with a very different learning style, were often found to be lost in elementary school, where the focus is on sequential learning, not a style that works well for them.
There is recognition that identifying just two learning styles may seem very simplistic. Dr. Silverman states in her book, “Upside Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Child” that these two characteristics (VSL and ASL) are on a continuum. Although kids operate with a left- or right- hemisphere dominance, the relative strengths between left- and right- hemisphere processing can be fairly close. However, there are some kids that are strongly VSL or strongly ASL, and these are the kids that need more focus.
Dr. Silverman’s validated research of kids ages 9-13 suggests that approximately 60% of kids have a preference for VSL from a slight preference to a strong preference:
- 33% of kids are strongly Visual-Spatial Learners (VSL)
- 23% of kids are strongly Auditory-Sequential Learners (ASL)
- 44% of kids use a balance of both learning styles, with about 30% showing a preference for VSL and 15% showing a preference for ASL
Finally, our society is slowly changing from one where Auditory-Sequential thinking dominated our lives to one where Visual-Spatial thinking has become increasingly important. For example, the benefits of thinking sequentially have been incorporated into efficiencies and productivities in manufacturing processes since Henry Ford first invented the manufacturing line. However, now with the predominance of computers and the ease of making visual presentation of information available and meaningful, spatial thinking is now part of our daily lives. Understanding visual-spatial learning and developing stronger visual-spatial skills is becoming increasingly important.
Visual-Spatial Learner (VSL) or Auditory-Sequential Learner (ASL)?
Is your child a model student? Does s/he pay attention and remember their homework? Does s/he show their work in an orderly manner, manage time well, and listen to directions easily? Yes? These are admirable qualities, and your child is likely to be an Auditory-Sequential Learner (ASL), and is likely to be very successful in school. If your child is gifted, it is highly likely that they will be identified and treated as such in a school environment.
OR, does your child think in pictures and images? Can they sit and draw pictures or build 3D objects for hours on end, without a sense of time? Do they have trouble with rote memorization such as multiplication tables and spelling? Can they look at a picture and tell a story with great creativity? Do they have a great sense of humor because they see double meanings easily? Does your child learn complex topics easily, but makes mistakes with easy facts? Does s/he understand math reasoning yet can struggle with computations? Does s/he surprise you with creative and unusual solutions to problems? YES? Then your child is likely to be a Visual-Spatial Learner (VSL).
The following compares the characteristics of Visual-Spatial Learners and Auditory-Sequential Learners:
Characteristics Comparison
| The Auditory-Sequential Learner |
The Visual-Spatial Learner |
| Thinks primarily in words |
Thinks primarily in images |
| Has auditory strengths |
Has visual strengths |
| Relates well to time |
Relates well to space |
| Is a step-by-step learner |
Is a whole-part learner |
| Learns by trial and error |
Learns concepts all at once |
| Progresses sequentially from easy to difficult material |
Learns complex concepts easily: Struggles with easy skills |
| Is an analytical thinker |
Is a good synthesizer |
| Attends well to details |
Sees the big picture; may miss details |
| Follows oral directions well |
Reads maps well |
| Does well at arithmetic |
Is better at math reasoning than computation |
| Learns phonics easily |
Learns whole words easily |
| Can sound out spelling words |
Must visualize words to spell them |
| Can write quickly and neatly |
Much better at keyboarding than handwriting |
| Is well organized |
Creates unique methods of organization |
| Can show steps of work easily |
Arrives at correct solutions intuitively |
| Excels at rote memorization |
Learns best by seeing relationships |
| Has good auditory short-term memory |
Has good long-term visual memory |
| May need some repetition to reinforce learning |
Learns concepts permanently; does not learn by
drill and repetition |
| Learns well from instructions |
Develops own methods of problem solving |
| Learns in spite of emotional reactions |
Is very sensitive to teachers' attitudes |
| Is comfortable with one right answer |
Generates unusual solutions to problems |
| Develops fairly evenly |
Develops quite asynchronously (unevenly) |
| Usually maintains high grades |
May have very uneven grades |
| Enjoys algebra and chemistry |
Enjoys geometry and physics |
| Masters other languages in classes |
Masters other languages through immersion |
| Is academically talented |
Is creatively, technologically, mechanically,
emotionally, or spiritually gifted |
| Is an early bloomer |
Is a late bloomer |
Copyright held by Linda Kreger Silverman. From Silverman, L.K., (2002) Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, Denver, DeLeon Publishing.
What Does This Mean For Gifted Kids?
Let’s build on this basic information about left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere brain functions, and how dominance in one-or-the-other directly effects how we best think and learn. Next, we explore more about VSL and ASL kids, and focus on providing a long list of specific suggestions for the classroom and for home for each learning style.
Sources
Chudler, Eric PhD, et al, Neuroscience For Kids, University of Washington.
Taylor, Insep and Taylor, M Martin (1990) “Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language”.
Knecht S, et al, “Handedness and Hemispheric Language dominance in Healthy Humans”, Brain, 2000.
Middle Tennessee State University website.
Johnson, Dr. Glen, Traumatic Brain Injury Survival Guide, 1998.
Visual-Spatial Resource website, at www.VisualSpatial.org.
Copyright 2010, Lauri Robins
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More Articles on Learning:
- "Learning & Learning Styles" by Lauri Robins
- "Auditory-Sequential Learners" by Lauri Robins
- "Visual-Spatial Learners" by Lauri Robins
- "A Visual-Spatial Quiz" by Dr. Linda Silverman
- "Gifted Visual-Spatial Learner Indicators" by Lesley Sword
- "I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words" by Lesley Sword
- "The Visual-Spatial Learner in School" by Betty Maxwell
- "Educational Strategies for Visual-Spatial Learners" by Lesley Sword
- "Reading Readiness for Visual-Spatial Learners" by Dr. Linda Silverman
- "Whole Word Reading Instruction" by Betty Maxwell
- "Reading Techniques for Visual-Spatial Learners" by Betty Maxwell
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