How Do You Best Learn About Your Bleeding Disorder?
There are many ways to learn, and to learn about your bleeding disorder. Our society, though, is biased toward visual learning, because humans are mainly visual beings. From advertising to teaching tools, we are all about sight, color, and shape. Studies have shown that 65% of people learn best visually.1
But not everyone learns visually. It’s now recognized that people have individual differences when it comes to learning, and even visual learners learn in different ways. For example, one person learns by visiting art museums, but another likes watching TV documentaries; both are visual methods.
Research in the field of learning modes, or styles, led to the widely cited Theory of Multiple Intelligences, developed in 1983 by Harvard University’s Howard Gardner. Gardner found nine distinct types of “intelligences,” which are now used to describe how people learn.
What’s your preferred learning mode? And how can you harness it to learn about managing your bleeding disorder?
Nine Learning Modes
You may possess several of the nine modes listed here, with one being dominant. Or you may use different modes in various circumstances. For example, I’m a verbal learner who likes to learn in a solitary way. But I’m also learning a new piece on the piano, which requires visual, aural, and physical modes. You can also change your mix by developing and enhancing your less dominant modes. And if you don’t use particular learning modes, they may weaken.
1. Visual (spatial): pictures, images, understanding of space
2. Aural (auditory-musical): sound, music
3. Verbal (linguistic): words, in both speech and writing
4. Physical (kinesthetic): body, hands, sense of touch
5. Logical (mathematical): numbers, logic, reasoning, systems
6. Social (interpersonal): learning by being with other people
7. Solitary (intrapersonal): learning alone, using self-study
8. Natural: being outside; identifying plants, animals, maps
9. Existential: questioning human existence, the meaning of life and death, the human condition
The key to learning about bleeding disorders is to recognize how you learn best, and then to find resources that use your strongest modes to help you learn faster and more effectively.
In the Beginning, There Were Books
There was a time when virtually no information on bleeding disorders was available in any learning format, except meeting with your hematologist. That’s one of the reasons I wrote Raising a Child with Hemophilia in 1991, and published all of our subsequent books: to reach the verbal-oriented people in our community, and to provide a tool for patients to use all the time, not just at in-person meetings. For me, social support group meetings weren’t so useful. More experienced parents seemed to want to scare the rest of us with their bleeding horror stories! Medical journals and published articles seemed more logical and reliable.
Fortunately, for those who are not mainly verbal learners, we now have plenty of other ways to learn. There are national and local nonprofit organization meetings, which may appeal to more social-oriented people. There are podcasts and YouTube videos for aural learners. And there are adventure and outdoor activities to appeal to physical and kinesthetic learners, which may include rafting, hiking, zip-lining, and camping. No matter your learning style, there’s bound to be some educational resource you’ll enjoy, to help you understand your bleeding disorder.
Learning modes may shift when you’re stressed. It’s normal to want to be with others for support, so social learning may become dominant for a while. Those who started with only books, back in the 1990s and 2000s, now turn to online resources: the parenting groups for bleeding disorders on Facebook count members in the thousands.
Young people with bleeding disorders seem to gravitate toward social media for information. These resources represent a combination of learning modes, including social, aural, physical, and visual. Indeed, multimedia is becoming the best way to reach all types of learners.One mom summed up how multimedia learning can work: “Initially, we devoured anything by NHF [now NBDF]. Then we found LA Kelley Communications’ books. With medical complications, we researched online and have auto-email updates sent to us. We regularly attend inhibitor summits and occasionally our local hemophilia groups. Last of all, we turn to Facebook for real-world experiences.”
Think about how you best learn: what’s your preferred mode? Then find the resources that appeal to that mode, to make learning effective and fun!
1. Richard M. Felder and Linda Silverman, “Learning and Teaching Styles in Engineering Education,” Engineering Education 78(7), 674–81 (1988). This study later became a foundation for a standardized test called the Index of Learning Styles (ILS).
