Archive for May, 2010

 Sometimes it is a gift to receive confirmation in your beliefs and an outward sign of what you know is really true.  Here’s one of those special moments I will forever be grateful for:

Little Giant Steps has been working with Autistic Children, Teens and Adults (all learning disabilities, actually) for over 17 years. I’ve seen our Neuro-Educational Development Program have tremendous results. But, Jesse, an autistic child’s journey will forever be burned in my memory.
Jesse came to us as an 8 year old, non-verbal little girl. Her only outstanding feature was that she “clicked” her tongue incessantly!  There was no eye contact, no acknowledgement of someone speaking to her, and her mother, Marge, would just continually have to position her and lead her around.  When I first saw her I suspected she might be profoundly mentally challenged. 
Well, just to prove you can’t tell a book by it cover, after she was evaluated by Little Giant Steps’ founder Jan Bedell, M.Ed, M.ND; an individualized program was given to Marge, and training was provided.  When we’d finished her session, I walked Marge and her little “clicking” partner to the door.  As I closed the door, a big lump welled up in my throat.  I was overcome with emotion regarding this child.  Then, I prayed, “Lord, is our Neurodevelopmental Program big enough for this child? I’ve seen it work, but can it work for this child?”  Jesse seemed to have so many issues and seemed so disabled.  I just stood there and wept for a few moments hanging on to the door.  For the first time I felt powerful grief caused by the doubt in my heart, as to whether we could be successful in setting this child free from this life-label of Autism.  I’d not seen a child quite like her before.  For such a case, could our Program work?
Marge & Jesse returned 4 months later (as is our practice) to be re-evaluated.  When they walked in the door of our clinic, she looked up at me when I greeted Marge. I thought, “Wow, this is a good sign.”  So, I tried to engage her.  She followed me for a short amount of time, but noticed the toys on the floor in the play area. Then, I noticed there was no “clicking”!  I commented about that, and praised her and she looked my way and gave an ever-so-slight grin, but turned toward the toys.  After Jan had completed her re-evaluation, Marge came into my office to go over the new program and make sure all questions were answered, as we embarked on the second phase of this child’s program. 
Suddenly, I was aware Jesse was peeking around the door-way. I invited her in to sit with us and gave her permission to play with the little tactile-finger toys that resides on my desk for moments such as these.  She came in, sat in front of the toys and immediately began to put them on her fingers and play.  I continued my instruction and review with Marge, when all of a sudden Jesse began to count!  She counted to 10! I looked at her with amazement!  Then I turned to Marge and asked, “When did she start to talk?” 
Marge replied, “Well, once we got her to stop the clicking, she seemed to start paying more attention to what was going on. Then about 3 weeks after doing the activities on her program, she just started to talk!”
“When did she start to count?” I asked.
“Once she started talking, we started to do the things you do with little kids and she just started to pick things up really well.”  Marge paused, her eyes dropped to her lap. There she sat in silence.
Disturbed by this lengthy silence, I broke in, “Marge, are you okay… is there something else?”  With that I saw Jesse scoot off her chair and hold Marge’s hand…. my eyes began to well with tears as I saw this child who had been so totally unresponsive to any living entity show signs of ….. of what….. of empathy?  Fear?  Upset?  I couldn’t imagine what was going on with Jesse.
With another touch of Jesse’s hand, Marge lifted her tear-filled eyes to engage my tear-soaked face and she said, “Jesse seems like she loves me for the first time.”  I looked at Jesse, afraid my emotion might be upsetting to her…. a slight twitch of her mouth gave me no clue what she was experiencing.  Then I saw her pat Marge’s hand and look her in the eyes just before Marge pulled her up on her lap, hugged her and said, “I am so grateful God lead us to Little Giant Steps… I only wished I’d found you earlier…. but I trust in God’s timing, and what Jan has given us in these past 4 months is a miracle and I can’t wait to see my little girl grow into who God has planned.”
With that, we got up, had a group hug prior to walking them to the door, and as I closed the door after our goodbyes; I looked up and thanked God that the LGS Neuro-Educational Program was big enough to bring this child a very far way from the child I’d met 4 months prior.  Have a great day!

Anyone, whether child, teen or adult,  can gain in surprizing ways when they  function with neuro-efficiency.  One by-product of having an organized brain, is organizing maturity.  With maturity and organization comes the ability to observe those things going on around them and understand those needed experiences, to plan, the ability to think ahead, and most importantly to carry out a task and complete it!  They tend to act in purposeful ways, that prior to being on the Little Giant Steps Neuro-Educational Program escaped them.  Most simply flounder due to neurological inefficiency.  Please read Christy’s experience with her son Reagan.  It’s a common thing we see with our clients, but for a parent who has witnessed their child so disorganized that taking on responsibility independently was an impossibility, to seeing them have a complete turnaround is a wonderful confirmation their child can reach his/her true potential!

“Today I heard my son Reagan in the kitchen with the water running.  I assumed he was playing with the kitchen sink like he has in the past. However, I found out that he was actually on his own, doing a chore! 

 We refill and reuse water bottles all the time.  Today, Reagan, without prompting, took them out of the dishwasher, filled them up, put the lids on and put them in the fridge.  He even put two in the freezer for us to have in a short while.  It’s something I do when I want to have cold water right away.  He did this all on his own with no prompting!  I was stunned!  Stunned that he showed such independence and also that he did it without making a total mess and that he thought about putting some in the freezer.  I am in awe!   I’m counting my blessings and praising the Lord for these “Little Steps” of achievement! ” ~ Christy

Over the past 17 years, Little Giant Steps has seen the symptoms of Dyslexia be eliminated with the use of our Neuro-Educational Program!  If you think your child who has been diagnosed as Dyslexic is something they will just have to live with, then you need to do more investigation and research into how the Neuro-Educational Program can resolve the symptoms through  it’s brain-based techniques that treat dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and so many more learning issues at the root cause level in the brain.  Read what this mom’s experience has been, then get online and discover what you can do for your child to change the course of thier life for the better:

Dyslexia Testimony:

     When we came to Little Giant Steps two years ago, Timothy was barely passing 2^nd grade.  He wasn’t reading very well, couldn’t remember things that he learned the day before, couldn’t concentrate because the noise in the classroom bothered him and he was just really frustrated.  At home, just cleaning his room was extremely overwhelming for him.

     One of the first things we noticed after he was on the program for about four months is that he was able to clean and organize his room with little supervision.  It is like we have a different child!      

     Timothy has been back in public school for 4^th grade (after being home schooled for 1½ years and focusing on the Little Giant Steps program) and is making mostly A’s and a few B’s.  His reading has improved beyond our wildest hopes.  He has improved exponentially in every academic area.  His teacher said, “I don’t know what you did with him, but this is not the same child as in 2^nd grade.” 

     I met with Timothy’s dyslexia teacher recently because she sent out results of her end of year testing. Even though the report showed that his scores increased in every area, I wanted to know if this was satisfactory progress. His teacher said, “N o it wasn’t just ok progress, it was GREAT progress!”. She said he was the “STAR of the class” and that all of the students look to him. For example, at the beginning of the year he could read 15 out 50 words. At the end of the year he could read 45 out of 50 of the words on this specific test. She said most kids do not make this much progress the first year!!!  She said, “You know, he still has a whole year left in this class.” 

     Here are Timothy’s TAKS scores for this year: 

• Reading:  93 (only missed 3 out of 40). This score is one point away from “commended”.
• Math:  82 (only missed 8 out of 42). Because of this score, he will not be pulled out of class next year for math tutoring.
• Writing:  72 (only missed 7 out of 28).  His writing improved a lot this year and I know it will continue to improve next year.

     We are so proud of him and he is proud of himself, also. These scores are just more evidence to substantiate that the Neuro-Educational Approach (neurodevelopmental intervention) to learning is incredibly successful!   D. C. in Frisco, TX

Our son came up two years academically in 3 months after being on the Neuro-Educational Program. The biggest indicator of progress to me has been that he is reading for pleasure! His problems are quite minor compared to what many families are dealing with, we were just frustrated at the lack of progress in several areas and felt like we needed an outside viewpoint.  ~  Jenny M

Many children are diagnosed, labeled and then dire predictions are cast on their future. Perhaps if nothing was done with the child, all these diagnostic prognostications would continue and  stand.  Little Giant Steps breaks that cycle and renders such predictions  null and void.  The Neuro-Educational Program provides brain-based techniques that literally changes the course of ones functional abilities.  Here is an example as witnessed by this boy’s mom:

“After working with my son  in the neurodevelopmental program, it is paying off.   John Paul was tested last week and was able to test out to go into the 7th grade level on all courses.  His best score was in reading, which was what others said would not ever happen.  We are all so excited and grateful.  I do know that a parent does have to go outside the box, but also has to trust that God will continue to put people in your path that will help you.  Jan Bedell was one of those people God placed in our path.  Thank you, RW

When the World Doesn’t Understand

By Jan Bedell, M.Ed.

 When your one week-old baby is toting a pair of casts from toes to mid-thigh (congenital clubfeet), the world doesn’t understand.  When your three year-old doesn’t talk clearly enough that anyone can understand her, the world doesn’t understand.  When you spend more time at the doctor’s, occupational therapist’s, physical therapist’s and speech therapist’s offices than at home, the world doesn’t have a clue.  When your adult daughter hugs someone un-expectedly from behind, interrupting a conversation, the world thinks she is rude.  One of the hardest things about raising a developmentally delayed child is that the world judges and doesn’t understand!  My greatest joys and deepest heartaches are wrapped up in my sweet, funny, clumsy, first to pray, on the lookout for how she can help, hard to understand, gift of a lifetime. 

Since my gift arrived in 1977, I have spent my life looking for help and trying to understand people like my daughter.  The answer is definitely found in the brain. What is it in their brains that cause such unusual behaviors?  It’s in the “wiring” and my findings indicate that much can be done about the faulty wiring.  Changing the wiring is a topic for another day but there is something you can do today. When your “typical” developing child encounters a child who doesn’t have that same advantage, encourage them to be involved with that child.  Help them to see how they might help and that reaching out to this special child is a gift they can give. You will be surprised by the gift they receive in return! Blog with us about the special needs of the developmentally delayed population and their families at www.littlegiantsteps.com.

It’s true!  Eliminate dyslexia symptoms through the LGS Neruo-Educational Program.  Here’s a family in the process of doing just that:

My husband and I have one son who has been on program for 6 months. We home school our children. Our middle son did not start learning to read until he was 7 years old, and reading and spelling have always been difficult for him. We are mainly working on visual dominance, macular refraction, and tactility issues. I sometimes feel like the “Patch Patrol” constantly reminding him to wear his patch! And then, there are the dreaded “bug glasses” as we like to call them (pinhole glasses)!  We have also worked on visual and auditory sequential processing, conceptualization, and articulation. At our 4 month re-evaluation, we were so encouraged with the results. We saw changes/progress in all areas, including a 2 grade level jump in all academic testing areas. I was especially thrilled with his improvement in reading decoding which is very weak. We have yet to see improvement in spelling, but I have faith that it will follow once his visual dominance and refraction problems are completely corrected. I am sold on the benefits of this program and so very thankful for it and the work of our evaluator. It has been an answer to prayer! Jen B.

Today I’d like you to meet Liz Sweet, Neuro-educational Specialist.  She has been a home-school mom who has invested her life in the service of others in conjunction with the ministry of her husband, Dana.  Liz’s journey with her daughter is one of watching a simple Neuro-Educational Program with Little Giant Steps bring into being the true potential of her daughter.

Watch Liz as she takes you through her experience.  Liz’s Story

My son was 15 yrs. old with a high IQ and STILL had not memorized his multiplication facts. He was capable of understanding abstract math concepts, but was bogged down figuring out each simple computation because he did not have them memorized.  We tried everything imaginable before Rapid Recall System was recommended to us. I had actually given up and did not expect Rapid Recall System to work either. Amazingly, it did work with just spending a few minutes each day! He now knows all of his multiplication facts.   LS, California

Here is a note from a teacher involved in a research program done in 2008-2009:

After using the neurodevelopmental approach in my classroom this past year, my students improved academically, gained strength physically and matured emotionally.  These students individually were able to complete sequences of tasks without promptings as well as staying focused on the task that was before them.  Other adults around them commented that their reasoning skills as well as their organizational skills were far above those of peers.  Unlike other first grade classrooms in my past 18 years of teaching and those around us not participating in the program, these students were more respectful of each other and worked together to accomplish tasks without arguments.  Students were successful, so both the students and teacher’s stress level came down.   Together, we were working “smarter”, not harder. 

RAPID RECALL SYSTEM

What a fantastic math facts system!  In 18 years of teaching, I have tried many ways to teach math facts but this system was by far the easiest to implement and I had better results with this system than anything else I have tried – all in just 7 minutes a day!   Even my lower-level students flourished and were successful under this system.

Tanda Trussell, First Grade Teacher

Plemons-Stinnett-Phillips CISD

Stinnett, TX