Neurodevelopmental Differentiation

Optimising Brain Systems to Maximise Learning

Imagine a school where the motto is ‘Here, everyone gets smart’. Not just some students. Every student. Where every student and teacher knows their learning strengths and uses them to develop other areas of learning. Where all staff understand how to identify and develop collaborative approaches to overcome blockages to learning. Where parent–teacher–student meetings prioritise forward planning and the development of an individualised learning plan for the following term. This book aims to bring this school to life through the power of neurodevelopmental differentiation.

In Neurodevelopmental differentiation: Optimising brain systems to maximise learning, clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller and educator Lucy Fuller make teachers’ working lives easier and more effective by helping them to detect what might be stopping students from achieving more success. Each of the chapters in this book is designed to help teachers and parents identify young people’s learning strength areas as well as ways to improve functioning in each of the eight unique brain systems: spatial reasoning, perceptual and motor skills, concentration and memory, planning and sequencing, thinking and logic, people smarts, language and word smarts, and number smarts.

By designing interventions based on what students can already do well and applying these skills to areas they are yet to develop, Neurodevelopmental differentiation shows teachers how to increase their students’ motivation and excitement about learning.