The Arrowsmith School was founded in Toronto in 1980 by Barbara Arrowsmith Young. Its methodology, known as the Arrowsmith Program, was founded by Arrowsmith Young in 1978 from cognitive exercises that she had begun devising for herself in 1977 and which she has stated enabled her to overcome her own severe learning difficulties.
According to Arrowsmith-Young, her methodology is based on research into the principle of neuroplasticity, which suggests that the brain is dynamic and constantly rewiring itself. The program has been incorporated into other public and private schools and learning centres in multiple countries. Her struggle with a learning disability and the rationale for her program are described in her 2012 book The Woman Who Changed Her Brain.
History
Arrowsmith School was founded in 1980 in Toronto by Barbara Arrowsmith Young and her then-husband, Joshua Cohen, to teach children with learning disabilities using a series of cognitive exercises that Arrowsmith-Young had developed for herself in 1977–1978. According to Arrowsmith-Young's autobiographical account in her 2012 book, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, she used her middle name for the school in honor of her paternal grandmother (born Louie May Arrowsmith in 1883), who as a young girl had been one of the pioneer settlers of Creston, British Columbia.
In 1991, Arrowsmith-Young and Cohen opened a second school in Brooklyn, New York, while reducing operations in Toronto. By 1994, the couple had separated and in 1996 the New York school had closed. Arrowsmith-Young returned to Toronto and relocated it to 245 St. Clair Avenue West in the Forest Hill neighborhood and expanded into the adjacent building as enrollment increased. Barbara Arrowsmith-Young remains its director.
Program
Arrowsmith School is co-educational and serves students from Grade 1 through Grade 12, as well as adult learners. Class sizes typically range from 10 to 15 students. It gained international attention through Norman Doidge's 2007 book The Brain That Changes Itself, which described Arrowsmith-Young's work and helped popularize the program and the 2008 CBC documentary Fixing My Brain, which featured the Toronto school.
The Arrowsmith Program is also licensed to several public and private schools and learning centers in multiple countries.
Research
The Arrowsmith program has received academic scrutiny about its program.
In a three-year outcome study completed in 2005, Mount Sinai Hospital researcher William Lancee improvements among Arrowsmith School students on several cognitive and academic measures. A 2007 evaluation involving students in the Toronto Catholic District School Board also reported improvements.
In 2003, Linda Siegel authored a report for the Vancouver School Board (VSB) evaluating a three-year trial of the program. The study compared students with learning disabilities enrolled either in the Arrowsmith Program or in an Extended Learning Assistance Class focused on reading and writing. The study found statistically significant improvements among Arrowsmith students in comprehension and spelling, but not in other measured areas. Howard Eaton, founder of Eaton Arrowsmith schools, argued that Siegel's study had methodological weaknesses, a point Siegel acknowledged. A 2013 re-analysis of the data by two university professors, William Lancee at the University of Toronto and Darren Irwin at the University of British Columbia, concluded that the apparent advantages for the comparison ELAC group were not statistically significant.
In 2012, the Catholic Education Office in Sydney announced that it would begin a two-year pilot study of the program involving 20 learning disabled students, with the possibility of wider adoption depending on results.
In 2016, research at the University of British Columbia found evidence of functional network reorganization associated with improvements in fluid cognition, verbal learning, and memory following a three-month cognitive intervention using the Arrowsmith Program for individuals with traumatic brain injury.
In 2019, researchers at the University of British Columbia published a study on the cognitive and academic outcomes of students with learning disabilities who participated in one academic year of the Arrowsmith Program. Participants demonstrated overall cognitive and academic improvement.
In 2022, research published by researchers at Southern Illinois University and the University of British Columbia examined outcomes from the Arrowsmith Symbol Relations Cognitive Intensive Program. The study found significant improvements across several cognitive domains measured by the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities, including fluid reasoning, cognitive processing speed, perceptual speed, cognitive efficiency, oral vocabulary, long-term retrieval, comprehension knowledge, and visual-auditory learning.
↑Weber, Rachel C.; Denyer, Ronan; Motamed Yeganeh, Negin; Maja, Rachel; Murphy, Meagan; Martin, Stephanie; Chiu, Larissa; Nguy, Veronique; White, Katherine; Boyd, Lara (3 July 2019). "Interpreting the preliminary outcomes of the arrowsmith Programme: a neuroimaging and behavioural study". Learning: Research and Practice. 5 (2): 126–148. doi:10.1080/23735082.2019.1674908– via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
↑Motamed Yeganeh, Negin; King, Rachel; Boyd, Lara A.; Rose, Gregory M.; Weber, Rachel C. (2 October 2022). "Symbol relations training improves cognitive functioning in students with neurodevelopmental disorders". Applied Neuropsychology: Child. 11 (4): 789–796. doi:10.1080/21622965.2021.1967154. PMID34464168– via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
