Arrowsmith Program

The Arrowsmith Program is an written excersize program formulated by the Canadian author, entrepreneur and speaker, Barbara Arrowsmith Young/

Devised in 1978, as a private tutoring center and later into a full time school and later a franchise. Over time the program attracted the attention of academicians who have criticized it for oversimplifying and misrepresenting neuroscience, rather arguing it to be a work of pseudoscience, including but not limited to neurobabble.

Favorable quotes

• "This school has revolutionized the teaching of the disabled."

- Norman Doidge. National Post. 2001

Unfavorable quotes

• Arrowsmith ... lacks any scientific evidence for efficacy, and has attracted criticism from mainstream experts in children's learning difficulties.

— BishopBlog, Professor Dorothy Bishop, Oxford Study of Children's Communications Impairments, 30 August, 2015

• "Take a closer look, and you’ll find 3 poster presentations (there are 4 listed but two are the same poster presented at different events), 1 case study that made up a graduate student’s dissertation, and a handful of reports summarizing data collected on the same students that were presented to various school boards. There is not a single published, peer reviewed study in the entire collection. If I was a teacher, I’d give this a failing grade."

-Robert Shepherd, Clinical psychologist with 25 years of private practice, forensic and family health team experience "10 ways to sell your product even when there’s no evidence that it works: The Arrowsmith Program of Cognitive Exercises."

• There is no scientifically rigorous, objective evidence that supports its efficacy according to the evidence presented to the Tribunal.

— Human Rights Tribunal of Alberta Decision, 15 February, 2017