The learning rhythms are the different speeds at which people can acquire new knowledge or skills. It is one of the most important factors in predicting performance in areas such as education, job success or personal satisfaction.
Despite being closely related to intelligence, learning rhythms do not have to correlate with this factor at all times. Thus, an individual who was very intelligent could have a slow or moderate learning rate, even though this is not the most common.
Learning rates are generally classified as slow, moderate, and fast. Most of the population presents moderate, but there are different factors (both biological and social) that can make an individual have more or less facility to learn.
Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, is generally cited when discussing learning rhythms, mainly due to his work in the study of knowledge acquisition processes in children. However, the data on this topic are not yet highly developed, so more research is needed on this..
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Jean Piaget was one of the pioneering psychologists in the study of learning, and one of the first people to try to explain why there are differences in the speed at which knowledge can be acquired.
For him, learning rhythms were closely related to the three basic processes by which children change their knowledge about the world.
Piaget believed that children increase their knowledge through the use of three tools: assimilation, accommodation, and balance. The third is responsible for achieving a balance between the first two, and is the one that has the most influence on learning rates. Next we will see what each of them consists of.
The main idea behind Piaget's theory of learning is that people (both children and adults) have a series of schemas that we use to try to understand the world..
When new information is presented to us, our first tendency is to try to assimilate it to the corresponding scheme that we already have formed in our mind..
The assimilation process has its flaws, since it only works when the information presented to us does not greatly contradict the ideas that we already had previously..
However, it is the main tool that children use within each of the phases of learning, and one that we continue to use as adults during our daily lives..
The process of accommodation is, to some extent, the opposite of that of assimilation. It occurs when the new information we receive largely contradicts the schemes we already had in our mind.
When this happens, a phenomenon known as "cognitive dissonance" occurs, which causes a tendency to try to accommodate the new information to what we already thought we knew..
However, when this dissonance is strong enough, the person has no choice but to modify their beliefs and ways of thinking to adapt to the new reality that they have discovered..
For Piaget, when the accommodation process occurs, the individual passes to a new stage of thought, this being the main way in which children achieve their cognitive development.
Balance is the force that is responsible for combining the other two. It is about the tendency of individuals to maintain existing schemes for as long as possible, therefore mainly using assimilation to try to understand the new data that is coming to them..
Balance is the main factor that influences the learning rhythms of each person. While some individuals are able to maintain their schemas for a long time, which implies a slower rate of learning, others may rethink what they think they know more easily and use accommodation more fluently..
Therefore, the less an individual's need to maintain cognitive balance, the easier it will generally be for them to learn. However, subsequent research suggests that this is not the only factor that influences learning rates..
As we have seen previously, learning rhythms are usually classified into three types: slow, moderate and fast. Most of the population has a moderate rhythm, but the distribution of the three types is believed to form a Gaussian bell; that is, although a large part of the individuals are in the center, there are also some in the extremes.
Below we will describe the most important characteristics of each of the three learning rhythms.
People with this learning rate have certain difficulties in acquiring knowledge at a speed considered normal.
These individuals often have problems such as memory difficulties, attention and concentration problems, and difficulties with logic, reasoning and other related skills..
However, the slow learning pace does not necessarily have to be related to some type of cognitive or developmental problem..
In fact, there are many cases of children who only have difficulties in the verbal or memory area, but who otherwise develop at the same rate as their peers..
The main difficulty faced by people with a slow development rate during their school years is that it is very difficult for them to keep up with the rest of their classmates. This can lead to all kinds of problems, from school failure to lack of motivation and low self-esteem..
Due to this, in many places around the world it is considered that individuals with a slow learning pace require special attention to be able to alleviate the difficulties they suffer from this characteristic..
Most individuals are within this group. People with a moderate rate of learning are able to acquire new knowledge and skills at a normal speed, although they often present areas in which they have more skill than in others.
Normally, individuals with a moderate learning pace have to make conscious efforts to be able to achieve good results within the formal educational system..
This is because, although their abilities are adequate to be able to pass and achieve their learning objectives, they are not advanced enough to be able to achieve it without work on their part..
In general, children with a moderate learning pace are those who have the least difficulties within the educational system, contrary to what it might seem. This is because formal education is designed for them, so they do not usually have problems at the level of integration in the classroom at an academic level.
Individuals with a fast pace of learning are able to acquire new knowledge, attitudes and skills with less effort and more quickly than the rest. Only a small percentage of the population has a learning capacity that can be considered within this group.
As was the case in the group with the slow learning pace, the individuals in this category do not have to present cognitive differences with respect to the average. In fact, they generally have some skills much more developed than others, being able to excel only in certain specific areas..
However, on many occasions, people with a fast learning pace have other characteristics that relate this phenomenon to high cognitive abilities. Thus, in general, those individuals who learn more easily also tend to have a series of traits that mark them as gifted..
Contrary to what it might seem, people with a fast learning pace also tend to have serious difficulties within the educational system.
This is because their greater ease in acquiring knowledge causes them to get bored by having to keep up with their peers, which causes them lack of motivation, frustration and all kinds of problems.
Due to the fact that the theory about learning rhythms is not well developed, there are no tools that allow us to measure this specific ability independently..
However, it has been found that traditional IQ tests can give fairly accurate indications as to whether a person is in the slow, moderate or fast group..
Intelligence tests can measure either fluid or general intelligence, or crystallized intelligence, which also involves knowledge that has already been acquired throughout life. Many researchers believe that tests that focus on the first type are the ones that best measure learning rates..
Despite not being exclusive to these groups, slow and fast learning rhythms are better understood if the case of people with unusual cognitive abilities is taken as an example..
For example, a person with borderline intelligence (with an IQ below 70) will have to make much greater efforts than a normotypic individual in order to acquire a new idea or change an attitude. On the other hand, someone with high abilities (IQ above 135) will hardly have any difficulties acquiring new knowledge..
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