Buzzwords are words that have little meaning and they are often judgmental. Buzzwords diminish real communication and understanding, and make the tacit assumption that the individual is somehow "damaged" or "inferior" because they fall into a certain "category". When you start seeing types instead of people, you lose the ability to listen and learn from that person.  

Buzzwords are shortcuts, sacrificing meaning in the service of the shorthand nature of their existence. Unfortunately, the field of learning was hit with buzzwords about a decade ago, and these have not lost their glamor. The words are "visual learner" vs. "aural learner," and in some cases, add "kinesthetic learner."

Why are these buzzwords? Think for a moment; we have 5 senses. Humans can only learn through some combination of all of those senses. Academics do not generally involve touch, taste and smell. So to say that one learns visually and/or aurally is correct. What the distinction is meant to relay, however, is that people are divided into two categories--the visual learner or the aural learner. This implies:

1. That the person learns nearly 100% of his or her information one way or the other and
2. If you figure out the porportion for that individual, you can be really effective in your delivery.
3. It also implies that the person CANNOT learn the other way; if one is a visual learner, then aural things do little good, and vice versa.
4. The biggest problem, however, is assuming that the brain does the same things between people, given the same information. Every brain processes information and remembers slightly differently and these individual differences cannot be quantified by buzzwords.

The problems with this arbitrary, heuristic distinction are enormous. Learning is such a complex issue that people make entire careers regarding how people learn best. The biggest problem, however, is thinking that one can actually come up with some type of porportion for every student, then use that ratio effectively. Is Suzie 65/35? Maybe Jerry is 95/5. As stated before, the real problem is that people really believe they can do such a thing, then stop thinking about their own reactions to the individual after arriving at the diagnosis.

With preschoolers, it is an error of enormous proportions to think of their learning abilities in only one of two ways. The reason is that the preschooler's brain is changing at an extremely fast rate; so fast, that it will never again attain this second-to-second molding it continually performs. Since the brain has multiple brain areas devoted to different behaviors, AND since the preschool brain is changing so fast, one cannot make a definitive statement at any one time about any child. What a child appears to be behind in today, may be a great strength tomorrow.

Since the brain has all of these discrete areas for different things preschoolers do, then the send most salient fact that any teacher or parent needs to know is that, for every child, each of those areas will be on a different developmental trajectory. That's right; the timing will be different for every child, and because each child has a different learning history, every child will behave somewhat differently than any other child. THIS is individual differences, and it is highly important to consider when working with preschoolers.

Learning Styles

So, what are learning styles? Think of learning as information processing. Learning is all about making relevant, lasting memories, so memory research is part of understanding learning. Basically, every individual has a slightly different learning style because of different developmental and learning histories. That's right; every one of us learns differently than the other 8 billion people in the world. That's what individual differences is about.

How does one ascertain another's learning style? The answer is that you don't. Again, I caution the reader about making judgments based on heresay, what someone else says, or an invalid source (psudeoscience is invalid). There are many websites devoted to how children learn, but not many that have correct information. Because early childhood education is under-regulated, children can, and often do, end up in situations that are not good for them. There are a lot of claims 'out there,' and I caution the reader about them. For our purposes, we look for behaviors that signify the following:

• We know what each brain area does, and about when it comes 'online.' Knowing that information, we simply try some interventions with a child, and if the child responds, then that certain brain area has come 'online' and the child is ready to develop it. We also know that most of these brain areas will not be completely mature until age 30, so we go slow.
• We look for evidence of correct brain use. For example, music reading is a verbal task, so a student has to use the brain areas involved in Verbal Comprehension. We monitor that so students learn to read and do it well. Other things we look for are evidence of nonverbal reasoning, smooth movement and all of the other parts of verbal comprehension.
• We then teach the parents about what to look for.

Many articles would be of interest here, but this article is meant to outline the absurdity of thinking in such dichotomous terms as "aural vs visual learner." It is our job to bring meaningful knowledge to music instruction, not heuristics. Children need understanding and they need our help. We only add to their issues when we fail to think in sufficient depth to solve the problems they present to us. They deserve the best we can give them.