In my extensive travels I have many opportunities to observe families and their children. Having done so for many decades now, it is blatantly obvious that many parents today must believe in magic.

Children are not born with some innate understanding of how to act and behave or, if you will, how to be civilized. Many parents fortunately still hold the perspective that their children should learn to behave and function with a level of maturity and respect, but unfortunately it appears that more and more parents believe that it happens by magic.

Parents understand that you must teach kids most everything, from how to wipe their bottoms to how to do math, but you also must teach your children all of the basics of proper manners and behaviors. As big an issue as this is for “typical” children, it is an even greater problem for children with developmental issues. The truth is that most of what we learn is not from what we are taught; it’s what we simply pick up by being present. Many “typical” children, if given good examples, will learn almost like magic how to behave appropriately, from sitting and eating with good table manners, to complying, acknowledging and greeting people, to simple things like using “please” and “thank you.” Unfortunately, little things like opportunities to model appropriate behaviors are now slowly disappearing. Family meals are becoming infrequent events, and when they do occur the object is not to share a “meal” and enjoy a family social event, or even to take the opportunity to help educate; it’s to get the food from the plate to your stomach as quickly as possible. It’s shocking to hear that so many children never even eat at a table. Good parenting is now being defined as having your kids engaged in more out-of-home lessons and activities, so parents are spending less and less time with their children showing them and teaching them how to be civilized, something their peers are very unlikely to demonstrate and teach.

At a recent dinner I was able to observe a family with a son of about ten who has autism and a daughter of about five. The two children got up out of their seats at least twenty times during the meal and roamed around the restaurant, and the boy with autism went from table to table trying to sample everyone’s food. It was obvious from the parents’ response that they did not see this as unacceptable, just inconvenient. On another occasion there was a family having a meal with their son, who appeared to be about eleven or twelve and to have some minor issues. The adults were discussing some significant topics, and the boy would randomly start talking over someone at the table about something totally unrelated to the discussion. This would occur every few minutes, whenever he wanted attention. These interruptions were ignored by the parents, and it was obvious that this was their norm. No instruction, no feedback and no expectations.

As mentioned previously, most of what we learn is from observation. For children with developmental issues, their ability to focus, attend and process is compromised, as is their ability to simply learn through observation. All children need to be taught manners and how to behave, but for children with developmental issues this is extremely important. Inappropriate behaviors in effect label the child as different, special and limited, which in turn limits expectations, which then results in less feedback and instruction and a lack of further development.

Behavior needs to be taught proactively, not reactively. You need to teach appropriate behavior not only through modeling, but through actual instruction. Often simply identifying a single needed behavior and instructing the child prior to beginning the meal is sufficient to change the behavior at that meal, which then provides you with the opportunity to praise them and reinforce the new behavior. The feedback, if any, that most parents give tends to be reactive rather than proactive. They get up and bring the child back to the table, and perhaps even reprimand them, or they might stop during the meal and tell the child that they shouldn’t interrupt. Unfortunately, this often tends to provide the child with attention, which reinforces the negative behavior. Proactive parenting requires identification of a problem or a need and creation of a plan to address it: a targeted plan, delivered with the needed frequency, intensity and duration.

Parents, if you don’t identify developmental and behavioral needs and actively address them, then all that’s left is to cross your fingers and believe in magic. Raise the bar and help your child be all they can be.

If you want help building that plan for your child, join our free Get Started program and talk with our staff at no cost.

The post Do You Believe in Magic? Helping Your Child Learn How to Behave and Function in Society appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

If your child has been diagnosed with apraxia, or you suspect it, here is the most important thing to know: apraxia responds to the right kind of practice, and the people best positioned to provide that practice are not found in a clinic. They are found at your kitchen table.

What Is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. The child’s brain has difficulty planning and coordinating the precise movements of the lips, tongue, and jaw needed to produce speech. It is not a problem with the muscles themselves, and it is not a problem with understanding language. A child with apraxia typically understands far more than they can say.

That gap between what a child understands and what a child can express is one of the defining features of apraxia, and one of the most frustrating for children and parents alike.

Common Signs of Apraxia in Young Children

Apraxia looks different from child to child, but parents often notice some combination of the following:

• Limited babbling as a baby, or a very quiet infancy
• A big gap between what the child understands and what the child can say
• Inconsistent errors: the same word comes out differently from one attempt to the next
• Difficulty with longer words, with sounds dropping out or getting scrambled
• Groping movements of the mouth as the child works to position it for a sound
• Unusual rhythm or stress in speech, with words sounding flat or choppy
• A word or phrase may “pop out” clearly one time, but then is never repeated or used again
• Frustration, meltdowns, or giving up on talking when they cannot make themselves understood

Apraxia or Speech Delay? Why the Difference Matters

A speech delay means a child is developing speech along the typical path, just more slowly. Given time and good input, many late talkers catch up.

Apraxia is different. It is not a slower version of the typical path. It is a breakdown in motor planning, and it does not resolve on its own. “Wait and see” is the one approach that reliably fails with apraxia, because the child is not simply behind. The brain needs specific, repeated practice to build the motor pathways for speech.

This is why early, consistent intervention matters so much. The younger the brain, the more readily it changes. But the brain can change at any age, and it is never too late to start.

Why Frequency Changes Everything

Here is the problem with the standard model of help: motor learning does not happen once or twice a week.

Think about how a child learns to walk, or how anyone learns to play the piano or shoot a free throw. Nobody masters a motor skill by practicing for thirty minutes on Tuesdays. Motor pathways are built through short bursts of practice repeated every single day, hundreds and then thousands of correct repetitions that gradually become automatic.

Speech is the most complex motor activity a human being performs. For a child with apraxia, whose brain struggles to plan those movements, frequency is not a nice-to-have. It is the mechanism. The right input, delivered with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration, is what drives the brain to build new connections. This is neuroplasticity, and it is the foundation of everything NACD has done for 47+ years.

A weekly session, no matter how skilled the person running it, simply cannot supply the repetitions an apraxic brain needs. What can? A parent.

The Parent Advantage

Parents are with their child every day. Parents know their child’s sounds, moods, motivations, and limits better than anyone on earth. When a parent is trained and equipped to run short, targeted speech practice throughout the day, the child gets what the clinic model cannot deliver: daily frequency, in the child’s own environment, from the person the child most wants to communicate with.

This is the core of NACD’s approach to every child, and it is especially powerful with apraxia. NACD evaluates the whole child, identifies exactly where the breakdown is happening, and then designs a program the family implements at home with coaching and support. The parent becomes the intervention, and the results compound day after day.

For families who want to understand this approach in depth, The NACD Approach walks through it step by step in free, self-paced lessons.

Practicing at Home: The Speech Therapy for Apraxia Apps

To put daily practice directly into parents’ hands, NACD developed a family of four apps out of decades of clinical work with apraxic children. Each app targets a specific stage of speech development, so practice meets the child exactly where they are and builds from there:

• Speech Therapy for Apraxia builds the foundation, developing consistent production of core sounds and simple syllables.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: Words moves sounds into functional single words.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: 2-Syllables tackles the jump to two-syllable words, where apraxic speech often breaks down.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: Ending Sounds targets final consonants, the sounds that make words complete and intelligible.

The apps are designed for short, frequent sessions that a parent and child do together. A few focused minutes, several times a day, is exactly the practice pattern an apraxic brain needs, and it fits inside real family life.

The apps are a powerful tool on their own. They are most powerful as part of an individualized NACD program built around your specific child.

Where to Start

Every child with apraxia is different, which is why NACD does not have a one-size-fits-all apraxia program. We build each program around the individual child, after we understand how that child is functioning across the board.

If you are wondering whether NACD is the right fit for your family, our free Fit Check takes just a few minutes. And when you are ready to take the first step, join our free Get Started program. You will get videos explaining our approach and a free interview with our staff before any cost is involved.

Your child has something to say. Let’s help them say it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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There is no one way to parent a child. A set of parents can have five kids and have to parent each one slightly differently. However, having worked with many families who have demonstrated some pretty exceptional parenting ability, there are a few concepts that should be shared with other parents. I think we can all agree that we want to develop children who trust their parents. Who feel safe. Who are compliant and do what is asked of them. But more importantly, be able to function independently, be happy, and contribute to society. As parents, we don’t want to feel frustrated, reactive, or have to raise our voice; rather, we want to feel calm, warm, and quietly confident. I hope this article can shed some light on how to teach your young children in a way that reduces frustration and sets them up for success.

While fostering compliance and cooperation in children is always a goal, getting the opportunity to see it expressed so naturally and so consistently across many families that NACD works with is something else entirely. Many of the families I have come to know have been excellent examples of authoritative parents. Authoritative parenting, not to be confused with authoritarian parenting, is widely praised for its effectiveness in balancing warmth, high responsiveness to children, support, as well as discipline and clear boundaries. What these NACD parents have built wasn’t obedience born of fear; it was cooperation born of love, consistency, and a very clear, very simple expectation set from the very beginning.

To start, there are two words that, when spoken cheerfully and consistently by a toddler, signal something profound is happening in that home: “Yes, Mom.”

It sounds simple. It is simple, and that is exactly the point.

At NACD, we have spent decades studying how feedback shapes behavior, development, and a child’s sense of self. What we know is this: children are not born compliant, but they are born responsive. From the earliest months of life, they are reading us, our tone, our energy, our consistency, and learning what the world expects of them. The families who understand this earliest tend to raise children who are the most grounded, most cooperative, and most confident.

The “Yes Mom” approach is one of the most elegantly simple tools we have seen parents use to build exactly that foundation, and it works best when it starts young, as early as the toddler years.

How It Works

A parent gives a simple, clear verbal instruction: “Come here.” “Sit down.” “Put that back.” Immediately after giving the instruction, the parent models the expected response in a warm, pleasant voice: “Say Yes, Mom.” The child is gently guided to repeat it. Not demanded. Not drilled. Modeled and encouraged: joyfully, consistently, and with great warmth. Over time, the child doesn’t just mimic the phrase; they internalize the posture behind it. They learn that responding to a parent’s voice is what you do, and that doing so feels good.

As Bob Doman has noted in NACD’s research on feedback, children do what works, and they do more of what earns them genuine, warm, positive acknowledgment. When a toddler says “Yes, Mom” and is met with a big smile, a squeeze, and enthusiastic praise, that response becomes rewarding. It becomes a habit. And habits, as we know, shape development in ways that last far longer than any single correction ever could.

What makes this approach so powerful is not just the compliance it builds; it’s what compliance communicates to the child. Children who know the expectation, who hear it modeled with warmth rather than frustration, and who consistently meet it don’t feel controlled. They feel safe. They know who is in charge, and that knowledge is deeply reassuring to a young child whose brain is still learning how to navigate the world.

We have seen this play out beautifully in families we work with. Parents who begin this practice early, in the one- and two-year range, report that their children are calmer, more cooperative, and quicker to respond as they grow. These are not rigid, fearful children. They are happy, secure children who have been given something invaluable: a clear picture of what is expected of them, delivered consistently and lovingly by the people they trust most.

What to Do When They Don’t Say Yes, Mom

But what do you do when the child doesn’t say “Yes, Mom,” or doesn’t follow through on the direction at all?

This is where many parents lose ground, and it’s completely understandable. The key is to stay calm, stay warm, and stay in charge.

With a toddler, first, give the instruction again, immediately followed by the modeled “Say Yes, Mom” prompt. Keep your voice steady and pleasant, not frustrated, not louder. Simply repeat it as if success is the only option you can imagine, because for this child, it is.

If they still don’t respond, it’s time to build some momentum with a short series of simple, one-step instructions that you can physically guide your child through. The goal here is not to overpower; it’s to gently remind the child’s body and brain what cooperation feels like, and to string together a few small wins.

In a calm voice with a smile, say “Stand up” and lovingly take your child by the hands and bring them to standing. Then say “Sit down” and gently guide them back down. Keep your energy light and encouraging throughout. This is not a confrontation; it is a reset. Then offer another simple verbal instruction followed by “Say Yes, Mom” and wait to see if they follow it independently. Give one more. If you get a “Yes, Mom,” even a small one, celebrate it warmly and enthusiastically.

Now, circle back to the original direction you gave at the start. Deliver it clearly, prompt “Say Yes, Mom,” and when they follow through, and they will, pour on the praise. Make it a big deal. Let them feel the full reward of having listened, cooperated, and succeeded.

What this sequence does is brilliant in its simplicity. It breaks a moment of resistance without escalating it. It keeps the parent calm and in control. It reminds the child, through movement, through success, and through your warm response, that compliance is not something to resist. It feels good. It earns connection. And it is simply what we do.

As NACD’s research on feedback consistently shows, children do what works. When following through earns them genuine joy and praise from the person they love most, following through becomes the pattern. And patterns, built early and reinforced warmly, become the foundation of who a child is.

The goal is never robotic compliance. The goal is a child who hears your voice and responds, not because they fear what happens if they don’t, but because they have been taught from the very beginning that responding to Mom is simply what we do in this family, and it feels good to do it.

Start young. Keep it warm. Be consistent. Say “Yes, Mom” together, and mean it.

Consistency Across the Family

One of the most common reasons this approach loses its power is inconsistency at home. If Mom holds the expectation warmly and firmly, but Dad lets it slide, or Grandma swoops in and overrides the direction with a laugh and a cookie, the child receives a very different message: this only applies sometimes, with some people. And children, as we know, are remarkably skilled at reading exactly where the boundaries are and where they aren’t.

For the “Yes Mom” approach to truly shape a child’s behavior and sense of security, every adult in the home needs to be on the same page. That means Dad follows through with the same calm, warm expectation. “Yes, Dad” carries the same weight. It means grandparents, as much as they love to indulge, understand that stepping around the expectation isn’t a kindness; it’s a confusion. It means that when Grandpa is watching the kids for the afternoon, the same sequence applies: clear instruction, modeled response, gentle follow-through, and warm praise.

This doesn’t require rigidity or a household of rules. It simply requires that the adults who love this child agree on one thing: that responding to a loving direction from a trusted adult is the expectation, every time, with everyone. When that consistency is in place, the child doesn’t have to test every person in every situation to figure out what is expected. They already know. And that knowledge, that the world around them is predictable and safe, is one of the greatest gifts a family can give a young child.

Talk to your partner. Share this approach with grandparents. Make it a family commitment, not just a Mom thing. The more unified the adults around your child are, the faster and more deeply this foundation will take hold.

How This Grows with Your Child

Parents sometimes wonder whether an approach rooted in toddlerhood has any relevance once their child hits elementary school, the preteen years, or beyond. The answer is a resounding yes, though the way it looks naturally evolves.

The child who learned at age two that responding to a parent’s direction is simply what we do in this family doesn’t forget that lesson at ten. What was once “Yes, Mom” spoken out loud becomes something quieter and more internalized: a posture of respect, a habit of cooperation, a reflex of responsiveness that shows up not just in the home but in the classroom, on the sports field, and in every relationship that child has with a trusted adult.

By the elementary years, the expectation shifts from verbal acknowledgment to reliable follow-through. You may not need your eight-year-old to say “Yes, Mom” out loud every time, but you absolutely should expect them to make eye contact, acknowledge the direction, and act on it. If that habit was built early, it will be there. If it wasn’t, it’s not too late, but it will require more intentional effort to establish.

As children move into the preteen and teen years, this foundation becomes arguably more important than ever. These are the years when outside influences compete loudly for your child’s attention and allegiance. Peers, social media, and the natural developmental pull toward independence all create noise. The child who grew up in a home where parental authority was consistent, warm, and clearly established is far better equipped to navigate that noise. They have an internal compass that was set early, one that says the adults who love me are worth listening to.

This does not mean teenagers should be blindly obedient. It means they have been raised to respect direction, to respond before they resist, and to trust that the adults in their lives are on their side. That trust was built one “Yes, Mom” at a time, starting in the toddler years, and it pays dividends that last a lifetime.

The goal was never a compliant toddler. The goal was always a grounded, respectful, capable young person who knows how to respond to the people who love them most. Start early, stay consistent, and trust the process.

If you want help building consistency and cooperation into your child’s daily life, join our free Get Started program and talk with our staff at no cost.

For more on how feedback shapes behavior and development, explore NACD’s Feedback series at nacd.org.

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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

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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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