The Brain
Retraining the brain transforms lives. The children I have used these techniques with have improved significantly, not only academically, but socially, emotionally, and behaviorally as well. When the brain becomes balanced and wired correctly then kids can learn and succeed as nature intended. These techniques that you will learn about are based on over thirty years of research on how the brain works. The foundational work in this area was done by two medical doctors, Glenn and Robert Doman, and an educator, Carl Delacoto. These men were trying to find out how head injury patients could recover functions that were lost, such as reading and writing. Their findings brought the conclusion that the brain develops through stimulation and that children are not born “wired” for all tasks at birth. They become wired for these tasks by doing certain physical activities as they develop.
The doctors discovered that creeping, crawling, exploring, examining, looking, and listening were the activities that helped to integrate the brain for reading, writing, and math later in life. So, if a child didn’t crawl enough as an infant, then he/she might not be reading well because the necessary wiring in the brain did not take place at the correct developmental stage. Not all learning problems relate to crawling, though.
The body is also organized for movement and processing information. If a child’s dominant hand is opposite of his/her dominant eye, this can interfere with learning, especially reading. Jerome Rosner, in his book Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties, mentions this problem but feels that it is not a conclusive argument because not all children who are mixed dominant (the term used for dominant hand and opposite dominant eye) show learning problems. I, too, have found this to be true. As a matter of fact, I am mixed dominant and have never had any learning problems. However, I have found that the kids I do work with who are mixed dominant have a greater hurtle to overcome.
Also, speaking from someone who is mixed dominant, I always had an unsettled feeling, as if I didn’t fit in or belong. I feel it is from this misalignment. Once I started doing martial arts, I noticed a more balanced feeling. I think it has to do with the physical exercises that were necessary to help wire my brain to “see” correctly. In addition, I do have some other learning problems that just don’t show up in “academics”. I have no sense of direction and get lost easily. I have problems with bridles, saddles, ropes, and seeing how things fit together. I get frustrated with anything mechanical. However, I have always had outstanding grades. I feel that the mixed dominance shows up in different areas and is indeed a point to consider. If you think about it, we read from left to right. Our right eye should lead off when moving across a page. If you are mixed dominant, and you are right handed but left eye dominant, you will want to lead off with your left eye. This is confusing and not efficient. Some of us learn to overcome it, perhaps by shear persistence, but many kids suffer because of this problem.
To correct a learning issue, you must go back and correct the deficits in the developmental process. By using brain retraining techniques, the brain can be “rewired” for proper, efficient learning. Doman and Delacato’s research showed that approximately 80% of American children pass through the necessary developmental stages as they should. That leaves 20% of the children in our country who are left struggling in school, most of which are boys.
What is the Cause?
I am often asked by perplexed parents what caused this learning problem in their child. There are three theories that presently explain the causes:
1.) There is a genetic component. These same problems came about with more than one generation.
2.) Environmental factors contributed. Perhaps the child didn’t crawl or walked too early. Or, maybe during an important development phase, the child was restricted to a walker or playpen. At any rate, the complete developmental process did not occur.
3.) Mild brain injury might have occurred. Difficult births where oxygen deprivation occurred, high fevers, and bumps on the head can cause mild damage that a neurological exam could miss.
In addition to these theories by experts, I have personally noticed a huge increase in the number of students with learning problems. I have found the following explanations to add to the list:
1.) Children are playing too many video and computer games and watching too much television. The right brain dominant child is especially attracted to the color and pictures of these activities, which in reality is harmful to their learning if done too much. These are activities that do not involve physical movement, and the brain needs physical movement to keep rewiring for learning.
2.) Our society is fast paced and children today get instant gratification. Kids today have fast food and high speed internet. They don’t have to wait for much. Because of this, they rarely have the opportunity to hold visual images in their minds. The need to hold and recall a visual image is extremely important for academic success in reading, writing, and math.
3.) Too much indoor time and not enough unstructured outdoor time. Kids today don’t roll down hills or hang upside down from trees. They aren’t allowed to stay out playing kick the can after dark. It’s just not safe. Instead, they are shuffled from school to soccer and back home for homework. The television runs constantly in most homes and children are drawn to this passive activity. Imaginative, unstructured time outdoors is missing, and the brain is suffering because of this.
4.) Early push of academics. Our new standards have given an increasingly harsh push on academics at increasingly earlier ages. Gone are our sandbox kindergartens where kids developed gross motor skills by marching and painting. They learned about the rhythm of our language by singing songs. They developed at their own pace and never had to do work they weren’t ready for. When young children are forced to learn academics before they are developmentally ready to, a learning problem can crop up later on.
What is the Brain’s Function?
The brain is organized three dimensionally: Top to Bottom Back to Front Side to Side Physical movement helps to accomplish much of the organizational wiring in the brain because it is not completely wired at birth. Practicing a task builds electrical connections in the brain for the task. That way the task can be performed again without thought. Swimmers, for instance, don’t think about the specific strokes and movements they are performing time and again. They simply perform the activity automatically.
The brain is also split into two parts, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. These two halves are quite different from each other and have very specific functions. Lack of integration between the two halves can cause learning problems. People whose brains are not well integrated use one side of their brain at a time. Switching off half of the brain repeatedly can be exhausting for them. There must be integration for efficient learning.
The Left Brain
The left side of the brain is the “linear logical” hemisphere and controls the right side of the body. The left hemisphere perceives the world in bits and pieces and loves to organize and categorize. It is also the language hemisphere and is involved with auditory processing, phonics and sounding out words. It also gives readers “that little silent voice” inside the head while reading. Math also is a left hemisphere activity. In conclusion, the left side of the brain is the “try” side. When trying a new activity, it is the left hemisphere that comes into play.
In modern schools in America, most of the expectations are those that are on the left side of the brain. Students are judged by their left brain abilities. If the student is right brain dominant, then the schools will judge the student to be failing.
The Right Brain
The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and is quite a bit different than the left side of the brain. The right hemisphere is responsible for movement, especially automatic movement. Many right-brain dominant students are in perpetual motion, especially when concentrating. Movement allows them to keep the right side busy so they can function in the left side. As previously mentioned, America’s modern schools are judging students primarily on left hemisphere activities. As the right-brain dominant student wiggles and tries to stay in the left side of the brain, he/she will often be misdiagnosed as hyperactive or having ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). I wonder how many right-brain dominant students are misdiagnosed as having ADHD and are put on medications that they don’t need.
The right hemisphere likes rhythm and music. It is attracted to shapes, colors, and patterns. The right hemisphere makes pictures in the mind while reading. In addition, it is the emotional side of the brain. Many right-brain dominant people have a tendency to get “stuck” in their emotions. They may have temper problems or get their feelings hurt frequently. Right-brain dominant people have the ability to put together parts into a whole. These people can stand back and see the whole picture. However, sometimes they become overwhelmed and tasks seem too big to accomplish.
These students are often unorganized and will fall behind on their assignments. When push comes to shove and they are forced to make up their work, they become so overwhelmed that they just freeze and get nothing done. Also, daydreaming is a right brain activity, which makes it difficult for teachers to know if they are listening or daydreaming. Overall, right-brain dominant kids are creative, humorous and delightful to be around. They are often misjudged and have so much potential in classes if we could just adjust our definitions of learning and success.
Brain Balance
It is obvious that we need both sides of the brain to work together in harmony for learning and a balanced life. For instance, to read, a person needs to constantly be accessing both the left and right hemispheres of the brain simultaneously. If a student is “stuck” in one side of the brain, then reading becomes difficult because the student isn’t able to access the other side of the brain. In the middle of the brain is a bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. It is basically the network of circuitry that allows the left and right hemisphere to communicate with each other freely.
In people who have integration problems, the corpus callosum acts as a wall instead of an integration device. If someone has dyslexia, visual information taken in bounces off of the wall and comes out differently, perhaps backward or upside down. Some people receive auditory information that bounces off the wall and is lost. These people don’t have the necessary “Velcro” to hold auditory information in their brains. They in turn have a difficult time concentrating, holding on to what is heard, and tuning out extraneous information. These students can’t hold directions in auditory memory, either. They might lose certain parts of sounds that are heard such as the middle of a word or the end of a sentence. They hear just bits and pieces, which can cause a great deal of confusion. It can isolate the student as well, since we build relationships through verbal communication.
When babies are born, the corpus callosum isn’t integrated. Physical movement wires the brain to do simple tasks, such as sucking a thumb. As the baby grows, physical activities increase until the baby crawls. This crawling activates both sides of the brain simultaneously and teaches them to work together. The eyes of an infant or child activate the brain. For instance, when a baby is crawling and looking up, the visual memory center of the brain is activated. This sets the stage for later learning. If the baby misses the activation of one of an area related to learning, then a learning problem can occur later on.
Brain Retraining
When something goes wrong in this whole process, most people feel that they must accept the limitations given or just practice more. Few people realize that there is indeed something you can do to go back and create those neural pathways. Brain Retraining is the answer. Brain Retraining is done through a series of physical exercises that selectively access a certain part of the brain by having the eyes look in a specified direction. The direction is related to a sensory stimulation point. So, that’s the theory and background behind brain retraining. Now we’re ready to get going on how to actually retrain the brain.
Brain Retraining is so simple. It is a series of specified activities that rebuilds neural pathways so that learning can be easy. It only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to do and is done only once a week. If you can follow a recipe, you can retrain a brain! However, it is not a stand alone program. You must also consider the senses - seeing, hearing, and coordinating the eyes and the hands as well as memory and processing of information if you are to actually overcome a learning problem.
