Archive for the ‘Neuroplasticity’ Category

Q. Since our child was about 18 months we’ve known there was something different about him.  He’s very intelligent, has an extremely well developed language ability, but it’s like he gets either focused on something to the extreme or he’s off in la-la- land day dreaming. He seems to get some things in school, but other things he just cannot remember. How could your neuro-educational program help him?

Ans:  Our program works with the neuroplasticity feature of the brain. Our whole objective is to assist in creating, completing or repairing the neuro-connections that allow the brain and body to communicate efficiently and effectively. What you are describing are symptoms which are not a new phenomenon to us.  Many of our clients are gifted, but have quirks that seem to prevent them from learning, organizing their thoughts or even engaging socially.  Some come to us with labels such as ADD, ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, PDD and some come because their parents recognized symptoms that seem to hamper their children from having normal experiences in the world in which they live. What our program does is to eliminate those symptoms at the root cause in the brain.  We provide individualized and appropriate activities that will cause the brain to create a change through brain-based stimuli. If a child missed essential developmental steps during the course of their early years, what we do will help to organize the lower levels of the brain, close those learning “gaps” and allow for better input and output of information.  Once a child becomes neurologically efficient, they can truly develop their true God-given potential.  We just help to create or complete the circuitry in the brain that was not developed as needed to be successful academically, physically and sometimes socially.  Please read the articles on our website for more information about our methodology, philosophy and successes.

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.

The people who come to Little Giant Steps (LGS) usually are at their wits end trying to find a solution for their child’s learning disorder or problem.  Because we work from a natural developmental approach, we see things like this mother describes daily!  And it’s really fun seeing success and confidence growing and glowing in the faces of our clients.

“When I was asked to use one word to describe my experience with Little Giant Steps, I said, life-changing. When our daughter started the program, she was highly frustrated, emotional, and her attention span was terrible. The only way she could focus on school work was in a totally quiet environment. She wanted to help and follow instructions but could not remember. She was also hyper-sensitive, we had to cut out all tags from her clothing. Megan improved two grade levels in math, word recognition and comprehension in one year. She can now read in a noisy room and leaves most tags in her clothing. Her auditory processing skills have improved dramatically. We know that Megan would have been given several different labels if we had taken her to Scottish Rite. We feel blessed that Little Giant Steps has given us hope for her future. Thank you and God’s blessings. “T. E. in Plano, TX

“Thank you so much for the encouraging words and advice – it really helps me to stay motivated and hopeful. I appreciate this group so much.

FREEDOM

 And now…. I have some great news from my “neuro-program” boy… he learned to ride his bike without training wheels this week! Last year he just did not have the skills at all, but this spring he had picked up on his own and started riding his scooter, and his balance was so good on it that I thought it might be time to try the bike again. It took only one good head start from Daddy, and he was off down the road – he even turned a curve and came back!!!  He was so excited!!  He drove into the driveway, dropped his bike over, and came running up to high-five his daddy and me, saying, “I KNEW I COULD DO IT!!!” This is from the little boy who suffers with feelings of failure at so many things. And his sisters and brother were running along behind him cheering him on, and one of the neighbor boys shouted “YOU ROCK ISAIAH!” He was so proud and needless to say we were, too.

I wanted to share this with you guys, since I seem to share only when I get discouraged. I can see where his program has really helped his body awareness this past year, among other things. I am praying for more to come! “ ~ Selena

 The LGS Neuro-Educational Approach is a program that provides the necessary brain stimulation to form neuro-pathways that were never developed during the earlier developmental stages of a child’s life. Each child will advance according to their own capacities.  (It also works on teens and adults – see test results) There are a myriad of things that keep our children from developing neurological efficiency.  Some have to do with illness as infants, some have to do with ear infections, but by and large most of our kiddos who seem to be bright, yet struggle with school were never given adequate exposure to activities that early on organize the lower levels of the brain, build a strong neuro-networks and connections.  We are raising a generation of children who have missed being on the floor and having “tummy time” which allows for the body to help stimulate and map the brain.  It is unfortunate we place our babies in the car seat when taking them home from the hospital, and for the majority of their infancy they remain in the up-right postion and miss getting all of the vital tactile, neuro-stimuli that is required in order to process information at lightening speed and efficiency.  It’s all about the  mind-body connections.  What the LGS Neuro-Educational Program does is to work with the plasticity of the brain to form, repair and even create connections / neuro-pahtways to enhance internal communication.  Most of the “learning disability” symptoms literally go away when the child is experiencing the benefits of a well organized brain, good auditory & visual processing abilities (yes, we work with that along the way) and other areas that may show up in the child’s evaluation.  To discover more about our very successful programs, click here.   There are free articles for you to investigate the science, philosophy and design of our neuro-educational models.   Now, let’s listen to Jenny, a mom who discovered how her son could be helped:

“Our son came up two years academically in 3 months. 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.

By the way, we have designed curriculum utilizing our approach, as well as a Neuro-Edcational Program called Developmental Foundations which is an at-home program that will get your child up and running with improved academic abilities.

It is truly amazing how a slight shift in neuro-efficiency can make the difference between a child suffering from repeated under-performance at school, to a child that “gets it, retains it, and loves the fact they can do the work.”   As a neuro-educational specialist, I look at six levels of functioning and nine levels of development. Most of  the children I see are bright kids who suffer from disorganization, inability to pay attention, problems with reading, writing, math and retaining information. Typically, they are as puzzled as their parents and teachers as to why they can’t seem to succeed in mastering their subjects in school.  Of course, everyone is different!  The evaluation that is done illuminates  the areas of the brain where those “quirky” deficits reside.  Then, it’s a matter of writing a neuro-educational program that will address the root causesand the recommended activities are the catalysts that impacts the neuroplasticity of the brain and causes it to change, create new neuro-pathways and optimize the connections between the brain and body.  When a person’s wiring is fully developed, it’s amazing how many of the “symptoms” of learning disabilities simply no longer exist.  I have the privilege of seeing children go from failing in school to above average students. I’ve seen non-verbal autistic children become verbal and socialized, mentally challenged youngsters come into a potential no one ever thought possible. My biggest hope is that the word will get out how easily many learning issues can be resolved by getting back to the basics: Developmental Foundations.

Just received this letter from a mom about the wonderful things she’s experiencing with her daughter’s improved abilities:

        Just a short note of encouragement to you for all your hard work in bringing this program to all of us.Our daughter, Shannon age 11, has ADHD & CAPD and had her initial eval. with Ruth on Feb. 18th. We’ve been on program for about 4 weeks now. Her #. letter sequencing age was 4-5 yrs old at eval., I believe. We’ve neverbeen able to give her more than 2-3 letters at a time when she’s asked how to spell something. Last night, she asked how to spell “Twilight”, I just rattled it off without pausing in the middle and I waited for the backlash…..”WAIT…THAT’S TOO FAST, I CAN’T DO IT THAT FAST!!!” But that never happened. I can’t believe it. A few hours later I pointed it out to her and she smiled and said, ” hummm, maybe I am getting better!”. I think that sole experience will be the best motivator for her. She sees tangible evidence that all this work is actually changing her brain.

ANSWER:  Many Children Have Low Auditory Progressing Abilities Which Decreases The Ability To  Receive, Comprehend, Store, and Retrieve Information.

Why are so many children struggling with low auditory processing?
            Many years ago, when our educational system was developed, we were primarily an auditory society; we ate together as families 2-3 times a day and TALKED.  We read as a family in the evenings or listened to radio broadcasts for hours.  We developed our auditory processing ability by practicing. 
            Today, our society is primarily visual with T. V., computers, movies, electronic games, etc.  These all consuming visual activities permeate our lives and leave little time for the truly important practice of listening and developing our auditory processing abilities.  Even though our society is primarily visual, we are still using the educational delivery system that was developed for a primarily auditory society. 
 
What can be done?
            Since the brain is dynamic and ever changing, much can be done to remediate the processing ability of any person, at any age.  By providing specific stimulation to the brain to increase ones auditory processing ability, global benefits will result for the child or anyone who applies these activities for a four month period. 
            You can request a FREE auditory test kit  or by emailing: orderdept@littlegiantsteps.com  Put “Free Auditory Test Kit” in the subject line. This kit will allow you to test any individual ages four to adult.  Also, reading the Auditory Processing Booklet will add to you knowledge and skill.  This information will give you a baseline to work from and a better understanding of your child’s struggles or inefficiencies.  To increase auditory processing, digit span exercises can be done with a four minute time investment and the reward of increased abilities globally.  Instructions for digit spans are also included in the free kit.
              In addition to digit spans daily, I encourage you to read to your children at least one hour a day as an additional way of developing processing skills.  When they are not listening to you read, they could be listening to books or stories on tape/CD (without the book).  This is a great way to add value to the time spent playing with legos, coloring or other fine motor activities.  Listening to audio stories and books (not music) increases vocabulary, helps reinforce sentence structure, provides opportunity for narration, models good writing structure in addition to developing auditory sequential processing. 
            Audio stories are also a wonderful way to productively occupy pre-school children while you are schooling older siblings.  You can see amazing results when you get your child up to grade level in his/her auditory processing abilities.

Winning Over Learning Disabilities

Jan Bedell is known as “The Brain Coach!  Here is her post for today:

  I am privileged to see some of the most dedicated parents in the world!  I had a family in my office yesterday with 3 children on the autism spectrum.  She has been faithful to do her neurodevelopmental (ND) program and Samonas sound therapy with the children for several years.  After all that hard work, two of the three would not be “suspect” to the untrained eye to have any  unusual or autistic issues. The other child is so mild that people that don’t see them often are amazed.  The thing that I thought was so momentous about this mother is that she finds herself expecting another child and one of the first things she thought of was putting the infant on an ND program very early to make sure he had a great start in life.

Q: “My child has a good heart, but he is disruptive and out of control so much we really hate to take him anywhere.  How would your program help him?” 

Answer:  You remind me of a child (we’ll call him Sam) who came to our office about six years ago.  Thank goodness his mother loved him, because he was a chore to tolerate. He, too, had his moments where he was the most caring and endearing little guy. Unfortunately, those were the exceptions, rather than the rule for him.  To start, we evaluated him.  We discovered he was extremely hyper-sensitive to all sorts of stimuli.  He also had an intolerance to some food additives, which would set him off on a downward spiral of destructive behavior that was big enough to cause severe marital discord between his parents.  There were other issues such as dominance and extreme problems with his tactile system and sound.  All these problems were addressed with a specific program designed by a neuro-educational specialist.  Within 5 weeks his mother contacted us and said he had slept all night and there seemed to be a leveling of his behavior.  He wasn’t screaming at his little sister because of her loud voice which, for the rest of the family, seemed to be within normal limits. He wasn’t as angry on a daily basis and the number of emotional meltdowns during the course of the day were less frequent.  Today, this little boy is now in junior high.  He has an academic standing above average. He interacts well with his peers, adults and people in authority.  Today, you’d never guess he was once an out of control tyrant.  That’s what our program does. It helps to get these children’s brains organized, their super-sensitivities normalized and it  increases their ability to process information, comprehend, and leave behind the chaotic behavior that resulted from gaps in his development.

 For the free articles CLICK HERE