BBVic Speakers Forum

Pictured: YRU President Les Heimann OAM, BBVic President Dr Benny Monheit, Catherine Green, Dr Chris Tailby

The theme of our most recent BBVic Speakers Forum was “changing the brain” and this forum certainly achieved that!
An overflowing crowd jammed in to hear Ms Catherine Green and Dr Chris Tailby explore how we can – and have – achieved wonders in this area; and judging from the information provided, at least in this country, Melbourne leads in the field.
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It’s all about neuroplasticity and that is about helping our brain do what it is intended to do but can’t because of learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia). We learnt how the Arrowsmith program run in a primary school in Moorabbin has achieved outcomes unheard of before. We also learnt how brain research proves that pathways in our brain can be changed and how this research is moving into the fields of stroke recovery and epilepsy.

With the help of some very well-done computer imaging, both speakers made it all so easy to understand. There was of course a Q&A session and some excellent questions arose.

The point of all this was to highlight the fact that approximately 10% of the Australian population suffer from learning difficulties (not including those on the Autism spectrum). That’s about 2.5 million people being left behind by our current education system.

How many potential Einsteins are we losing because of this? A very high level of our unemployed and inmates in prison also suffer from this problem. We can change all of this, and this is an important aspect of what BBVic is all about.

Leslie Heimann
Co-President, Yitzhak Rabin Unit