Barbara Arrowsmith-Young shares her personal journey into the world of the brain

No-one knows more about what goes on in our heads than Canadian Barbara Arrowsmith-Young. Known as ’the woman who changed her brain’, Barbara was born with severe learning disabilities. As a child she read and wrote everything backwards, struggled to process concepts in language, and was hopelessly uncoordinated. Through her formidable memory and her iron will she made it to college where she discovered research that inspired her to invent cognitive exercises to firstly ‘fix’ her own brain and then for students with specific learning difficulties.

Barbara will speak in Christchurch on Monday evening March 6th.  She will talk about her problematic childhood, her exciting journey of discovery and the life-changing outcomes achieved over her 35 years as a researcher and educator. She will describe a number of learning disorders, from those that impact the learner in school to those that affect us all in everyday life.

The transformational principles Barbara started to use on herself in 1978 are now being implemented in 90 schools across 7 countries including Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. Seven Oaks School in Christchurch is the only school running the programme in the South Island.

Barbara is a determined pioneer and an inspirational speaker. Starting life with a debilitating set of brain deficits, she now holds a bachelors degree in Science and a masters degree in Psychology. But most importantly, her work has already given thousands of people the tools to make dramatic change in their lives.