NACD - The National Association for Child Development

NACD Newsletter - Volume 7, Issue 4 - November 2014

In this issue:

Tornados: Thoughts on the Brain and Child-Centered Learning
Testimonial: Elliot
ANNOUNCEMENT: NACD Cognition Coach - Toddler to Age 3 Now Available!
Upcoming Evaluation Dates

Tornados: Thoughts on the Brain and Child-Centered Learning

by Bob Doman

Understanding the brain and how it works has been the subject of a tremendous amount of study and research. Exploring such research in college really engaged and intrigued me, particularly when I realized that the knowledge that had been gained in neuroscience was not being acknowledged, reflected, or utilized by the educational community. Regrettably, this really hasn't changed significantly in the fifty years since I began these studies in college. Most of our schools still have difficulty utilizing the foundation of neuroplasticity, frequency, intensity, and duration and hold children hostage to a structure of curriculum that is contraindicated based on basic neuroscience. "Let's teach everyone the same thing and, if possible, even at the same time in the chronology of the school grade, and even month." Really!

I have always believed that our strength lies in our individuality. I have also always believed in unlimited potential and have fought against labeling and categorizing children. The educational opportunity should be about becoming, about opportunity and facilitation. Educationally we want to provide a child with the opportunity to develop the basic neurological pieces that help them learn, think, and communicate. We want to help them discover who they are, teach them to love learning and become lifelong learners, facilitate discovery, help them become passionate about things and life, and assist them in becoming an expert and excelling.

The nature of young children is that they develop intense interests that turn into little passions if given the opportunity. These early passions help us become the unique individuals we are, shaping how our brains take in and respond to input for the rest of our lives. One thing I find terribly sad is speaking with school children, whether they are five, ten, fifteen, or twenty, who can't think of anything that they are excited to learn. How do we take children who innately have passions and love learning and put them into an "educational" system that, rather than fostering these passions, tends to stifle them? As I have stated many times before, we have a system that takes preschool children who love learning everything, send them to school, and after twelve years, have taught them to hate learning anything. Sadly, the educational system often does a great job of teaching children that learning is "work" and boring. "Study this and take a test and move on." I can still recall my disappointment with ninth grade science. We had done the typical curriculum piece, studying rocks and minerals. We learned the basic facts, terms, and definitions and were getting to the point where we really could start learning, when it was time to take a test and get ready to move on to the next thing. But I wasn't ready to move on to the next thing--astronomy. Everyone in that class was different and I was no exception, because I grew up next to a vacant lot that was filled with lots of cool rocks and minerals. One of these little treasures that amazed me was mica. I though mica was really cool; as a matter of fact, I still think mica is really cool and I still have a modest rock and fossil collection as testimony to the power that the first piece of mica had on my then-five-year-old brain. I still wish I had been able to pursue more about rocks and minerals way back when and become an expert. That wasn't so easy without help in the fifties, when my prized possession, the Encyclopedia Britannica, had only limited information, and I had to take a bus or ride my bike a few miles in hopes that the tiny public library had more information. But the curriculum wouldn't permit it; it was time to move on and get some more isolated facts, dates, and definitions. We are all unique, and what we bring to any and every situation determines how our brains react to, interpret, and assimilate each and every bit of information. Educationally we need to stimulate, not stagnate.

Understanding the brain facilitates developing and changing the brain.

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Elliot Payne
by Sunette Payne, as told to Iliana Clift

Watch Elliot's Testimonial Movie on YouTube

Elliot was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), which means that the left side of his heart, the side that receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body, was severely underdeveloped. In addition to this very severe heart defect, he also had a restricted atrial septum, which meant that he would most likely be born blue and need immediate surgery. Usually this abnormality is first seen in a prenatal ultrasound, and such was the case with us. We had three options: we could choose to abort Elliot, carry him to term and watch him die within the first few days of his life, or undergo a series of open-heart surgeries in an attempt to repair the defects.

After a lot of prayer and seeking counsel, we decided to give Elliot the best chance at life we could possibly offer. At the tender age of 6 days, Elliot survived his first, the riskiest, surgery. He stayed in the hospital for two long months. Elliot needed a lot of support to stay alive. His oxygen saturations were low and he had to be on oxygen all the time. Even on oxygen his saturations remained problematic. He was simply too weak to drink from a bottle, and each day was a choice of breathing over eating. To compound matters, he also had severe reflux and could hardly stomach any milk. So before we could leave the hospital after two months, Elliot had fundoplication surgery and a G-tube placed, which is a feeding tube placed through the wall of the stomach. The second open-heart operation took place when Elliot was 4 months old, and the third and final surgery was shortly after he turned two. This was the most trying time in our lives. Elliot was full of personality and life, but at the same time, he was often tired, weak, and short of breath; his muscle tone was floppy and he would very seldom look at me.

I was aware that in addition to ongoing serious health concerns, children who have had open-heart surgery as infants due to complex congenital heart defects are at a higher risk for neurodevelopmental issues, compared to children without congenital heart defects. However, as an experienced occupational therapist, I was determined to face my son's challenges head on and began working with Elliot as soon as his condition stabilized. I tried various techniques, went to courses to learn more, and sought out the best doctors and therapists; yet, despite my efforts, Elliot was not doing well. I knew he could not see well, he had slow rolling and quick jerky nystagmus, and he really needed more oxygen. I tried everything I knew to help him to drink something by mouth, but he was simply too tired.

About the time that Elliot was one year old, I attended a child development seminar at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia and was intrigued by the idea of neuroplasticity. At the seminar, I learned some things that were helpful to Elliot, but I felt the Institutes' methods were very dogmatic, regimented and limited, and were certainly not a good match for our family. They would also not answer any questions that I had after we left the course. I continued to search for something that could help Elliot's specific challenges and unique needs and delays.

Somehow during one of my Internet searches I stumbled upon the NACD website. Soon after, I spoke to someone at the main office and decided to give NACD a try. I had an idea in my heart of what I was searching for, and during my conversation with someone at the office it seemed like they understood what we needed and expressed that they have helped children with similar needs to ours. I knew that no therapy or treatment could take away the diagnosis; but I believed that there had to be something that we could do to enable Elliot to overcome some of the obstacles that he faced. NACD seemed not to be taken aback by the multitude of issues that seemed completely overwhelming to me at times.

Implementing the NACD program has been a pretty straightforward process. Elliot's evaluator, Bob, takes into consideration how much time I am realistically able to dedicate to working with Elliot and adjusts the activities accordingly. I appreciate that. As parents we are dedicated to helping our children achieve their potential, but the NACD program doesn't have to consume our lives to the exclusion of everything else in order to attain change.

Elliot was three at his first NACD evaluation. After three years on program, he has achieved remarkable progress.

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ANNOUNCEMENT:

NACD Cognition Coach - Toddler to Age 3
Now Available for iPad!

We are proud to announce the release of the first in a series of Cognition Coach apps. The app follows the same easy to use and successful format of the NACD Home Speech Therapist -Apraxia apps. This first one is called Cognition Coach-NACD Simply Smarter Toddler to 3 years.

The NACD Simply Smarter Toddler app establishes the foundation for children who are neurodevelopmentally functioning at the level of a six-month old to a neuro-typical three year old. This app takes children through six levels, from the basics of learning how to identify pictures to sequentially processing up to three objects. Cognition Coach is designed to jump-start children by building sequential processing skills, the building blocks for developing short-term and working memory.

Cognition Coach-NACD Simply Smarter Preschool will be released shortly, followed by Elementary, Teen, and Adult apps.

To see the Simply Smarter Toddler app in the iTunes store, click here: