The Science behind SMART Intellectual Skills Training

Dr. Bryan Roche and Dr. Sarah Cassidy have worked as scientists for many years in the development of the SMART brain training method. The RaiseYourIQ approach to brain health is based on Relational Frame Theory – a modern theory of cognition that our team has helped to develop over the past two decades. Dr. Roche was the co-editor of the two seminal texts on this theory. Dr. Cassidy was the leading researcher behind the first demonstration of IQ gains resulting from relational skills training.

RaiseYourIQ offers the only brain training system in the world that is based on tried and tested systems of intellectual skills interventions used in the clinical setting (for example the methods of Applied Behaviour Analysis), and that has been shown in published scientific research to lead to real, large, and objectively measureable gains in general intelligence (IQ). No other method benefits from even a single study, showing large and reliable IQ gains as a result of training.

Our SMART system has achieved the holy grail of brain training across several different published studies. That is, we have achieved what scientists call evidence of “far transfer”. This means that increased scores on an IQ test have been proven to result from training on skills that are not directly assessed on the IQ test. In other words, the benefits of our SMART training have been proven to transfer far into intellectual areas that we do not train directly in our system but which are assessed in general intelligence tests (e.g., vocabulary, verbal comprehension, analogical reasoning, numeracy, and so on). This makes SMART training truly unique and revolutionary in its approach to intellectual skills enhancement.

Some of the other tools that we have made available here to schools or clinics (SMART for Dyslexia, KidStarter, FAST emotional flexibility training) are also based on Relational Frame Theory concepts, or on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) methods, which are heavily conceptualised in terms of Relational Frame Theory.