That depends a lot on their intelligence and development level, but yes they can. Autism is by its very essence an underdevelopment of that dendritic/axonic bridge between the two hemispheres called the corpus collosum. Life experiences, and musical training can overcome that developmental degree to a high degree with the right effort and practice. On a larger scale, the right brain rules our subconscious and the left brain our conscious, the former providing the material for our dreams at night and the latter for our conscious efforts and thoughts during the day. Hence, the heart and mind analogy.

The flow out of ideas from a thinker has two paths. 

1) The mind thinks about a topic and thought comes out of mind directly and converted into wording, reach to listener

2) The mind thinks about a topic and thought flows through heart where it gets purify (heart will act like a purifier filter) and purified ideas converted into wording, reach to listener.

The second case give rise to listener, a filling of love, attachment and ownness. It brings listener to speaker, keep tied for long, likes to hear frequently. It creates invisible bond between them.

Practice of teaching is nothing but speaker and listener or listeners. The bond works as a great motivational factor. I am of the strong opinion, the process is powerful tool and should be adopted. I am following the same and experienced as well as experiencing better results

Brain, Heart and Mind perfectly collate to prove that human are complex beings that need to integrate these three elements in order to function at their best.and interact constantly before our eyes, in each of our students, and that is why our goal should always be to maintain an excellent relationship with them, based on mutual respect, trust and hope, thus fostering healthy, contrasting, positive, stress-free environments, that encourage good moods

http://www.brainbasedlearning.net/brain-heart-and-mind-an-holistic-perspective-on-the-classroom/

Marcelo, I tend to think of these constructs in terms of right/left brain function. Heart is represented by the qualitative and holistic functions of the right hemisphere of he brain (think of a lonely young man walking down the highway in the middle of nowhere with a guitar strapped over his shoulder--where he's going no one not even he knows, but he's going somewhere), while the left brain represents the conscious mind, three pens in his shirt pocket leaning over a set of blueprint abstracts. Now, enter the only dendritic/axonic bridge between these two hemispheres, and what we find is a heart/mind individual with cognitive socialization and intent.   

Can people truly control the interactions between the two brain hemispheres?

That depends a lot on their intelligence and development level, but yes they can. Autism is by its very essence an underdevelopment of that dendritic/axonic bridge between the two hemispheres called the corpus collosum. Life experiences, and musical training can overcome that developmental degree to a high degree with the right effort and practice. On a larger scale, the right brain rules our subconscious and the left brain our conscious, the former providing the material for our dreams at night and the latter for our conscious efforts and thoughts during the day. Hence, the heart and mind analogy.

Excellent! All answers seem to complement each other.

A good teacher is a professional communicator in the classroom who targets the “hearts & minds” of the students. S/he knows the key techniques that storytellers have used for centuries to engage, enthuse and motivate their listeners. Of course, the students as well will participate at certain junctures but the teacher is the manager who has the ability to influence and lead with passion, clarity and presence.

The heart refers to the educator's ability to connect with an audience, assess their needs and speak to what inspires or touches them. Information without emotion is no more than just information, like data, easily forgotten.  Information with an experience or emotion tied to it is memorable and digestible so true learning from attaining it can begin. So the heart and mind connection is two fold, both the educator and the the student must connect the two to grasp the information and apply it authentically to what it means in their own lives.

Multisensory learning is bihemispheric, which is why those with corpus collosum underdevelopment as children (ie, Asperbergers, for example) always learn and retain interest and knowledge under multisensory formats. This bias often stays through life even though the individual may largely develop past their original delay.

Dr. Nizar, Susan and Max, obrigado pelas respostas. A good teacher is a professional communicator in the classroom. Indeed, the ability to listen is a unique feature.

I would understand the 'heart' to be the unique psychological needs of the student. Since all learning is mediated through the limbic (emotional) system an educator must take this into account. In the past, and educator felt that they could simply 'teach' the content and students would learn it (teaching to the head). There was an implicit acceptance that the emotional mediator was automatically present (a belief that learning was going to be good for you in the long term). We (educators) have learned that the emotional mediator is NOT always present and in fact is often less likely to be present in those with greater needs (low SES students) and so MUST accept that there is a need to take the 'heart' or psychological needs into account to be successful for ALL students.

Dear Marcelo

This is an excellent question. My experience in the past 40 years of teaching around the world tells me that it is not only heart and mind - the body also must take an active part in the learning process, so does the soul. Usually the ordinary approach to teaching is to train the brain. And mostly only the left side of the brain, and mostly in one aspect, which is the aspect of training to remember for exams. Most natural learning stop when children goes to school and in most kindergartens that try to prepare children for school in advance - it stops even earlier. It is not that teachers don’t try their best. It is becuase hat is required of teachers is un-natural, counter-creative and anti-learning at its core. The new learning technology I participate in developing is using all five natural human intelligences in all five dimensions of education. 

The key, Erez, as I'm sure you know, is getting the students immersed in their subject of study. Hands on, problem solving, relating it to real life situations, seeing it from a personal perspective. Only extraordinary teachers frame their lessons in such formats, realizing that pulling the students into the subject matter is more important to teaching for rote recitation.

The discussion on these requires some clear agreement on what these terms mean. This has also been linked to cognitive, affective and attitudinal domains in some places and to the rational, emotional a and social in some others. There have been many who have argued the need to put these together in any educational experience and other who have argued that there is no way that you can avoid all these being there in any natural human experience anyway. So skewed educational experiences that are designed with inadequate proportion are either rejected or automatically modified to have some components of all but maybe not in alignment with objects.

In Finnish language "Käsi" = hand and "käsite"= definition. To comprehend ideas you need hand, heart and head the idea that comes from Pestalozzi. In Finnish K!2 curriculum, the time and space for arts and crafts is apr. 25%. In addition, many other subjects are taught and learn "through arts" e.g using creative and innovative methods...

Excellent Mikko. In our discussions about the therapeutic benefits of music and fine arts we often overlook the arts and crafts skills which require bihemispheric and fine motor skills that prepare one for a successful and satisfying life, as well.

Max, what you termed as “immersed in the subject”, can also be called; "project life" - the life that students generate working together for a joint mission/project. Like you indicated much more learning and much deeper learning at all levels: Body, heart brain, mind and soul would be involved. Just sitting as 'getting wisdom from the teacher' - this surly belong to the past. Humanity is now at another crossroad where the future downloads new permissions. Education too has got to change its path.