Another post I read with interest recently was And they say she is learning disabled! from Dishpan Dribble. Writing about a child who discovered for herself that she could memorize the books of the Bible IF she associated them with a note on the piano:
Now let me say here that she has been taught the song with all the books named in it. It has been sung to her and with her every Thursday night for months but to no avail. How did she know that she could learn it if she associated a piano key and note with every book? She doesn’t even know how to play a piano. I’m sure that’s why she just went from the lowest note up.
Maybe it’s because of a connection between music and memory. I wonder if something like this would be a useful strategy for Aidan. We discovered a while ago that he can identify songs from the opening bars played on a piano, even if the opening bars aren’t much like the general tune.
I have been reading a couple of books by Tony Buzan, recommended by JoVE. She mentioned his concept of mind mapping but my library didn’t have the Mind Mapping book. So I got one on Use Your Perfect Memory. A lot of his ideas have to do with memorizing unrelated bits of info, like associating names and faces at a party, or shopping lists. I am not as interested in that kind of thing as in learning to recall concepts and meaningful information that DOES connect. But anyway, I find his idea fascinating that a lot of modern memorization is left-brained and therefore not as efficient as it would be if the creative, multi-sensory-experiencing part of the brain was accessed.. Maybe that is what the child using the piano discovered for herself.
