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 activities, which in turn allow your innate gifts to emerge.
We start by assessing individual needs and interests and tailoring the neurodevelopmental activities 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:
Our neurodevelopmental program delves deeper to enhance things like eye coordination, benefiting not only academic skills but also non-verbal communication. Neurodevelopmental activities can also aid in language processing and comprehension.
- Eye Tracking and Teaming: Dyslexia often goes with challenges with visual processing, and that’s why the words often seem to move or run together. When the eyes are straining, study can be really tiring and that reduces our ability to learn and remember. This strain can be reduced with relaxation techniques and certain playful activities. In addition we may be looking at other ways to support the student through changing the font size or color, the background color, and exploring whether auditory learning is helpful to the individual.
- Coordination between both sides of the body: It has been our experience that rhythmic movements that involve both sides of the body support not only physical coordination. 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 helps also with learning: with memory, with organization, with decision making, problem solving, creative thinking and expressive language.
- Vestibular System: The vestibular system involves sensors in the inner ear that support our balance, and their connections in the brain. It 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 in space: This sense refers to our ability to perceive where our body and its parts are even when we don’t look at them. Interestingly, 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.
- Auditory processing issues 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 a difficulty with right and left. This can translate to challenges with recognizing and writing certain letters, challenges with maintaining the correct direction in reading, and even 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.
To understand more about this consider registering for the courses we offer, HANDLE Level 1 and (even more so) Level 2 which follows. See our upcoming events.
The concept of neuroplasticity plays a significant role in neurodevelopment. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s 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.
We develop a comprehensive program of neurodevelopmental activities for the client. These programs start with an in-depth assessment, and the resulting activities program is entirely customized for you (or your child) based on the results of that assessment.
A Holistic Approach
We recognize that each learner is unique, and thus we employ a dual approach – combining study skills tutoring and neurodevelopment – that is flexible and tailored to meet each client’s needs.
We generally recommend that a student starts with our neurodevelopmental program. The rationale behind this recommendation stems from our observation that nearly all individuals who first undergo our neurodevelopmental program seldom require additional tutoring.
The neurodevelopmental program is specifically designed to reshape the brain’s learning capacity. We’ve had clients who achieved remarkable results solely from this program, even when their initial academic performance was disappointing. They were able to successfully pass their exams without the need for additional tutoring.
However, it’s important to note that the need for tutoring still varies from one individual to another. While the neurodevelopmental program suffices for most, there is still a portion of clients who benefit from further tutoring. This is often the case for clients who are significantly behind in their studies and require extra support to catch up.
Therefore, the role of tutoring in our approach is always flexible; we adjust it according to the specific needs and progress of the individual. Whether it’s additional support after the neurodevelopmental program or an immediate need due to upcoming exams, our goal remains the same: equip our clients with the ability to excel academically and in life.
Wrapping Up
Our two primary considerations when seeking dyslexia support include the need for targeted neurodevelopmental activities, sometimes combined with study skills tutoring rather than subject matter tutoring.
Should you need more assistance or advice in helping your child with dyslexia thrive, we are always here to offer support and expert-led guidance.
Remember, in the face of these learning challenges, the ultimate goal is not just to survive, but to truly thrive. By utilizing our uniquely tailored methods and approaches, we firmly believe that dyslexia can indeed be transformed from a hurdle into a superpower.
