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Memory is always enhanced by multi-sensory learning and using multiple sense to remember something. Undoubtedly you have experienced some sort of multi-sensory learning either in your life or your kids’ lives. Multi-sensory piano instruction is huge; one of the best is the Suzuki Violin method, the multi-sensory math program, Making Math Real enables students to use a multitude of skills/senses and learning information to understand how to make math work, the word program Structured Word Inquiry capitalizes on a ‘Design Thinking’ (Stanford) multi-sensory approach to acquiring vocabulary, syntax and language in general, or even Rosetta Stone which uses multi-sensory to develop foreign language skills.
Individuals with high I.Q.s get stuck with memory difficulty in certain areas. They may be brilliant in their line of work but can’t remember the banal such as a shopping list. They have trained their brain in a more linear or restricted memory matrix that does not allow for flexibility in other areas of life. Here is a quick overview on how to use multi-sensory learning to remember better.
Memory opportunity: Let’s say you want to remember peaches at the market but you are driving:
P: Pay Attention to the peach. Attention: the first sense to install for recall. Perhaps you are paying attention to it’s shape, size, color and other attributes. Or, maybe you are paying attention to its location and how it is positioned.
E: Establish a connection to associate the peach with something but the association has to be meaningful or comical and not random associations that do not leave you with a ‘memory imprint’ because you will most likely for get them. Connect peaches to a beautiful historical old village in China (Peaches are from a type of rose bush originated in China.) See the old chinese structures in your mind’s eye.
A: Add a word or sentence to describe the peach: “Chinese peaches are the sweetest.”
C: Catch a smell or taste and smell with organic matter. Like tasting a good wine, what would the attributes of that peach smell like? Rose-y? Citrus-y? Honey?
H: Put the peach near or in your “memory house” (or memory palace): put the peach tree somewhere unusual–perhaps growing in the middle of your living room through the roof. This idea spawned from Darby Hinton’s house (of Daniel Boone TV fame.) When I was a kid my best friend went steady with him and he’d have us all over for indoor swim parties and he had a tree growing in the center of his living room. Wow Hollywood.
As with all memory exercises: REPEAT. Who needs a shopping list or memory specialist just memorize lists in this fashion every day and you will start understanding how multi-sensory learning works best for memory recall.
Remember me until next time,
Jenn Bulka, Memory Specialist
Licensed SLP, Ca State License #14,006
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