Environmental enrichment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_enrichment 

A rodent is not stimulated by the environment in a wire cage, and this affects its brain negatively, particularly the complexity of its synaptic connections

Environmental enrichment is the stimulation of the brain by its physical and social surroundings. Brains in richer, more stimulating environments have higher rates of synaptogenesis and more complex dendrite arbors, leading to increased brain activity. This effect takes place primarily during neurodevelopment, but also during adulthood to a lesser degree. With extra synapses there is also increased synapse activity, leading to an increased size and number of glial energy-support cells. Environmental enrichment also enhances capillary vasculation, providing the neurons and glial cells with extra energy. The neuropil (neurons, glial cells, capillaries, combined) expands, thickening the cortex. Research on rodent brains suggests that environmental enrichment may also lead to an increased rate of neurogenesis.

Research on animals finds that environmental enrichment could aid the treatment and recovery of numerous brain-related dysfunctions, including Alzheimer's disease and those connected to aging, whereas a lack of stimulation might impair cognitive development. Moreover, this research also suggests that environmental enrichment leads to a greater level of cognitive reserve, the brain's resilience to the effects of conditions such as aging and dementia.

Research on humans suggests that lack of stimulation delays and impairs cognitive development. Research also finds that attaining and engaging in higher levels of education, environments in which people participate in more challenging cognitively stimulating activities, results in greater cognitive reserve.

Early research

Donald O. Hebb in 1947 found that rats raised as pets performed better on problem solving tests than rats raised in cages. His research, however, did not investigate the brain nor use standardized impoverished and enriched environments. Research doing this first was started in 1960 at the University of California, Berkeley by Mark Rosenzweig, who compared single rats in normal cages, and those placed in ones with toys, ladders, tunnels, running wheels in groups. This found that growing up in enriched environments affected enzyme cholinesterase activity. This work led in 1962 to the discovery that environmental enrichment increased cerebral cortex volume. In 1964, it was found that this was due to increased cerebral cortex thickness and greater synapse and glial numbers.

Also starting around 1960, Harry Harlow studied the effects of maternal and social deprivation on rhesus monkey infants (a form of environmental stimulus deprivation). This established the importance of social stimulation for normal cognitive and emotional development.

Synapses

Synaptogenesis

Rats raised with environmental enrichment have thicker cerebral cortices (3.3–7%) that contain 25% more synapses. This effect of environmental richness upon the brain occurs whether it is experienced immediately following birth, after weaning, or during maturity. When synapse numbers increase in adults, they can remain high in number even when the adults are returned to impoverished environment for 30 days suggesting that such increases in synapse numbers are not necessarily temporary. However, the increase in synapse numbers has been observed generally to reduce with maturation. Stimulation affects not only synapses upon pyramidal neurons (the main projecting neurons in the cerebral cortex) but also stellate ones (that are usually interneurons). It can also affect neurons outside the brain, such as those in the retina.

Dendrite complexity

Environmental enrichment affects the complexity and length of the dendrite arbors (upon which synapses form). Higher-order dendrite branch complexity is increased in enriched environments, as can the length, in young animals, of distal branches. Environmental enrichment rescues harmful effects of stress on dendritic complexity.

Activity and energy consumption

Animals in enriched environments show evidence of increased synapse activation. Synapses tend to also be much larger. Gamma oscillations become larger in amplitude in the hippocampus. This increased energy consumption is reflected in glial and local capillary vasculation that provides synapses with extra energy.

• Glial cell numbers per neuron increase 12–14%
• The direct apposition area of glial cells with synapses expands by 19%
• The volume of glial cell nuclei for each synapse is higher by 37.5%
• The mean volume of mitochondria per neuron is 20% greater
• The volume of glial cell nuclei for each neuron is 63% higher
• Capillary density is increased.
• Capillaries are wider (4.35 μm compared to 4.15 μm in controls)
• Shorter distance exist between any part of the neuropil and a capillary (27.6 μm compared to 34.6 μm)

These energy related changes to the neuropil are responsible for increasing the volume of the cerebral cortex (the increase in synapse numbers contributes in itself hardly any extra volume).

Motor learning stimulation

Part of the effect of environmental enrichment is providing opportunities to acquire motor skills. Research on rats learning an “acrobatic” skill shows that such learning activity leads to increased synapse count.

Maternal transmission

Environmental enrichment during pregnancy has effects upon the fetus, such as accelerating his or her retinal development.

Neurogenesis

Environmental enrichment can also lead to the formation of neurons (at least in rats) and reverse both the loss of neurons in the hippocampus and memory impairment from chronic stress. However, its relevance has been questioned for the behavioral effects of enriched environments.

Mechanisms

Enriched environments affect the expression of genes that determine neuronal structure in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. At the molecular level, this occurs through increased concentrations of the neurotrophins NGF, NT-3, and changes in BDNF. This alters the activation of cholinergic neurons, 5-HT, and beta-adrenolin. Another effect is to increase proteins such as synaptophysin and PSD-95 in synapses. Changes in Wnt signaling have also been found to mimic in adult mice the effects of environmental enrichment upon synapses in the hippocampus. Increase in neurons numbers could be linked to changes in VEGF.

Rehabilitation and resilience

Research in animals suggests that environmental enrichment aids recovery from certain neurological disorders and cognitive impairments. There are two mains areas of focus: neurological rehabilitation and cognitive reserve, the brain's resistance to the effects of exposure to physical, natural, and social threats. Although most of these experiments used animal subjects, mainly rodents, researchers have pointed to the affected areas of animal brains to which human brains are most similar and used their findings as evidence to show that humans would have comparable reactions to enriched environments. The tests done on animals are thus meant to represent human simulations for the following list of conditions.

Neurological rehabilitation

Autism

A study conducted in 2011 led to the conclusion that environmental enrichment vastly improves the cognitive ability of children with autism. The study found that autistic children who receive olfactory and tactile stimulation along with exercises that stimulated other paired sensory modalities clinically improved by 42 percent while autistic children not receiving this treatment clinically improved by just 7 percent. The same study also showed that there was significant clinical improvement in autistic children exposed to enriched sensorimotor environments, and a vast majority of parents reported that their child's quality of life was much better with the treatment. A second study confirmed its effectiveness. The second study also found after 6 months of sensory enrichment therapy, 21% of the children who initially had been given an autism classification, using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, improved to the point that, although they remained on the autism spectrum, they no longer met the criteria for classic autism. None of the standard care controls reached an equivalent level of improvement. The therapy using the methodologies is titled Sensory Enrichment Therapy.

Alzheimer's disease

Through environmental enrichment, researchers were able to enhance and partially repair memory deficits in mice between ages of 2 to 7 months with characteristics of Alzheimer's disease. Mice in enriched environments performed significantly better on object recognition tests and the Morris Water Maze than they had when they were in standard environments. It was thus concluded that environmental enrichment enhances visual and learning memory for those with Alzheimer's. Furthermore, it has been found that mouse models of Alzheimer's disease that were exposed to enriched environment before amyloid onset (at 3 months of age) and then returned to their home cage for over 7 months, showed preserved spatial memory and reduced amyloid deposition at 13 months old, when they are supposed to show dramatic memory deficits and amyloid plaque load. These findings reveal the preventive, and long-lasting effects of early life stimulating experience on Alzheimer-like pathology in mice and likely reflect the capacity of enriched environment to efficiently stimulate the cognitive reserve.

Huntington's disease

Research has indicated that environmental enrichment can help relieve motor and psychiatric deficits caused by Huntington's disease. It also improves lost protein levels for those with the disease, and prevents striatal and hippocampal deficits in the BDNF, located in the hippocampus. These findings have led researchers to suggest that environmental enrichment has a potential to be a possible form of therapy for those with Huntington's.

Parkinson's disease

Multiple studies have reported that environmental enrichment for adult mice helps relieve neuronal death, which is particularly beneficial to those with Parkinson's disease. A more recent study shows that environmental enrichment particularly affects the nigrostriatal pathway, which is important for managing dopamine and acetylcholine levels, critical for motor deficits. Moreover, it was found that environmental enrichment has beneficial effects for the social implications of Parkinson's disease.

Stroke

Research done in animals has shown that subjects recovering in an enriched environment 15 days after having a stroke had significantly improved neurobehavioral function. In addition these same subjects showed greater capability of learning and larger infarct post-intervention than those who were not in an enriched environment. It was thus concluded that environmental enrichment had a considerable beneficial effect on the learning and sensorimotor functions on animals post-stroke. A 2013 study also found that environmental enrichment socially benefits patients recovering from stroke. Researchers in that study concluded that stroke patients in enriched environments in assisted-care facilities are much more likely to be engaging with other patients during normal social hours instead of being alone or sleeping.

Rett syndrome

A 2008 study found that environmental enrichment was significant in aiding recovery of motor coordination and some recovery of BDNF levels in female mice with conditions similar to those of Rett syndrome. Over the course of 30 weeks female mice in enriched environments showed superior ability in motor coordination to those in standard conditions. Although they were unable to have full motor capability, they were able to prevent a more severe motor deficit by living in an enriched environment. These results combined with increased levels of BDNF in the cerebellum led researchers to conclude that an enriched environment that stimulates areas of the motor cortex and areas of the cerebellum having to do with motor learning is beneficial in aiding mice with Rett syndrome.

Amblyopia

A recent study found that adult rats with amblyopia improved visual acuity two weeks after being placed into an enriched environment. The same study showed that another two weeks after ending environmental enrichment, the rats retained their visual acuity improvement. Conversely, rats in a standard environment showed no improvement in visual acuity. It was thus concluded that environmental enrichment reduces GABA inhibition and increases BDNF expression in the visual cortex. As a result, the growth and development of neurons and synapses in the visual cortex were much improved due to the enriched environment.

Sensory deprivation

Studies have shown that with the help of environmental enrichment the effects of sensory deprivation can be corrected. For example, a visual impairment known as "dark-rearing" in the visual cortex can be prevented and rehabilitated. In general, an enriched environment will improve, if not repair, the sensory systems animals possess.

Lead poisoning

During development, gestation is one of the most critical periods for exposure to any lead. Exposure to high levels of lead at this time can lead to inferior spatial learning performance. Studies have shown that environmental enrichment can overturn damage to the hippocampus induced by lead exposure. Learning and spatial memory that are dependent on the long-term potentiation of the hippocampus are vastly improve as subjects in an enriched environments had lower levels of lead concentration in their hippocampi. The findings also showed that enriched environments result in some natural protection of lead-induced brain deficits.

Chronic spinal cord injuries

Research has indicated that animals suffering from spinal cord injuries showed significant improvement in motor capabilities even with a long delay in treatment after the injury when exposed to environmental enrichment. Social interactions, exercise, and novelty all play major roles in aiding the recovery of an injured subject. This has led to some suggestions that the spinal cord has a continued plasticity and all efforts must be made for enriched environments to stimulate this plasticity in order to aid recovery.

Maternal deprivation stress

Maternal deprivation can be caused by the abandonment by a nurturing parent at a young age. In rodents or nonhuman primates, this leads to a higher vulnerability for stress-related illness. Research suggests that environmental enrichment can reverse the effects of maternal separation on stress reactivity, possibly by affecting the hippocampus, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

Child neglect

In all children, maternal care is one of the significant influences for hippocampal development, providing the foundation for stable and individualized learning and memory. However, this is not the case for those who have experienced child neglect. Researchers determined that through environmental enrichment, a neglected child can partially receive the same hippocampal development and stability, albeit not at the same level as that of the presence of a parent or guardian. The results were comparable to those of child intervention programs, rendering environmental enrichment a useful method for dealing with child neglect.

Cognitive reserve

Aging

Decreased hippocampal neurogenesis is a characteristic of aging. Environmental enrichment increases neurogenesis in aged rodents by potentiating neuronal differentiation and new cell survival. As a result, subjects exposed to environmental enrichment aged better due to superior ability in retaining their levels of spatial and learning memory.

Prenatal and perinatal cocaine exposure

Research has shown that mice exposed to environmental enrichment are less affected by the consequences of cocaine exposure in comparison with those in standard environments. Although the levels of dopamine in the brains of both sets of mice were relatively similar, when both subjects were exposed to the cocaine injection, mice in enriched environment were significantly less responsive than those in standard environments. It was thus concluded that both the activating and rewarding effects are suppressed by environmental enrichment and early exposure to environmental enrichment can help prevent drug addiction.

Humans

Though environmental enrichment research has been mostly done upon rodents, similar effects occur in primates, and are likely to affect the human brain. However, direct research upon human synapses and their numbers is limited since this requires histological study of the brain. A link, however, has been found between educational level and greater dendritic branch complexity following autopsy removal of the brain.

Localized cerebral cortex changes

MRI detects localized cerebral cortex expansion after people learn complex tasks such as mirror reading (in this case in the right occipital cortex), three-ball juggling (bilateral mid-temporal area and left posterior intraparietal sulcus), and when medical students intensively revise for exams (bilaterally in the posterior and lateral parietal cortex). Such changes in gray matter volume can be expected to link to changes in synapse numbers due to the increased numbers of glial cells and the expanded capillary vascularization needed to support their increased energy consumption.

Institutional deprivation

Children that receive impoverished stimulation due to being confined to cots without social interaction or reliable caretakers in low quality orphanages show severe delays in cognitive and social development. 12% of them if adopted after 6 months of age show autistic or mildly autistic traits later at four years of age. Some children in such impoverished orphanages at two and half years of age still fail to produce intelligible words, though a year of foster care enabled such children to catch up in their language in most respects. Catch-up in other cognitive functioning also occurs after adoption, though problems continue in many children if this happens after the age of 6 months.

Such children show marked differences in their brains, consistent with research upon experiment animals, compared to children from normally stimulating environments. They have reduced brain activity in the orbital prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, temporal cortex, and brain stem. They also showed less developed white matter connections between different areas in their cerebral cortices, particularly the uncinate fasciculus.

Conversely, enriching the experience of preterm infants with massage quickens the maturating of their electroencephalographic activity and their visual acuity. Moreover, as with enrichment in experimental animals, this associates with an increase in IGF-1.

Cognitive reserve and resilience

Another source of evidence for the effect of environment stimulation upon the human brain is cognitive reserve (a measure of the brain's resilience to cognitive impairment) and the level of a person's education. Not only is higher education linked to a more cognitively demanding educational experience, but it also correlates with a person's general engagement in cognitively demanding activities. The more education a person has received, the less the effects of aging, dementia, white matter hyperintensities, MRI-defined brain infarcts, Alzheimer's disease, and traumatic brain injury. Also, aging and dementia are less in those that engage in complex cognitive tasks. The cognitive decline of those with epilepsy could also be affected by the level of a person's education.

Brain training

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_training

Brain training (also called cognitive training) is a program of regular activities purported to maintain or improve one's cognitive abilities. The phrase “cognitive ability” usually refers to components of fluid intelligence such as executive function and working memory. Cognitive training reflects a hypothesis that cognitive abilities can be maintained or improved by exercising the brain, analogous to the way physical fitness is improved by exercising the body. Cognitive training activities can take place in numerous modalities such as cardiovascular fitness training, playing online games or completing cognitive tasks in alignment with a training regimen, playing video games that require visuospatial reasoning, and engaging in novel activities such as dance, art, and music.

Scientific investigation into the effectiveness of brain training activities have concluded that they have no impact on intelligence or everyday cognitive ability, and that most programs had no peer reviewed published evidence of their efficacy. There is ample debate within the scientific community on the efficacy of brain training programs and controversy on the ethics of promoting brain training software to potentially vulnerable subjects.

Studies and interventions

Cognitive training has been studied by scientists for the past 100 years. The first recorded cognitive training study was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology and attempted to cognitively train students with letter memorization exercises. The researchers found slight improvement in ability to complete the letter memorization task, but no general improvements that could be transferred to other kinds of tasks. Tasks similar to the letter memorization exercise are still used today, however, these tasks are usually referred to as working memory tasks - targeting the subset of memory that is required to maintain and manipulate short-term information.

Cognitive training includes interventions targeted at improving cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, reasoning, attention, executive functions, and working memory. These kinds of abilities are targeted because they are correlated with individual differences such as academic achievement and life outcomes and it is thought that training general cognitive functions will lead to transfer of improvement across a variety of domains. Cognitive reserve is the capacity of a person to meet the various cognitive demands of life and is evident in an ability to assimilate information, comprehend relationships, and develop reasonable conclusions and plans. Cognitive training includes interventions targeted at improving cognitive abilities. One hypothesis to support cognitive training is that certain activities, done regularly, might help maintain or improve cognitive reserve.

Cognitive training studies often target clinical groups such as people with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and children with ADHD that experience general cognitive deficits. More broadly, it is thought that cognitive training may especially benefit older adults as there is a general decline in fluid intelligence with age as there are decreases in speed of processing, working memory, longterm memory, and reasoning skills. Some researchers argue that the lower performance of older adults on cognitive tasks may not always reflect actual ability as older adults may show performance decrements due to strategy choice, such as avoiding using memory retrieval in memory tasks.

Evidence for neuroplasticity

Cognitive training is grounded in the idea that the brain is plastic. Brain plasticity refers to the ability for the brain to change and develop based on life experiences. Evidence for neuroplasticity includes studies on musical expertise and London taxicab drivers that have demonstrated that expertise leads to increased volume in specific brain areas. A  2008 study that trained older adults in juggling showed an increase in gray matter volume as a result of the training. A study attempting to train the updating component of executive function in young and older adults showed that cognitive training could lead to improvements in task performance across both of the groups, however, general transfer of ability to new tasks was only shown in young adults and not older adults. It has been hypothesized that transfer effects are dependent on an overlap in neural activation during the trained and transfer tasks. Cognitive training has been shown to lead to neural changes such as increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex in attention training and decreased bilateral compensatory recruitment in older adults. Research indicates that one of the most effective forms of cognitive training may be in the form of cardiovascular fitness. Researchers have shown that decreased cardiovascular fitness is correlated with brain atrophy and that training older adults in a cardiovascular fitness regimen leads to increased volume in the prefrontal and temporal cortex areas and increased performance on memory tasks.

Mental exercises

Mind games for self-improvement fall into two main categories. There are mental exercises and puzzles to maintain or improve the actual working of the brain.

Mental exercises can be done through simple socializing. Social interaction engages in many facets of cognitive thinking and can facilitate cognitive functioning. Cartwright and Zander noted that if an alien was visiting Earth for the first time, they would be surprised by the amount of social contact humans make. Caring for one another and growing up in a group setting (family) shows a certain degree of interdependence that shows deep phylogenetic roots. However, this social contact is declining in the United States. Face-to-face interaction is getting more and more sparse. Family and friend visits, including dinners, aren't as common. The amount of social contact a person receives can greatly affect their mental health. A preference for being with others has a high correlation with well-being and with mental long-term and short-term effects on performance.

There are many things involved in a simple interaction between two people: paying attention, maintaining in memory the conversation, adjusting to a different perspective than your own, assessing situational constraints, and self-monitoring appropriate behavior. It is true that some of these are automatic processes, but attention, working memory, and cognitive control are definitely executive functions. Doing all these things in a simple social interaction helps train the working memory in influencing social inference.

Social cognitive neuroscience also supports social interaction as a mental exercise. The prefrontal cortex function involves the ability to understand a person's beliefs and desires. The ability to control one's own beliefs and desires is served by the parietal and prefrontal regions of the brain, which is the same region emphasizing cognitive control.

Jigsaw puzzles can serve as an engaging intellectual activity

The other category of mental exercises falls into the world of puzzles. Neurocognitive disorders such as dementia and impairment in cognitive functioning have risen as a healthcare concern, especially among the older generation. Solving jigsaw puzzles is an effective way to develop visuospatial functioning and keeping the mind sharp. Anyone can do it, as it is low-cost and can be intrinsically motivating. The important part about jigsaw puzzles is that it is challenging, especially compared to other activities, such as watching television. Engagement in such an intellectual activity predicts a lower risk in developing a cognition disorder later on in life.

There is also the category of the self-empowering mind game, as in psychodrama, or mental and fantasy workshops – elements which might be seen as an ultimate outgrowth of yoga as a set of mental (and physical) disciplines.

The ability to imagine and walk oneself through various scenarios is a mental exercise in itself. Self-reflection in this way taps into many different cognitive capabilities, including questioning rigid viewpoints, elaborating on experience, and knowing oneself through their relational context.

Commercial programs

By 2016, companies offering products and services for cognitive training were marketing them as improving educational outcomes for children, and for adults as improving memory, processing speed, and problem-solving, and even as preventing dementia or Alzheimers. They often have supported their marketing with discussion about the educational or professional background of their founders, some discuss neuroscience that supports their approach—especially concepts of neuroplasticity and transfer of learning, and some cite evidence from clinical trials. The key claim made by these companies is that the specific training that they offer generalizes to other fields—academic or professional performance generally or everyday life.

CogniFit was founded in 1999, Cogmed in 2001, Posit Science in 2002, and Brain Age was first released in 2005, all capitalizing on the growing interest within the public in neuroscience, along with heightened worries by parents about ADHD and other learning disabilities in their children, and concern about their own cognitive health as they aged.

The launch of Brain Age in 2005 marked a change in the field, as prior to this products or services were marketed to fairly narrow populations (for example, students with learning problems), but Brain Age was marketed to everyone, with a significant media budget. In 2005, consumers in the US spent $2 million on cognitive training products; in 2007 they spent about $80 million.

By 2012, "brain training" was a $1 billion industry. In 2013 the market was $1.3 billion, and software products made up about 55% of those sales. By that time neuroscientists and others had a growing concern about the general trend toward what they called "neurofication", "neurohype", "neuromania", and neuromyths.

Regulation and lawsuits

Starting in January 2015, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued companies selling "brain training" programs or other products marketed as improving cognitive function, including WordSmart Corporation, the company that makes Lumosity, and Brain Research Labs (which sold dietary supplements) for deceptive advertising; later that year the FTC also sued LearningRx.

The FTC found that Lumosity's marketing "preyed on consumers' fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer's disease", without providing any scientific evidence to back its claims. The company was ordered not to make any claims that its products can "[improve] performance in school, at work, or in athletics" or "[delay or protect] against age-related decline in memory or other cognitive function, including mild cognitive impairment, dementia, or Alzheimer's disease", or "[reduce] cognitive impairment caused by health conditions, including Turner syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke, or side effects of chemotherapy", without "competent and reliable scientific evidence", and agreed to pay a $50 million settlement (reduced to $2 million).

In its lawsuit against LearningRx, the FTC said LearningRx had been "deceptively claim[ing] their programs were clinically proven to permanently improve serious health conditions like ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), autism, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, strokes, and concussions". In 2016, LearningRx settled with the FTC by agreeing not to make the disputed assertions unless they had "competent and reliable scientific evidence" which was defined as randomized controlled trials done by competent scientists." For the judgment's monetary component, LearningRx agreed to pay $200,000 of a $4 million settlement.

Effectiveness

Scientific debate on the efficacy of brain training programs

There has been much debate about how useful “brain games” really are.

A 2011 study with over 11,000 participants found that participants improved on the tasks in which they were trained, but there was no transfer to tasks outside of the training tasks. This is a common finding in cognitive training literature, and within cognitive psychology literature in general. Studies that try to train specific cognitive abilities oftentimes only show task-specific improvements, and participants are unable to generalize their strategies to new tasks or problems. In 2016, there was some evidence that some of these programs improved performance on tasks in which users were trained, less evidence that improvements in performance generalize to related tasks, and almost no evidence that "brain training" generalizes to everyday cognitive performance; in addition most clinical studies were flawed. But in 2017, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found moderate strength evidence for cognitive training as an intervention to prevent cognitive decline and dementia, and in 2018, the American Academy of Neurology guidelines for treatment of mild cognitive impairment included cognitive training.

To address growing public concerns with regard to aggressive online marketing of brain games to older population, a group of scientists published a letter in 2008 warning the general public that there is a lack of research showing effectiveness of brain games in older adults.

In 2010, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that there was insufficient evidence to recommend any method of preventing age-related memory deficits or Alzheimer's.

In 2014 another group of scientists published a similar warning. Later that year, another group of scientists made a counter statement, organized and maintained by the Chief Scientific Officer of Posit. They compiled a list of published studies on efficacy of cognitive training across populations and disciplines.

In 2014, one group of over 70 scientists stated that brain games cannot be scientifically proven as being cognitively advantageous, whether that be in preventing cognitive decline or improving cognitive functioning. Another group argued the opposite, with over 130 scientists saying that there is valid evidence in the benefits of brain training. The question is how these two groups reached different conclusions in reading the same literature. Different standards on both sides can answer that question. In a more specific manner, there is indeed a great deal of evidence that brain training does indeed improve performance on trained tasks, but less evidence in closely related tasks. There is even less evidence on distantly related tasks.

In 2017, a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report about the evidence on interventions for preventing cognitive decline and dementia.

In 2017, a group of Australian scientists undertook a systematic review of what studies have been published of commercially available brain training programs in an attempt to give consumers and doctors credible information on which brain training programs are actually scientifically proved to work. Unfortunately, after reviewing close to 8,000 studies about brain training programs marketed to healthy older adults that were studied, most programs had no peer reviewed published evidence of their efficacy and of the seven brain training programs that did, only two of those had multiple studies, including at least one study of high quality: BrainHQ and CogniFit.

In 2019, a group of researchers showed that claims of enhancement following brain training and other training programs have been exaggerated, based on a number of meta-analyses. Other factors (eg genetics) seem to play a bigger role.

Cognitive training for dementia

A 2020 Cochrane review found no certain evidence that cognitive training is beneficial for people with Parkinson’s disease, dementia or mild cognitive impairment. The findings are based on low certainty evidence of seven studies.

 

Lifelong learning

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Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. It is important for an individual's competitiveness and employability, but also enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development.

Development

In some contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved from the term "life-long learners", created by Leslie Watkins and used by Professor Clint Taylor (CSULA) and Superintendent for the Temple City Unified School District's mission statement in 1993, the term recognizes that learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations.

In other contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved organically. The first lifelong learning institute began at The New School for Social Research (now New School University) in 1962 as an experiment in "learning in retirement". Later, after similar groups formed across the United States, many chose the name "lifelong learning institute" to be inclusive of nonretired persons in the same age range. See Lifelong learning institutes, or outside the US, University of the Third Age.

During the last fifty years, constant scientific and technological innovation and change has had profound effects on how learning is understood. Learning can no longer be divided into a place and time to acquire knowledge (school) and a place and time to apply the knowledge acquired (the workplace). Instead, learning can be seen as something that takes place on an ongoing basis from our daily interactions with others and with the world around us. It can create and shapeshift into the form of formal learning or informal learning, or self-directed learning. Allen Tough (1979), Canadian educator and researcher, asserts that almost 70% of learning projects are self-planned.

Concept

Lifelong learning has been described as a process that includes people learning in different contexts. These environments do not only include schools but also homes, workplaces, and even locations where people pursue leisure activities. However, while the learning process can be applied to learners of all ages, there is a focus on adults who are returning to organized learning. There are programs based on its framework that address the different needs of learners, such as United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning, which caters to the needs of the disadvantaged and marginalized learners.

Lifelong learning focuses on holistic education and it has two dimensions, namely, lifelong and broad options for learning. These indicate learning that integrates traditional education proposals and modern learning opportunities. It also entails an emphasis on encouraging people to learn how to learn and to select content, process, and methodologies that pursues self-design and self-perfection. Some authors highlight that lifelong learning is founded on a different conceptualization of knowledge and its acquisition. It is explained not only as the possession of discrete pieces of information or factual knowledge but also as a generalized scheme of making sense of new events, including the use of tactics in order to effectively deal with them.

Lifelong learning is distinguished from the concept of continuing education in the sense that it has a broader scope. Unlike the latter, which is oriented towards adult education developed for the needs of schools and industries, this type of learning is concerned with the development of human potential, recognizing each individual's capacity for it.

Links to theory

Two theories of particular relevance when considering lifelong learning are cognitivism and constructivism. Cognitivism, most notably Gestalt theory, speaks of learning as making sense of the relationship between what is old and what is new. Similarly, Constructivist theory states that "knowledge is not passively received from the world or from authoritative sources but constructed by individuals or groups making sense of their experiential worlds". Constructivism lends itself well to Lifelong learning as it brings together learning from many different sources including life experiences.

Learning economy

Traditional colleges and universities are beginning to recognize the value of lifelong learning outside of the credit and degree attainment model. Some learning is accomplished in segments or interest categories and can still be valuable to the individual and community. The economic impact of educational institutions at all levels will remain significant as individuals continue formal studies and pursue interest-based subjects. Institutions produce educated citizens who buy goods and services in the community and the education facilities and personnel generate economic activity during the operations and institutional activities. Similar to health facilities, educational institutions are among the top employers in many cities and towns of the world. Whether brick-and-mortar or distance education institutions, there is a great economic impact worldwide from learning, including lifelong learning, for all age groups. The lifelong learners, including persons with academic or professional credentials, tend to find higher-paying occupations, leaving monetary, cultural, and entrepreneurial impressions on communities, according to educator Cassandra B. Whyte.

Contexts

Although the term is widely used in a variety of contexts, its meaning is often unclear. A learning approach that can be used to define lifelong learning is heutagogy.

There are several established contexts for lifelong learning beyond traditional "brick and mortar" schooling:

• Home schooling involves learning to learn or the development of informal learning patterns
• Adult education or the acquisition of formal qualifications or work and leisure skills later in life
• Continuing education which often describes extension or not-for-credit courses offered by higher education institutions
• Lifelong learning institutes, which are groups over 50 years of age which meet for noncredit college-level study for intellectual challenge and social enjoyment
• Knowledge work, which includes professional development and on-the-job training
• Personal learning environments or self-directed learning using a range of sources and tools including online applications

E-learning is available at most colleges and universities or to individuals learning independently. There are even online courses being offered for free by many institutions.

One new (2008 and beyond) expression of lifelong learning is the massive open online course (a MOOC), in which a teacher or team offers a syllabus and some direction for the participation of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of learners. Most MOOCs do not offer typical "credit" for courses taken, which is why they are interesting and useful examples of lifelong learning.

Emerging technologies

Lifelong learning is defined as "all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective". It is often considered learning that occurs after the formal education years of childhood (where learning is instructor-driven—pedagogical) and into adulthood (where the learning is individually-driven—andragogical). It is sought out naturally through life experiences as the learner seeks to gain knowledge for professional or personal reasons. These natural experiences can come about on purpose or throughout life's unpredictable course. 'Knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it' (Kolb 1984: 41). The concept of lifelong learning has become of vital importance with the emergence of new technologies that change how we receive and gather information, collaborate with others, and communicate.

Assistive technology

As technology rapidly changes, individuals must adapt and learn to meet everyday demands. However, throughout life, an individual's functional capacities may also change. Assistive technologies are also important considerations under the umbrella of emerging technology and lifelong learning. Access to informal and formal learning opportunities for individuals with disabilities may be dependent upon low and high tech assistive technology.

Web 2.0

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has great potential to support lifelong learning endeavors, allowing for informal, just-in-time, day-to-day learning. Constant change is emerging as the new normal. To thrive, organizations and individuals must be able to adjust, and enhance their knowledge and skills to meet evolving needs. This means the most important thing someone can learn is how to learn. An understanding of web 2.0 tools is critical to keeping up with a changing world and the information explosion.

Workplace learning

Professions typically recognize the importance of developing practitioners becoming lifelong learners. Nowadays, formal training is only a beginning. Knowledge accumulates at such a fast rate that one must continue to learn to be effective (Williams, 2001). Many licensed professions mandate that their members continue learning to maintain a license. (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007). Having said this, what are the characteristics or skills that a lifelong learner must develop. Reflective learning and critical thinking can help a learner to become more self-reliant through learning how to learn, thus making them better able to direct, manage, and control their own learning process (Candy, 1990). Sipe (1995) studied experimentally "open" teachers and found that they valued self-directed learning, collaboration, reflection, and challenge; risk taking in their learning was seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Dunlap and Grabinger (2003) say that for higher education students to be lifelong learners, they must develop a capacity for self-direction, metacognition awareness, and a disposition toward learning (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).

Metacognition

While the study of metacognition originally gave educational psychologists insights into what differentiated successful students from their less successful peers, it is increasingly being used to inform teaching that aims to make students more aware of their learning processes, and show them how to regulate those processes for more effective learning throughout their lives.

Educators can employ Cognitive Strategy Instruction (CSI) as a means to help learners develop their metacognition. Again, learners who are better equipped to create learning strategies for themselves will have more success in achieving their cognitive goals.

As lifelong learning is "lifelong, lifewide, voluntary, and self-motivated" learning to learn, that is, learning how to recognize learning strategies, and monitor and evaluate learning, is a pre-condition for lifelong learning. Metacognition is an essential first step in developing lifelong learning.

Delors Report and the four pillars of learning

Main article: Delors Report

The Delors Report proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key paradigms: lifelong learning and the four pillars of learning. The report proposed a holistic conceptual framework of learning, that of the 'four pillars of learning'. It argued that formal education tends to emphasize the acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other types of learning essential to sustaining human development. It stressed the need to think of learning over the life course, and to address how everyone can develop relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes for work, citizenship and personal fulfillment. The four pillars of learning are:

1. Learning to know
2. Learning to do
3. Learning to be
4. Learning to live together

It is important to note that the four pillars of learning were envisaged against the backdrop of the notion of 'lifelong learning', itself an adaptation of the concept of 'lifelong education' as initially conceptualized in the 1972 Faure publication Learning to Be.

In practice

In India and elsewhere, the "University of the Third Age" (U3A) provides an example of the almost spontaneous emergence of autonomous learning groups accessing the expertise of their own members in the pursuit of knowledge and shared experience. No prior qualifications and no subsequent certificates feature in this approach to learning for its own sake and, as participants testify, engagement in this type of learning in later life can indeed 'prolong active life'.

In Sweden the successful concept of study circles, an idea launched almost a century ago, still represents a large portion of the adult education provision. The concept has since spread, and for instance, is a common practice in Finland as well. A study circle is one of the most democratic forms of a learning environment that has been created. There are no teachers and the group decides on what content will be covered, scope will be used, as well as a delivery method.

Sometimes lifelong learning aims to provide educational opportunities outside standard educational systems—which can be cost-prohibitive, if available at all. On the other hand, formal administrative units devoted to this discipline exist in a number of universities. For example, the 'Academy of Lifelong Learning' is an administrative unit within the University-wide 'Professional and Continuing Studies' unit at the University of Delaware. Another example is the Jagiellonian University Extension (Wszechnica Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego), which is one of the most comprehensive Polish centers for lifelong learning (open learning, organizational learning, community learning).

In recent years, 'lifelong learning' has been adopted in the UK as an umbrella term for post-compulsory education that falls outside of the UK higher education system – further education, community education, work-based learning and similar voluntary, public sector and commercial settings.

Most colleges and universities in the United States encourage lifelong learning to non-traditional students. Professional licensure and certification courses are also offered at many universities, for instance for teachers, social services providers, and other professionals. Some colleges even enable adults to earn credit for the college-level learning gained through work, volunteer and other experiences.

Bangladesh Open University (BOU) has six schools and is offering 23 formal and 19 nonformal programs. The number of enrolled students in formal programs for 2016 was 433,413. Most of the courses of BOU are for professional development and most of the students are professional people who are getting scope to study in flexible hours. BOU is the only public institution in the country that imparts education in distance mode. In place of campus based teaching, this university uses technology including electronic devices to reach people in different corners of the country.

In Canada, the federal government's Lifelong Learning Plan allows Canadian residents to withdraw funds from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan to help pay for lifelong learning, but the funds can only be used for formal learning programs at designated educational institutions.

Priorities for lifelong and life-wide learning have different priorities in different countries, some placing more emphasis on economic development (towards a learning economy) and some on social development (towards a learning society). For example, the policies of China, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Malaysia promote lifelong learning in a human resource development (HRD) perspective. The governments of these countries have done much to foster HRD whilst encouraging entrepreneurship.

Impact on long-term economic growth

Mainstream economic analysis has highlighted increased levels of primary and secondary education as a key driver of long-term economic growth. Data show that initial levels of educational attainment explain about half the difference in growth rates between East Asia and sub- Saharan Africa between 1965 and 2010. At the individual level, the knowledge and skills workers acquire through education and training make them more productive. Provision of good quality education can improve the knowledge and skills of a whole population beyond what traditional or informal systems can achieve. For business, educated and highly skilled workers foster productivity gains and technological change, through either innovation or imitation of processes developed elsewhere. At the societal level, education expansion helps build social and institutional capital, which has a strong impact on the investment climate and growth; it also helps in building social trust, developing participatory societies, strengthening the rule of law and supporting good governance.

Implications for an aging society

According to the Alzheimer's Society, it is estimated that more than a million Canadians will suffer from Alzheimer's diseases by 2030. "Exercising the brain may preserve it, forestalling mental decline" (Grady, 2012). In North America—and presumably globally—to proactively curb potential economic issues as the baby boomers continue to age, we need to look at society through a lifelong learning lens. Consider community programs to engage retirees and foster their cognitive health. Taking a proactive approach to keep our elderly population engaged through learning and their brains exercised as Grady described, the strain on the health care system and not to mention the families of the elderly would be lessened. The US Department of Health and Human Service published a study that suggests that older people with a mild cognitive impairment receive 8.5 hours more of care each week from their family and those with a severe impairment received 41.5 more hours than those without a cognitive impairment (USDHHS, 2007). Who pays for this? As a society we are living longer—85 years for men and 90 years for women—making cognitive health vitally important.

Autodidacticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individuals who choose the subject they will study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time. Autodidacts may or may not have formal education, and their study may be either a complement or an alternative to formal education. Many notable contributions have been made by autodidacts.

Etymology

The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός (autós, lit. 'self') and διδακτικός (didaktikos, lit. 'teaching'). The related term didacticism defines an artistic philosophy of education.

Terminology

Various terms are used to describe self-education. One such is heutagogy, coined in 2000 by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon of Southern Cross University in Australia; others are self-directed learning and self-determined learning. In the heutagogy paradigm, a learner should be at the centre of their own learning.

Modern education

Autodidacticism is sometimes a complement of modern education. As a complement to education, students would be encouraged to do more independent work. The Industrial Revolution created a new situation for self-directed learners.

Before the twentieth century, only a small minority of people received an advanced academic education. As stated by Joseph Whitworth in his influential report on industry dated from 1853, literacy rates were higher in the United States. However, even in the U.S., most children were not completing high school. High school education was necessary to become a teacher. In modern times, a larger percentage of those completing high school also attended college, usually to pursue a professional degree, such as law or medicine, or a divinity degree.

Collegiate teaching was based on the classics (Latin, philosophy, ancient history, theology) until the early nineteenth century. There were few if any institutions of higher learning offering studies in engineering or science before 1800. Institutions such as the Royal Society did much to promote scientific learning, including public lectures. In England, there were also itinerant lecturers offering their service, typically for a fee.

Prior to the nineteenth century, there were many important inventors working as millwrights or mechanics who, typically, had received an elementary education and served an apprenticeship. Mechanics, instrument makers and surveyors had various mathematics training. James Watt was a surveyor and instrument maker and is described as being "largely self-educated". Watt, like some other autodidacts of the time, became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Lunar Society. In the eighteenth century these societies often gave public lectures and were instrumental in teaching chemistry and other sciences with industrial applications which were neglected by traditional universities. Academies also arose to provide scientific and technical training.

Years of schooling in the United States began to increase sharply in the early twentieth century. This phenomenon was seemingly related to increasing mechanization displacing child labor. The automated glass bottle-making machine is said to have done more for education than child labor laws because boys were no longer needed to assist. However, the number of boys employed in this particular industry was not that large; it was mechanization in several sectors of industry that displaced child labor toward education. For males in the U.S. born 1886–90, years of school averaged 7.86, while for those born in 1926–30, years of school averaged 11.46.

One of the most recent trends in education is that the classroom environment should cater towards students' individual needs, goals, and interests. This model adopts the idea of inquiry-based learning where students are presented with scenarios to identify their own research, questions and knowledge regarding the area. As a form of discovery learning, students in today's classrooms are being provided with more opportunity to "experience and interact" with knowledge, which has its roots in autodidacticism.

Successful self-teaching can require self-discipline and reflective capability. Some research suggests that the ability to regulate one's own learning may need to be modeled to some students so that they become active learners, while others learn dynamically via a process outside of conscious control. To interact with the environment, a framework has been identified to determine the components of any learning system: a reward function, incremental action value functions and action selection methods. Rewards work best in motivating learning when they are specifically chosen on an individual student basis. New knowledge must be incorporated into previously existing information as its value is to be assessed. Ultimately, these scaffolding techniques, as described by Vygotsky (1978) and problem solving methods are a result of dynamic decision making.

The secular and modern societies gave foundations for a new system of education and a new kind of autodidacts. While the number of schools and students rose from one century to the other, so did the number of autodidacts. The industrial revolution produced new educational tools used in schools, universities and outside academic circles to create a post-modern era that gave birth to the World Wide Web and encyclopaedic data banks such as Wikipedia. As this concept becomes more widespread and popular, web locations such as Udacity and Khan Academy are developed as learning centers for many people to actively and freely learn together. The Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE) is also formed to publicize and provide guidance or support for self-directed education.

In history, philosophy, literature, film and television

The first philosophical claim supporting an autodidactic program to the study of nature and God was in the philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Alive Son of the Vigilant), whose titular hero is considered the archetypal autodidact. The story is a medieval autodidactic utopia, a philosophical treatise in a literary form, which was written by the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Tufail in the 1160s in Marrakesh. It is a story about a feral boy, an autodidact prodigy who masters nature through instruments and reason, discovers laws of nature by practical exploration and experiments, and gains summum bonum through a mystical mediation and communion with God. The hero rises from his initial state of tabula rasa to a mystical or direct experience of God after passing through the necessary natural experiences. The focal point of the story is that human reason, unaided by society and its conventions or by religion, can achieve scientific knowledge, preparing the way to the mystical or highest form of human knowledge.

Commonly translated as "The Self-Taught Philosopher" or "The Improvement of Human Reason", Ibn-Tufayl's story Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan inspired debates about autodidacticism in a range of historical fields from classical Islamic philosophy through Renaissance humanism and the European Enlightenment. In his book Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: a Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism, Avner Ben-Zaken showed how the text traveled from late medieval Andalusia to early modern Europe and demonstrated the intricate ways in which autodidacticism was contested in and adapted to diverse cultural settings.

Autodidacticism apparently intertwined with struggles over Sufism in twelfth-century Marrakesh; controversies about the role of philosophy in pedagogy in fourteenth-century Barcelona; quarrels concerning astrology in Renaissance Florence in which Pico della Mirandola pleads for autodidacticism against the strong authority of intellectual establishment notions of predestination; and debates pertaining to experimentalism in seventeenth-century Oxford. Pleas for autodidacticism echoed not only within close philosophical discussions; they surfaced in struggles for control between individuals and establishments.

In the story of Black American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams presents a historical account to examine Black American's relationship to literacy during slavery, the Civil War and the first decades of freedom. Many of the personal accounts tell of individuals who have had to teach themselves due to racial discrimination in education.

The working-class protagonist of Jack London's Martin Eden (1909) embarks on a path of self-learning to win the affections of Ruth, a member of cultured society. By the end of the novel, Eden has surpassed the intellect of the bourgeois class, leading him to a state of indifference and ultimately suicide.

Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) depicts, as a secondary character, an autodidact.

Comic-book superhero Batman is frequently depicted as an autodidactic polymath who has acquired a vast range of skills over the years either by various trainers or having trained himself, and his expertise in various disciplines is virtually unmatched in the DC comics universe.

In The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), Jacques Rancière describes the emancipatory education of Joseph Jacotot, a post-Revolutionary philosopher of education who discovered that he could teach things he did not know. The book is both a history and a contemporary intervention in the philosophy and politics of education, through the concept of autodidacticism; Rancière chronicles Jacotot's "adventures", but he articulates Jacotot's theory of "emancipation" and "stultification" in the present tense.

The 1997 drama film Good Will Hunting follows the story of autodidact Will Hunting, played by Matt Damon. Hunting demonstrates his breadth and depth of knowledge throughout the film but especially to his therapist and in a heated discussion in a Harvard bar.

One of the main characters in The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2006), by Muriel Barbery, is an autodidact. The story is told from the viewpoint of Renee, a middle-aged autodidact concierge in a Paris upscale apartment house and Paloma, a 12-year-old daughter of one of the tenants who is unhappy with her life. These two people find they have much in common when they both befriend a new tenant, Mr. Ozu, and their lives change forever.

In the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, Ekalavya is depicted as a tribal boy who was denied education in the science of arms from royal teachers from the house of Kuru. Ekalavya went to the forest, where he taught himself archery in front of an image of the Kuru teacher, Drona, that he had built for himself. Later, when the royal family found that Ekalavya had practiced with the image of Drona as his teacher, Drona asked for Ekalavya's thumb as part of his tuition. Ekalavya complied with Drona's request, thus ending his martial career.

In Suits, the protagonist (Mike Ross) possesses a highly competent knowledge of the law despite not receiving any formal education in any law school. His knowledge is attributable to both his affinity for reading (autodidacticism), in addition to his eidetic memory.

Dr. Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds, played by Matthew Gray Gubler, is an autodidact with an eidetic memory.

In architecture

Tadao Ando is a famous autodidact architect of the twenty-first century

Many successful and influential architects, such as Mies Van Der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Violet-Le-Duc, and Tadao Ando were self-taught.

There are very few countries allowing autodidacticism in architecture today. The practice of architecture or the use of the title "architect", are now protected in most countries.

Self-taught architects have generally studied and qualified in other fields such as engineering or arts and crafts. Jean Prouvé was first a structural engineer. Le Corbusier had an academic qualification in decorative arts. Tadao Ando started his career as a draftsman, and Eileen Gray studied fine arts.

When a political state starts to implement restrictions on the profession, there are issues related to the rights of established self-taught architects. In most countries the legislation includes a grandfather clause, authorising established self-taught architects to continue practicing. In the UK, the legislation, allowed self-trained architects with 2 years of experience to register. In France, it allowed self-trained architects with 5 years of experience to register. In Belgium, the law allowed experienced self-trained architects in practice to register. In Italy, it allowed self-trained architects with 10 years of experience to register. In The Netherlands, the "wet op de architectentitel van 7 juli 1987" along with additional procedures, allowed architects with 10 years of experience and architects aged 40 years old or over, with 5 years of experience, to access the register.

However, other sovereign states chose to omit such a clause, and many established and competent practitioners were stripped of their professional rights. In the Republic of Ireland, a group named "Architects' Alliance of Ireland" is defending the interests of long-established self-trained architects who were recently deprived of their rights to practice as per Part 3 of the Irish Building Control Act 2007.

Theoretical research such as "Architecture of Change, Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment" or older studies such as "Vers une Architecture" from Le Corbusier describe the practice of architecture as an environment changing with new technologies, sciences, and legislation. All architects must be autodidacts to keep up to date with new standards, regulations, or methods.

Self-taught architects such as Eileen Gray, Luis Barragán, and many others, created a system where working is also learning, where self-education is associated with creativity and productivity within a working environment.

While he was primarily interested in naval architecture, William Francis Gibbs learned his profession through his own study of battleships and ocean liners. Through his life he could be seen examining and changing the designs of ships that were already built, that is, until he started his firm Gibbs and Cox.

Future role

The role of self-directed learning continues to be investigated in learning approaches, along with other important goals of education, such as content knowledge, epistemic practices and collaboration. As colleges and universities offer distance learning degree programs and secondary schools provide cyber school options for K-12 students, technology provides numerous resources that enable individuals to have a self-directed learning experience. Several studies show these programs function most effectively when the "teacher" or facilitator is a full owner of virtual space to encourage a broad range of experiences to come together in an online format. This allows self-directed learning to encompass both a chosen path of information inquiry, self-regulation methods and reflective discussion among experts as well as novices in a given area. Furthermore, massive open online courses (MOOCs) make autodidacticism easier and thus more common.

A 2016 Stack Overflow poll reported that due to the rise of autodidacticism, 69.1% of software developers appear to be self-taught.