Intelligence and learning problems

by Sue Cook

We could be forgiven for thinking that those with learning problems are not as intelligent as others, but we know that to be untrue.
Neuro developmental issues are a sensory problem, a problem of interaction with the world, not a low IQ. Neuro developmental delay is separate from intelligence but it affects a person’s ability to prove their intelligence in the ways accepted by society. Children experiencing these problems under-perform at school and as a result can suffer from constant feelings of failure, lack of achievement and being judged as simple. For these children it is frustrating to know and understand things, yet find writing and reading very difficult. For some, just sitting in a classroom chair is impossible.

What does it mean to have Sensory problems?
This is when the brain's interface with the world is not functioning as it should. The brain only knows what is going on because the body tells it, whether it is too hot, too cold, too light (dazzling the eyes), too loud, and so on. So if the brain is not receiving the information from the senses, (the nerves) correctly, then the message the brain gets may be one of confusion.

These are some examples that you may see:

• If the pupils are not contracting enough then there is too much light hitting the retinas causing dazzle. Some children paint the page black to ease their eyes, but people think they do this because they are disturbed in some way. Not so.
• If the eyes can't 'track' (follow a moving object with the head still) then a small child at nursery will be upset amongst the noise and movement of the other children and may hang on to his mother, terrified. This symptom will also result in the child being unable to copy from the blackboard or catch a ball.
• If the vision and balance is not working together, then you may observe toe walking and hand flapping in a child. This can be corrected. It can also be induced in a person without this symptom by placing certain spectacles on them.
• If you want an example of how important balance is to vision, spin round and round until dizzy. Then stop. While the liquids in the ears are still moving, you will feel as though you are still moving and this is a good example of how balance plays such an important part of vision.
• Sometimes the skin is so sensitive that a child cannot bear to wear clothes or have their hair cut. These often correct themselves on the programme.

All these examples are demonstrations of the senses not working properly. So by correcting the nerves, we correct the senses.

 Sue Cook specialises on Neuro Developmental Delay.  

 

Read more on: www.brainbuzzz.co.uk

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And they said it couldn't be done...

 by Sue Cook

Some of you might have been told that what I am about to tell you is not possible. My father told me when my son was diagnosed with dyslexia, that there was no cure, we had to learn to live with it.

We have been told that the brain has a window of optimum development that closes around three years of age. We are told it’s too late or impossible to help our learning disabled child.

So if that were true, how did we learn to drive as an adult? Or learn karate or Tai Chi, or learn to dance, or take exams, or create anything new, or be inventive?

There’s no cure remember, the window of opportunity has closed.

Well someone is wrong, clearly we do learn past three years old, we do create and invent and think and grow and develop.

This is because the brain is plastic; it changes every time we learn something new, nerves grow so that we can remember it, learn it, know it. It’s happening now, in you. As you think about what I am saying, if it’s new.

So how do we take advantage of this plasticity to help our child with dyslexia, or dyspraxia, or ADHD, or Asperger’s or autism or dyscalculia?

Knowledgeable intervention. There has been an explosion of research into the brain in the last 80 and especially the last 20 years. Science has moved on from believing that ‘there is no cure’, to discovering nerve growth factors, and how if different ones are applied either side of a severed rat spine, 30% of movement is regained.

Nerves do grow. The conditions I mentioned are sensory; we can’t read if our vision is not working properly, we can’t balance if our ears and eyes and headrighting reflex is not working properly and together. We can’t function at our best when there is no dominant hemisphere, and the two hemispheres are not sufficiently connected.

Instead we have the conditions I mentioned. The brain learns from movement.
Development is hierarchical. That’s why if a problem occurred in utero, birth or in infancy, developmental stages are stuck there, the child can’t move on.

But they can if we repeat the developmental stages. Go through them again, give the brain another chance to develop as it should have done the first time had nothing gone wrong. And we can do this because the brain is plastic, and we have knowledge.

Ask me about the results, or the parents who bring their children, we are all parents of formerly learning disabled children. Now progressing. Now happier, now functioning as they should, or moving towards that depending how new they are to the programme.

So why should you listen to me? Well, let not those who say it can’t be done get in the way of those doing it, and succeeding.

 Sue Cook specialises on Neuro Developmental Delay. Read more on:
www.brainbuzzz.co.uk

www.anythingspecialneeds.co.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/tabitha.twitchett