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School Age Children

Learning Challenges and Neuro-Developmental Delay

Most children with learning challenges, from attention deficit to autism, have all the resources within them to be able to learn. Children learn and problem solve primarily through natural, developmental movement.

“Movement is the door to learning” (Brain Gym author, Paul Dennison).  Developmental movement and reflexes are the keys to school readiness.

Developmental movement patterns and reflexes are nature’s pathways to organize and structure the brain, vision and hearing for learning. When a child has fulfilled his/her developmental movements, then learning and getting along are easy. If movement is not well organized, then attention, cognition, problem solving and relationships may be difficult.

Reflexes provide natural, automatic hook-ups between the body and the brain. However, immature reflexes can create disorganization in the brain. A disorganized brain runs habit patterns that get in the way of learning. The brain is very malleable, so simple developmental movement activities help children learn and resolves many problems with behavior.

Research has shown that school age children who have immature reflexes have a higher incidence of specific learning difficulties compared with children with mature reflexes. (O’Dell and Cook, 1996; Wilkinson, 1994; Bender, 1976; Rider, 1972; Gustafsson, 1970). The brain is very responsive to developmental movement and reflex therapy. (Goddard, 2004; Bainbridge Cohen, 1998, Mustogovich, 2002, Lamont, 2005, Blomberg, 2004) Immature reflexes affect every aspect of the whole child, summarized below.

Extreme siblings:

Very passive baby

Hyperactive kindergartener

Sean and Meghan

 

 

 

Problems associated with Neuro-Developmental Delay

Children who have challenges in the following areas may have neuro-developmental delay:

Learning

Difficulty with:

  • focusing
  • tracking
  • organizing vision
  • coordinating right and left
  • transition
  • relating to others
  • self regulating
  • calming himself
  • sitting still
  • expressing ideas
  • thinking logically
  • reading
  • refining discrimination
  • responding quickly
  • being timid
  • articulating
  • holding a pencil
  • writing and doing calculations
  • decreasing reversal frequency
  • reading and comprehending
  • memorizing information
  • organizing information
  • sequencing information
  • storing and retrieving information
  • processing sensory information

Emotional/Behaviors/Social

Difficulty with:

  • adaptability
  • ability to make decisions
  • stamina
  • sensitivity threshold
  • balance
  • posture
  • behavior
  • sense of time
  • eye-hand coordination
  • muscle tone
  • spatial perception
  • manual dexterity
  • crossing midline
  • general anxiety
  • hyperactivity
  • car sickness
  • aversion to sports
  • poor self concept
  • relating to others
  • reading body language
  • poor coordination
  • lowered immunity/allergies
  • poor attention span

Benefits of Developmental Movement Therapy

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Developmental movement and reflex therapy builds on a child’s own inner resources of brain and movement connections to improve:

In simple movement activities children activate the critical brain pathways that help to organize themselves for optimal learning. Clinically proven strategies can provide significant improvement for children with a wide range of challenges. Research and clinic references

Healthy brain development and

Neuro-developmental challenges

Developmental movements and craniosacral health are vital in early childhood development. Early assessment and intervention can make a lifetime difference in brain function, emotional resilience and physical health.

Are you concerned about your child's development?

Review a checklist of Risk Factors for Neuro-Developmental Delay

 

 

Resolving immature reflexes

“Recent research shows that reflex abnormalities can be corrected by using a specific movement program to stimulate the appropriate reflexes at a later age, and that reflex maturation is accompanied by improvements in reading and writing.” (McPhillips, et al. 2000)

Lack of balance, attention and coordination greatly affects visual, auditory, and sensory integration processing. Through developmental movement opportunities children become more centered, attentive, and emotionally balanced. Children with well-developed nervous systems have less stress and find academic learning to be easy, natural, and automatic.

Academic learning depends upon the automization of basic skills at a physical level. If a child fails to develop this automatic motor control, a teacher might observe such symptoms as reversals in reading and writing, mis-articulations, poor impulse control, difficulty reading body language or unsatisfactory peer relationships, despite good intelligence. Change is unlikely unless the underlying neuro-developmental problem is addressed.” (Sally Goddard, 2001)

"Now struggles don’t define Cole the way they used to. He has come so far. In working with you we were able to see the real reasons behind his behaviors, and how to work with the causes of his behaviors.

"Cole has so much more confidence now. He can say,  “I can do this. I can focus.” The house is more peaceful. Cole can go with flow of family and activity.

"Going through your program went better than I thought it would go. I thought I would have to drag Cole to session and he would hate it. But it was actually pretty painless. It has been awesome for Cole to have play as therapy."

- Beth McAllister, mother

Read Cole's full story

Recommended: If your child has learning challenges, you can identify underlying issues with the checklists for Risk factors for NeuroDevelopmental Delay.

Catherine Burns partners with Plan for Learning to provide comprehensive support services for children with learning challenges:

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