This is a question we hear from many parents. Some children have poor reading skills both in identifying words and comprehending the text, but many children are good readers, meaning good at word identification and able to read quickly, but lack comprehension. So, let’s look at what’s going on and how NACD addresses those issues and can help prevent those issues from developing. 

Reading comprehension can be broken down into two types of comprehension. There is a type needed to understand how one sentence links to another sentence. The sentences may link because pronouns were used in the second sentence to replace the proper nouns or common nouns in the first sentence. They may be linked by the relationship of two actions or two objects being identified. For example, Tommy woke up. He knew he needed to hurry. The relationship between these actions implies that Tommy is waking up in his bed and has someplace he needs to go, perhaps school. Another example would be: Tommy got his sneakers on quickly. Then he grabbed his basketball. As we read these sentences, our understanding of the vocabulary and the relationship of these words to each other starts to give us a construct for what may happen next. 

What happens when there is a word that is not understood in the sentence? Tommy awakened. He was anxious about being on time. Is there a construct of what is happening if you don’t understand a word in the first sentence? No, there is not. Let’s look at the next example. Tommy put on his galoshes as fast as he could. Then he grabbed his poncho.  Do we assume that a child will have a construct of what is happening here? Without an understanding of those key nouns, we can assume that they do not. 

So, we can see that receptive vocabulary and the relationship between words is important for that immediate “internal” comprehension of a text. 

What impacts on comprehension of a larger text? Working Memory is needed to provide a framework and hold the pieces so that a larger text, more than a few sentences, can be understood and recalled. If the text or story contains vocabulary largely understood by the child, then it is the working memory that is going to build the larger construct to hold and keep sorted all the information, sequentially and in a way that permits recall and understanding. A strong working memory is able to establish and hold the big picture while aligning the details of the narrative sequentially.

There is one more factor that impacts on comprehension in addition to vocabulary and working memory and that is sustained attention to language. If there is a break in attention to meaning as the individual is reading due to the habit of reading too quickly or due to the habit of disengaging from language too rapidly, comprehension is quickly lost. If this happens to adults or older students, they will typically realize and go back and re-read the portion that they missed. With children and some adults, however, this is not the case. So, we need a strong habit of sustaining attention to language established by strong short-term auditory memory.

Let’s look at these pieces as they relate to how NACD addresses neurological development in order. We work early on to develop a strong understanding of receptive language and word meanings and functions. We work early and continuously on building strong short-term and working memory auditorily as well as visually. We have diverse activities to address sustained and accurate auditory attention. We read to children and use audiobooks because studies have supported that listening comprehension and reading comprehension use the same neurological mechanisms. We use conceptual memory activities to work the mechanisms needed to group random words logically and to see new associations between seemingly random words. 

Reading comprehension is not just a matter of the right reading materials, the right workbook or curriculum. Reading comprehension is based on the very neurological functions that we address with our programs.

The following research article among many others, supports the findings of NACD over the decades that we have been working with children and adults on these issues.

Nicola Kate Currie, Kate Cain, Children’s inference generation: The role of vocabulary and working memory, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Volume 137, 2015, Pages 57-75.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 40 No. 1 , 2026 ©NACD

The post What Causes Poor Reading Comprehension & How Do We Fix It?   appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Today, we pause to honor the beauty, strength, and profound humanity expressed through those with Down syndrome. For me, this day is deeply personal. It is a celebration of my daughter, Gitane — a true master of the heart.

She was born with severe hypotonia, with almost no connection between her brain and body. She could not even open her eyes. In those early moments, I searched for the most advanced understanding and care I could find, which led me to Bob Doman and the National Association for Child Development, an organization where I later proudly became their Director of Health.

His words were simple, but powerful:
“We’re going to wake her up.” And wake her up he did.

Gitane went on to graduate with honors from a mainstream high school. She surfs. She practices Karate. She creates art. And now, she is an actress — starring in a film that begins shooting next week. She has taught me something that goes far beyond any diagnosis:

When we say “special needs,” what we truly mean is special abilities. The ability to love without condition. To live with presence. To meet life with courage and joy.

At Neil Naturopathic, we honor the uniqueness of every individual and the truth that healing, growth, and potential exist in many forms. Today, we celebrate Gitane — and all those who remind us that the heart is our greatest intelligence.

With gratitude and love,
Dr. Julian Neil
Neil Naturopathic 

More about Gitane’s journey with NACD:

• Gitane’s early years with NACD
• Getting serious about processing and working memory

The post Honoring World Down syndrome Day appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

I’ll be honest with you. Some nights, dinner at our house looks nothing like what I know it should be.

My daughter Arielle is nine. My son Lachlan just turned six. By the time we all sit down together, everyone is carrying the weight of the day. Lachlan is often a little hungry and short-fused by dinnertime, which any parent of a six-year-old will recognize instantly. Ari has her own version of the end-of-day wind-down. My wife Sadie and I are fielding the usual logistics. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, there’s a screen nearby with its particular pull, always available, always easier than the work of actual conversation.

I know this because I live it. And I know it because at NACD, we have spent more than four decades studying exactly what happens to children’s brains when the people around them talk to them, and what happens when they don’t.

What the Research Has Been Telling Us for Years

My father, Bob Doman, has written extensively about the family meal as one of the most important developmental events in a child’s day. In his piece The Most Important Meal of the Day Is Not Breakfast — It’s the Meal(s) the Family Has Together, he makes a case that most parents don’t fully appreciate: the dinner table isn’t just where you eat. It’s where your child’s brain learns to process language, build memory, attend to others, and begin to understand the structure of the world they live in.

The mechanism behind this is auditory processing, which is the brain’s ability to take in spoken language, hold it, interpret it, and respond to it. As Lori Eby Riggs has written in Auditory Processing — What Is It?, auditory processing underlies virtually everything we associate with a child’s cognitive function: attention span, language development, the ability to think in words, and the complexity of their reasoning. And what builds auditory processing more than anything else? Targeted language input. Real conversation. The kind that happens when a parent asks a child something genuine, listens to the answer, and pushes a little further.

There’s a line from that article on family meals that has stuck with me: “No one is better suited to this job than the people who know the child best; and no time may be better suited to this development than the family meal.”

That’s not a soft sentiment. That’s the neurodevelopmental science of 45 years of work with tens of thousands of families, distilled into one sentence.

And yet most family dinners don’t look like that. Most of them are one-word answers and glowing screens.

The Challenges Are Real

When I talk about the dinner table as a developmental opportunity, I’m not describing a magazine photograph of a family glowing with perfect conversation over a home-cooked meal. I’m describing something that requires real effort, most nights, against real resistance.

Here’s what I run into constantly, even knowing everything I know:

Devices

The pull is relentless. New studies are coming out by the day documenting how harmful screens are on developing brains, and yet the phone is still there, the tablet is still there, and children have absorbed from the culture around them that screens are the default way to fill any available moment. We have a no-devices rule at our dinner table, but that rule requires active enforcement every single time. It doesn’t just happen.

Exhaustion

By dinner, everyone is tired. Lachlan at six is a bright, curious kid, but by the end of the day he’s hungry and has run out of patience for things that don’t immediately interest him. Ari at nine wants to talk, but only about the specific things on her mind at that moment, and if the conversation doesn’t head there quickly, she checks out. Sadie and I are not exempt from this either. The desire to just sit quietly and not manage anything for ten minutes is something every parent understands.

The question problem

This is the one that took me the longest to name. Even when we manage to get everyone to the table without a device, even when the kids are present and willing, I often find myself asking the same questions: “How was your day? What did you do? What did you learn?” And getting the answers those questions deserve: “Fine. Nothing. I don’t know.” The questions aren’t bad. They’re just not good enough. They don’t open anything. They invite a one-word exit and everyone moves on.

This is where, in our work at NACD, we’ve always understood something important: the quality of input determines the quality of output. We say this constantly in the context of neurodevelopmental programs — the specificity of what you give a child’s brain matters enormously. It turns out this principle applies equally to conversation.

What Happens When You Get It Right

I want to tell you about something that changed at our dinner table, because it was Ari and Lachlan who taught it to me rather than the other way around.

We started asking about family history. Not heavily, not as a formal exercise. Just questions like: “What do you think Dad’s childhood was like? What do you think Grandpa did when he was your age? What stories do you think our family has that nobody has written down?”

What happened surprised me. Lachlan, who is full of ideas and moves quickly from one thought to the next, got completely still and started asking questions I didn’t expect him to have. Ari, who I sometimes struggle to keep at the table, leaned in. They wanted to know. They wanted to know us — the people who came before them, the choices that were made, the world that existed before they arrived in it.

What I also realized is that the questions didn’t just flow one direction. Ari started asking me things I hadn’t thought about in years. Lachlan wanted to know what my grandfather was like. The conversation became something genuinely mutual — kids asking parents, parents asking kids, everyone at the table actually curious about what the other person would say. That’s what good family history questions do. They make the parents as interesting as the children, and they give kids the feeling that their questions matter just as much as ours.

The family history conversation opened something that “How was your day?” never could. It gave them a sense of place in something larger than themselves. It built what NACD has long recognized as one of the most important things we can give a child: identity. A felt sense of who they are and where they come from.

Neurologically, what was happening is exactly what my father describes in his work on parents as the primary architects of their children’s development. See Where Have All the Mothers Gone? and 

Parents Are the Solution for the deeper framework. Autobiographical memory, sequential narrative, perspective-taking, the ability to hold a multi-part story in working memory and reason about it — these are all cognitive skills, and dinner conversation is one of the richest environments for developing all of them simultaneously.

The difference wasn’t the effort we put in. It was the quality of the question we started with.

What a Good Question Actually Does

At NACD, we think about intervention specificity constantly. The whole framework of Targeted Developmental Intervention — the approach that has guided our work for decades — is built on the idea that the more targeted and specific the input, the more targeted and effective the result. A vague program produces vague results. A precisely designed program, delivered consistently, produces real change.

The same logic applies to conversation.

A vague question like “How was school?” produces a vague answer. It asks nothing specific of a child’s brain. There’s no cognitive demand. They can answer it honestly and completely with a single syllable and move on.

A good question is different. A good question requires a child to retrieve a memory, construct a narrative, evaluate a perspective, or make a decision under constraints. “If you could change one rule in our house, what would it be and why?” asks Lachlan to do half a dozen cognitive operations before he opens his mouth. “Tell me about a time when you felt really proud of yourself — not because anyone told you to be, but because you just knew” asks Ari to access autobiographical memory, evaluate an emotional experience, and find the language to describe an internal state. These are not trivial tasks. These are exactly the kinds of tasks that build auditory processing, working memory, perspective-taking, and executive function — the foundational capacities that all of NACD’s work is built around.

For more on why these cognitive foundations matter so profoundly, read Processing Power: What Every Parent Needs to Know.

Why We Built an App

I’ll be direct about this, because I think the honesty matters.

We didn’t build Family Conversations because we thought parents didn’t know dinner conversation mattered. Most parents, at some level, already know. We built it because knowing isn’t enough. Knowing doesn’t solve the problem of sitting down at the table at 6:30pm, exhausted, with a six-year-old who has run out of patience and a nine-year-old who wants to talk about something specific you haven’t thought to ask about — and needing, in that moment, the right question.

The problem isn’t intention. The problem is the gap between intention and execution, in the moment when it’s hardest.

We also know, from 45 years of working with families, that parents are the most powerful force in a child’s development when they’re equipped with the right approach, the right tools, the right questions. That’s the entire NACD model — we don’t work with children directly. We train and equip the people who know those children best. As my father has written in All Our Mothers Need to Be 10s (and Our Dads Too!), the parent’s function is the first variable we look at — because the parent is the program.

Family Conversations is built on that same principle. Every question in the app is designed around a real cognitive or emotional skill: perspective-taking, moral reasoning, autobiographical memory, creative inference, values clarification. Every card includes follow-up prompts, so when the conversation stalls (and it will stall), you have somewhere to go. Each question is calibrated to your child’s age and developmental level. There’s a “Go Deeper” option for when your family is ready for more. And there’s a Quote Journal, because some of what your children say at the dinner table deserves to be kept.

One thing we were intentional about: the app is designed so the phone doesn’t have to be out at all. Family Conversations works on Apple Watch, so you can glance at a question on your wrist and leave your phone in the other room where it belongs. It also works beautifully on iPad, which is a natural fit for families who want something propped up at the table. Pull up a question, start the conversation, then set it aside and be present. That’s the whole idea.

The Table Is Where Your Family Lives

I think about my grandfather, Dr. Robert J. Doman, and the work he did as a physiatrist pioneering the field of brain injury rehabilitation. I think about my father, building on that work for half a century, developing the neurodevelopmental framework that has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of families. And I think about what it means to be the third generation of this family devoted to the idea that children have unlimited potential — and that the people most positioned to unlock it are the ones sitting across from them at the dinner table every night.

Ronald Reagan once said, “All great change in America starts at the dinner table.” He was talking about politics. But he was right about something deeper: the dinner table is where families become families. It’s where children learn who they are, where they come from, what they believe, how to think, how to listen, how to disagree with someone they love, and how to tell a story that matters.

Put the devices away. Ask a better question. See what happens.

And if you need a little help with the question, we built something for that.

Try Family Conversations

Learn more and download the app here!
Available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Designed for every family, every night.

Laird Doman is the third generation of his family devoted to the neurodevelopmental well-being of children worldwide. He lives with his wife Sadie and their children Arielle and Lachlan.

Related Reading at NACD

• The Most Important Meal of the Day Is Not Breakfast
• Auditory Processing — What Is It?
• Processing Power: What Every Parent Needs to Know
• Where Have All the Mothers Gone?
• Parents Are the Solution
• All Our Mothers Need to Be 10s (and Our Dads Too!)
• Confidence Through Chores

The post The Dinner Table Is the Most Underestimated Classroom in Your Home appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Parents can become aware of their child’s lack of progress from report cards, meetings with teachers, standardized test results, or even helping with homework. It’s a terrible feeling to realize that your child isn’t learning as well as is expected, particularly when you may not have been previously aware of it. 

A failure to progress academically can have multiple causes, of course, but there are a few things that parents and professionals in the field of education need to keep in mind. The curriculum that master plan implemented by schools and mandated by states is not written, designed, and implemented for YOUR child. This massive plan, which dictates the scope of what is taught and in what order it is taught, is not aimed at any particular student but rather designed to reach some overall goals far removed from specific students. 

Students, including your child, vary enormously in their ability to process information and utilize that information in any way. Although the concepts of visual and auditory learners, for example, are often over-simplified, there are real processing differences among students in every class, in every school. What your child is able to learn and retain out of what is being presented is based on his or her ability to take in what is being presented and store it in a way that can be recalled. 

So, although schools have this massive curriculum designed with no particular student in mind at all, your student may not be equipped to learn it. In other words, this may well be the wrong curriculum and instructional approach for your child. In fact, your child might be able to do an outstanding job of learning, given another approach and a different type of curriculum. Too often, schools function like the military. We have this institution with this structure and this agenda. Your child must fit in and learn to meet expectations. 

Consider that the issue may not be caused by a flaw in your child but rather by flaws in how this system is imposing itself on your child. No school can fully individualize what they do. Even students with IEPs don’t actually get their own curriculum but rather a slowed-down, abbreviated version of the overall curriculum. Homeschooling provides a solution, of course, as long as the parent does not simply replicate the errors the schools have made. Improving how a child processes information allows the child to learn from a wider array of instructional styles and permits the child to learn with less effort.

NACD is here to help your child improve his or her processing and also design a truly child-specific learning plan that paves the way for successful and rapid learning. 

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 39 No. 3 , 2025 ©NACD

The post Is the Problem My Child or the Curriculum? appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Laird Doman

At NACD, we love innovation. We’ve embraced cutting-edge neuroscience, data, and technology for decades. But one place we’re drawing a very firm line? Trying to use Artificial Intelligence—especially tools like ChatGPT—to generate or guess what an NACD program might look like.

We recently heard from a family that typed their child’s diagnoses—autism, ADHD, anxiety, and sensory processing disorder—into an AI program and asked for a customized NACD plan. What came back was, quite honestly, laughable: a generalized list of activities like “relaxation techniques,” vague references to “digit spans,” and a canned daily schedule with no relevance to the child’s actual needs.

It was generic. It was inaccurate. And it was absolutely not NACD.

Why This Matters

We work with children whose needs are unique, layered, and evolving. NACD programs are created by human experts, based on:

• A comprehensive evaluation of your child’s neurodevelopmental function
• A deep understanding of what’s working and what’s not
• A focus on intensity, frequency, and duration—specific to your child and your family
• A team (including your coach) that is constantly adjusting, refining, and supporting the program
• Decades of experience with children just like yours—and nothing cookie-cutter about it

AI can’t replicate that. It doesn’t understand your child’s history, their strengths, their challenges, or your goals. It doesn’t know how to adjust techniques in real time, or how to prioritize sensory input vs. cognition vs. academics based on your child’s developmental trajectory.

The Risk of Misinformation

When parents rely on AI-generated advice in an attempt to “preview” or replicate an NACD program, they’re not just getting bad information—they’re being misled. This can:

• Set false expectations
• Cause confusion or disappointment
• Lead to wasted time on strategies that don’t work
• Undermine the trust and process that make NACD programs so effective

The Real Work Starts With You—and With Us

We welcome questions. We want families to come to evaluations prepared with their history, their concerns, and their hopes. But if you want to understand what your child’s NACD program will look like, you need to meet us face to face (or screen to screen). You need real insight, not AI noise.

So if you’ve seen something online, or had ChatGPT give you a “program,” we encourage you to set it aside. We’ll meet your child where they are, not where a computer guesses they might be.

We look forward to showing you what a real, individualized NACD program looks like. Spoiler alert: it’s better than anything a bot can generate

The post Why AI Can’t Create a Real NACD Program appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

What is the medical/biological disease model?

The medical/biological model is a framework for understanding and addressing illnesses and diseases. 

Biological Foundation

Illnesses and diseases are essentially caused by biological factors, including physiological problems, infections, and genetic disorders.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Focus is on diagnosing and labeling the disease or illness, with associated prognosis, and then providing accepted procedures, such as medications, procedures, or surgery.

Shortcomings

• This model tends to reduce complex issues to biological factors, neglecting environmental, psychological, social, and developmental factors. 
• The first step in the process is diagnosis/labeling and clumping an individual into a group with similar symptoms.
• The model is restrictive and often prevents the application of treatments and approaches beyond the use of medications and surgery.
• Prognosis is based on historic results from the application of their model’s methodologies and can lead to limited expectations and thus opportunity.
• The model tends to undervalue the complexity and uniqueness of the individual.
• Alternative and non-medical approaches tend to be excluded.

Diagnosing Neurodevelopmental Disorders

There is no medical tool, such as blood tests, x-rays, or physical examination, used to diagnose ADD, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Intellectual Disability, Mental Retardation, Coordination/Motor Disorders, Behavioral Disorders, Speech and Language Delays, as well as some visual and hearing disorders and more. These issues are neurodevelopmental problems, and diagnosis/labeling is based on developmental symptom checklists. 

What are Neurodevelopmental Disorders?

Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs) are issues resulting from conditions that negatively impact development and the functions of the brain, leading to various cognitive, behavioral, and motor issues.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders have many causes and often a combination of factors. Contributing to NDDs are everything from missed critical developmental steps to genetic, nutritional, gut, psychosocial, and environmental factors, to issues affecting the developing fetus, as well as birth issues. Often the underlying cause (and most often, causes) are not identified; and relative to individuals, using the medical model they are not necessarily viewed as terribly significant in terms of treatment. 

The common factor in all neurodevelopmental disorders is that regardless of the causes, the net result is a negative impact on the development of the brain, and as such can be positively impacted by targeted neurodevelopmental intervention, including diet and nutrition. Neuroplasticity, the mechanism of development, can be utilized at any age to alter, modify, and address most neurodevelopmental issues, without the need for medications or traditional medical interventions, which may hide or mask some symptoms, and at the cost of side effects, while not addressing the underlying issues. 

Based on the medical model, many neurodevelopmental issues are viewed as essentially incurable. And they are incurable if they are treated as diseases with traditional medical interventions that do not and cannot address the brain/developmental foundation producing the symptoms that created the label. 

Neurodevelopmental intervention is not simple; and relatively simplistic interventions, of which there are many, are not generally helpful.

At NACD we have a toolbox containing over 3000 different tools, methods, and interventions which are applied by our developmentalists, all of whom have many decades of experience and training. 

Note:

A number of years ago, I listening to the rationale of one of the medical doctors that illustrates some of the basic issues with the medical model. He stated that several different interventions produced changes and results with some children with ADHD; but because ADD and ADHD were diseases, only treatments that had some effect on virtually all children with ADD and ADHD were valid treatments. If ADD and ADHD were diseases, that rationale might have some validity. But ADD and ADHD symptoms can be caused by a variety of neurodevelopmental factors and thus need to have a variety of neurodevelopmental targeted treatments and interventions—one size does not fit all. He was referring to the drug Ritalin (Methylphenidate) at the time, which is a stimulant, as is Adderall (Amphetamine-Dextroamphetamine) and Concerta (Methylphenidate). These drugs are among the most popular street drugs because they do, in fact, have an effect on everyone. On the street these drugs are referred to as uppers. I don’t believe that anyone should refer to these drugs as cures or as healthy.

Today there is a plethora of ADHD drugs that are either stimulants or non-stimulants, all with long lists of side effects which grow with extended use, and none of which address the underly developmental issues.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 39 No. 2 , 2025 ©NACD

The post Danger of Using the Medical/Biological Model for ADHD, Autism, and Other Neurodevelopmental Problems appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Those of us who have passed that 60-year-old mile marker will often ponder the things of our past. What would we do differently? How do we mend past transgressions? What could have been avoided had a different fork in the road been followed? I am no exception. On a personal level, after raising 5 boys I have plenty of those moments that I wish I could go back and redo. I am sure my parents did the same. So many “If only I had known.” 

Today, though, I take the time to look back on those years and ponder, “What did I do right?” One thing, without a doubt, revolves around what I share with you parents in this article. I lovingly, sometimes not easily, trained my special needs son to know how to fit into a social gathering, to be appreciated, to have good manners, and to be enjoyed. This was truly a monumental task that I did not do alone. Our extended family members played incredible parts. The NACD families and staff members that I worked alongside had a huge impact on him, as did, most importantly, his siblings. 

I can remember the early painful years when the doctor reviewed his scans with us. The thoughts of “What will he miss out on?” “Where will his life take him as an adult?” “Will people accept him?” Those thoughts were so prevalent and so constant in the beginning. There was a time at when I had to buckle down and think, “Well, whatever will be, we will do our darndest to make it as good for him as possible.” Once I found NACD, things got easier for me emotionally. Most likely the reason is that I was so busy putting into action a plan to help him that there wasn’t as much time to focus on pain. However, there were always those hurtful moments, usually when someone asked a thoughtless question or gave us “the look” that special needs families often get. At those times the hurt would come like an unexpected wave, I would sink a little, then rise up and fight again in the only ways I knew how: unconditional love, doing program, and training him to be pleasant. 

The love was the easy part. That child was seared into my heart the minute I saw a picture shown to me by a mission group looking to find him a home. You would think that the hard part would be all the hours of input needed through program to help him develop. I will confess, I did not carry that load alone. Evan’s brothers did as much program as I did with him, if not more. After getting into the rhythm of doing program, the ups and downs, the 90% days and the 2% days, NACD really became a matter of a lifestyle rather than a long intimidating list of activities to do. The hard part, though, was really focusing on social training.

I once heard a mother at one of our seminars put it in words in a way that spoke to me. She said, “At first, I thought my special needs son’s behavior had to be as good as other children, but I later found I was wrong. His behavior had to be BETTER to be accepted. If he stepped out of line from time to time, like all children do, the thought was never that he was behaving like a child, but rather a ‘special needs child.’” So many of you know the situations I refer to. You have been there and felt those kicks to the gut. 

To give you an idea of the hurdles we faced, prior to adoption, Evan was one of the most severely abused children that I have ever heard of that actually survived. In fact, he was at death’s door when I finally found him. You would think that it would be hard to overcome the kind of suffering he went through, but the real difficulty came from the tendency of others, including myself, to give him too much slack during the early years of his recovery. From the day we first had him, Evan was truly welcomed by our family members and the people in our orbit at the time. His story was so incredible that people wanted all the details, wanted to surround him with kindness and acceptance, and in some way felt a need to “make things up to him.” Within a short amount of time, that started to backfire just a bit to some degree. All the attention, all of the preference shown, started to create a situation where he became a child who wanted to monopolize everyone in his world. At parties he would pick his favorite people and want to hang on them, perseverating on the same comments. He wanted to always be the center of attention. He was overly affectionate at an age that made it awkward. There was point in time that I had to wake up and think, “I don’t want him to grow to be a person other people avoid.” We went through a time of intensively training him how to shake hands rather than hug his brothers’ teammates, to give social space, and to wait and let others speak. The social training years were tough. There was a lot of redirecting at gatherings, which he would often show displeasure at. In noticing my correction and training, often other people would say, “It’s ok. I understand. He can do— (whatever annoying thing he was doing).” There were even family members that would feed into his annoyances. I really had to put my foot down and explain that they may love him and want to patiently tolerate those immature habits, but …what about other people? How will he be received by the friends of siblings, or strangers we run across? The more pleasant he is, the more opportunities he has to be included, which allows him to experience more joy. The hardest place, I do believe, for that training was in our NACD waiting room. Keep in mind the parents we work with are the most accepting, caring people you could encounter. I remember walking out of an evaluation one day to find him sitting in someone’s lap. A new client at that. At the age of TEN! It only took one stern “Evan Waldeck” to see him jump up and know he was busted over ignoring the “space” rule we made him follow with most people. We even had to make a list of who got a front hug, who got a side hug, and everyone else needed to get a handshake. I looked so mean. I really was convinced it would pay off, and all along it was an act of love.

Fast forward to a trip we recently took. We were staying in the home of a family Evan and I had never met. At first it was just to be me and a friend, and Evan was going to spend time at home with his brother. But things got moved around, and at the last minute, Evan was included in the trip. Let me set this up for you. The adults that we were staying with both had careers working with special needs adults. After a few days, I was pulled aside and told, “We have to confess, at first we were a bit concerned. We thought about all we had planned to do. There were hikes, nice restaurants, and lot of sites to see. When we heard your special needs, blind son would be coming, we figured all plans would have to change.” They were shocked to see how easily he fit in and how much fun he added to the group. They even asked me, “How did you produce such a mature special needs adult?” Keep in mind, both of them had spent decades working with special needs adults. I have to tell you; it was a moment I will never forget. To realize that “what I knew then” was right on target gave me a real sense of achievement. The icing on the cake was that Evan had a blast.

Please know that as a staff we have decades of experience working with children at every level of accomplishment. We have experience with families we have worked with their entire lives. We also have children and grandchildren ourselves that we have raised or are currently raising. We see what happens when appropriate behavior is made a priority. As you travel this journey, always remember one of the kindest things you can do for any child is to train them up in a way that makes them a delight to be around.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 39 No. 1 , 2025 ©NACD

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From Salt Lake City to Ogden, Park City, and St. George, NACD has provided thousands of children with customized, science-based educational and developmental programs. Whether a child has been diagnosed with autism, down syndrome, ADHD, learning disabilities, or simply needs help reaching their full potential, NACD offers individualized programs designed to help each child maximize their abilities in both education and life.

How Utah Families Are Finding NACD—From Across the Globe

Despite being headquartered in Utah, many of our local families have discovered NACD through referrals from parents in other countries. Families in the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Brazil, and beyond have firsthand experience with NACD’s impact and frequently recommend us to families in Utah through Facebook groups, special needs communities, and word-of-mouth referrals. Parents from all over the world recognize the effectiveness of NACD’s approach, often before Utahns do.

It’s incredible to think that families on the other side of the world actively refer Utah families to NACD—yet many local parents are unaware that they have access to this life-changing program right here in Utah. NACD’s international headquarters is located in Washington Terrace, a short drive from Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Park City. We also have an additional evaluation site in St. George, providing in-person services to families in Southern Utah. In addition, families throughout the entire state can work with NACD remotely via video conferencing.

For families seeking the best possible educational and developmental resources for their children, NACD is already trusted by families across the globe—and it’s right here in Utah, available to you.

NACD: A Utah-Based Resource for Child Development & Education

For Utah families searching for the right educational and developmental support, NACD is a local resource that provides world-class expertise. Unlike one-size-fits-all therapy programs, NACD takes an individualized approach, designing a custom program for each child based on their unique strengths and challenges.

We work with children who have:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• ADHD & Attention Issues
• Learning Disabilities
• Down Syndrome
• Speech & Language Delays
• Processing Disorders
• Brain Injuries
• Accelerated & Gifted Learners
• Homeschooling Families – Watch Our Free Homeschool Seminar

In addition to working with children with developmental and learning challenges, NACD also helps homeschooling families, typical children, and those struggling with behavioral challenges reach their full potential. Whether a child needs help excelling academically, improving focus, addressing behavior, or enhancing processing and cognitive skills, our individualized approach is designed to support their education and overall development.

NACD & Utah Scholarships

We know that finding the right resources for a child’s education and development can be overwhelming, especially when cost is a concern. That’s why NACD is an approved vendor for the Utah Fits All Scholarship, making it easier for families to access our services. We are also an approved vendor for the Children First Education Fund, providing additional financial support options for families.

You can find NACD listed as an approved vendor on the Utah Fits All website here.

For Utah families looking for individualized educational and developmental support, NACD is a world-class resource that has been hidden in plain sight. Families from all over the world trust us—now it’s time for more Utah families to discover what’s available right here at home.

Learn More & Get Started

Want to see if NACD is a good fit for your child? Learn more about our Get Started Process or contact us at info@nacd.org to schedule a free informational call.

Check out real success stories, expert insights, and more on our NACD YouTube Channel.

Don’t miss out on this life-changing resource that’s been right here in Utah all along!

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Are you a vision board person? A New Year’s Resolution person? A “word” for the year person? I am. There is always something about new beginnings, fresh starts, etc., that gets me excited! My word for the year 2024 was “discipline”. At the time, I felt the need to be more disciplined in my diet, my workouts, my time between work and family, finances, etc. I have a small group of friends who help each other stay accountable to our “word”. We all encourage each other. We forgive when we mess up and we challenge each other to keep going. Guilt is a word we do not use. We give ourselves grace and move on. I think this time of year is like the New Year. For many of us, at least in the Northern Hemispheres, we are sending kids off to school or creating our home education plan, establishing new routines, and getting back into the swing of things after summer fun and indulgences. For me, it is time to reset and re-establish my dedication to my word! 

When it comes to a “reset”, I want you to think of how you reset yourself as a person. We want to think of the fundamental things for our bodies and brains to function well, because let’s face it—getting older stinks. As busy parents, it is easy to not prioritize ourselves, but I have learned in my years as a parent and as someone who talks to parents daily, that your health is priority one. Do you get enough quality sleep? Do you prioritize real food that nourishes your body? Do you exercise? Do you provide your spirit with a connection to people that matter to you? If you aren’t doing things to give yourself the attention you need, then RESET. 

When it comes to your family, what do you need to do to “reset”? Is it scheduling those regular date nights with your spouse? Is it making sure you have dinner as a family again most nights of the week? I just talked with a family who is having weekly meetings/time with each child of their family to praise and reinforce how that kid is doing as well as to discuss what things they (the child) feel could be improved upon or that they need to work on together. Talk about connection! For me, this past month has been a lot about our kids for various reasons, and not much about me and Scott. And, the next two months are not going to be any better with each of our travel schedules. He and I are scheduling time together—each week. It might just be out on our patio after dinner, but we can feel when we are disconnected, so RESET.

When it comes to your kids—not just your kids on program, but all of your children—how do you help them reset? First and foremost, sleep and nutrition are sooo important. Having consistent sleep schedules—I can’t say enough about the importance of it. Nutrition!!! What are we feeding our kids? Are their diets full of real food – lean proteins, fresh fruit and vegetables, and healthy fats, or are they full of processed food, seed oils, and sugar? We work with kids with many behavior issues and can often correlate it to what they eat. I know that we have some picky eaters and some kids on very limited diets. Keep working, ever so slightly, on improving it. For those of you who have kids at a higher level of function, educate them on food and nutrition and the importance of good sleep and general health. RESET.

Now, when it comes to program, I am always amazed by parents who come to evals around this time of year fearful. Fearful that we are going to judge them. Feeling guilty that they haven’t done much. We are parents too, ya know?! We understand summer schedules. We understand burnout. We also understand reality. As you go into this next season, RESET. Think about priorities and things that really matter to you and that you think your child is on the cusp of and/or needs the most. Is it walking? Is it processing and cognition? Is it reading? Talk with your evaluator as we are looking at your child as a whole and can guide you on those priorities. We see, too often, families taking on too much—not just with program but then also wanting to do all the other therapies, and sports, and dance lessons, etc., etc. Let’s reset, prioritize, and simplify. (I am not surprised why so many of us moms and dads end up with autoimmune stuff and thyroid issues and all other kinds of health-related issues. We simply try to do too much.) So, I would encourage you to look at the schedules, can we decrease what we have going on? Can you enlist older children who drive to take a child places? Can you enlist Grandma to help with program? Instead of spending hours each week grocery shopping and Costco shopping, can you switch to delivery? (I switched to this over the summer and it has been a God-sent AND a money saver!) Are you making all your kids lunches when they could do it themselves? When is the best time for you AND your kid to do program? Look at your schedule and modify it so that it happens. If we only have an hour, then let’s make that the best hour and focus on what matters the most in that hour. RESET. Talk to your evaluator and your coach. Let us help you figure it all out so that we are working together. 

How about a RESET challenge? I am going to accept that I may mess up. I do it all the time. But, at the beginning of each day, I try to be a better version of myself than the last. Stop the mom and/or dad guilt. Give yourself grace. Move forward. Let’s RESET together. 

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 38 No. 5, 2024 ©NACD

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A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics involving 9,038 young autistic children has confirmed what we have known for decades. The research disputes the “study” from the ‘80s that had said that intensive ABA works.  Autism is a neurodevelopmental issue, and ABA-based behavioral skill-based intervention is minimally effective, at best, and fails to address the foundational sensory, neurodevelopmental issues. 

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Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 37 No. 4, 2024 ©NACD

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