What’s getting in the way of your fine brain?
When supporting people with dyslexia, we consider our Neurodevelopmental Program an essential gateway to becoming an independent, successful learner.
Simply put, neurodevelopment means the growth and evolution of the brain’s neural networks, which are so important in learning and information processing.
Our Firm Foundations for Learning program provides neurodevelopmental exercises, which allow your innate gifts to emerge. We start by assessing individual needs and strengths and learning about interests. We watch for clues about sensory and organizational challenges, and then tailor the neurodevelopmental exercises accordingly.
What Our Neurodevelopmental Program Addresses
While every child is unique, and every neurodevelopmental program is customized for the specific person, here are the systems that are most often relevant to clients with dyslexia:
- Eye Tracking and Teaming: Can your eyes follow a moving object smoothly? Do they meet at one spot without difficulty?
Dyslexia often comes with challenges in visual processing, and that’s why sometimes people skip or re-read words or lines or even find the words may seem to move or run together. When your eyes are straining, it is hard to concentrate on what you are doing. Studying can be really tiring and that reduces your ability to learn and remember. This strain can be reduced with relaxation techniques and specific playful activities. Eye teaming is not only relevant to academics, but to eye contact and non verbal communication.
- Coordination between both sides of the body: Inspired by the work of Judith Bluestone, and having learned from our experience working with clients, we note that rhythmic movements that involve both sides of the body support not only physical coordination but also how you process. Since each side of the brain is responsible for movement in one side of the body, coordinated movement involves communication between the two sides of the brain. The fascinating bit is that this communication also helps with learning: with memory, with organization, with decision making, problem solving, creative thinking, and language processing: comprehension as well as expressive language.
- Vestibular System: The vestibular system involves sensors in the inner ears that read the position and movement of the head, as well as the sensors’ connections in the brain. This system impacts much more than balance. The function of the vestibular system supports the eyes, the ears, muscle tone and the sense of movement, and therefore is relevant to anything from posture to reading to auditory processing.
- Proprioception, or the sense of body parts, where they are in relation to one another and in the surrounding environment:
Number sense and other elements of math depend very much on learning through our bodies. Even organization and words that describe where things are (over, under, between etc.) are things that we learn through our bodies before we can apply them to other objects. Sentences and words being in the right order also have to do with recognising the structure of your own body.
- Auditory processing
Irregularities often get in the way of following instructions, understanding the task, reading and spelling. When we work very gently with hearing tasks that get gradually more complex, we can help make such challenges easier.
- Directionality:
Very often people with dyslexia have difficulty sorting out right from left. This can translate to challenges with recognizing and writing certain letters, challenges with maintaining the correct direction in reading, and elements of math.
Again, each individual is unique, so this is intended to provide representative examples. For any given client, we may also find that we need to address other systems to support their development.
The brain has the capacity to form and reorganize synaptic connections, including in response to repeated activities.
This suggests that brain connections can indeed be supported through targeted neurodevelopmental activities.
What makes our approach unique is the combination of neurodevelopment with study skills tutoring. Since we tailor both to meet each client’s needs, we remain flexible in how we apply the two.
We generally recommend that a student start with our neurodevelopmental program. The reason is that we often find that addressing the neurological irregularities first tends to require very little tutoring to follow, if any.
However, some of our clients are very much behind with their academics and need help to catch up. So we adjust the program accordingly. Our goal remains the same: equip our clients with the ability to excel academically and in life.
