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.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 40 No. 2 , 2026 ©NACD

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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.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 40 No. 2, 2026 ©NACD

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Children are about twice as sensitive to evening light as the adults who bought the bulbs. The bulbs were sold on energy savings. The cost shows up in your child.

Over roughly a decade, the light in nearly every American home was replaced. Federal efficiency standards effectively ended the sale of standard incandescent bulbs in August 2023, and LEDs took over. The energy math was real. What was never on the ledger is what that light does inside a child’s nervous system in the hours before bed.

If your child fights sleep, wakes at night, or melts down every afternoon, the light in your family room is one of the few causes you can change this week for about forty dollars. Here is why it matters and exactly what to do.

Light is a hormonal signal, and children get twice the dose

Cells in the back of the eye do one job: they measure blue wavelength light and report the time of day to the brain. Lots of blue means noon. Amber light with little blue, like fire or an old incandescent filament, means evening. That signal controls melatonin, the hormone that tells every system in the body that night has begun.

White LEDs are built on a blue diode. Even a warm looking soft white bulb carries a spike of blue underneath the coating. Your eye reads cozy. Your brain’s clock reads midday.

Children take the hit far harder than adults. A child’s lens is optically clear, so more than 65 percent of blue light reaches the retina, compared with about 20 percent by the mid twenties. Their pupils are larger. The numbers that follow are why this article exists.

Two details deserve attention. In young children, dim light suppressed melatonin nearly as much as bright light, so turning the lights down does not solve it. And the suppression outlasts the light, so a perfect bedtime routine cannot undo the hour that came before it.

Why this lands hardest on the hyperactive child

Sleep and attention are not loosely related. They are causally linked, and the link has been tested. In a randomized BMJ trial of 244 children with ADHD, families received nothing but two consultations on sleep and a follow up call. ADHD symptom severity improved at three and six months, moderate to severe sleep problems dropped from 56 percent to 30 percent, and a third to half of the benefit ran specifically through better sleep. For scale, the improvement in ADHD symptoms was roughly a third to half the size of the effect stimulant medications typically produce in clinical trials. Two conversations about sleep, no prescription, no side effects, and a meaningful fraction of what the medication delivers. A separate crossover study restricted adolescents with ADHD to 6.5 hours of sleep for a week, and parents reported more inattention and oppositional behavior. Same kids, different sleep.

The chain is short. Evening light suppresses melatonin. Children are twice as sensitive. Suppressed melatonin delays and shortens sleep. Short sleep worsens attention and regulation, most in the children with the least margin. LEDs do not cause ADHD, but for a child already working with a narrow margin, the family room lighting taxes it every single night.

There is a second issue specific to LEDs: flicker. Cheap LED drivers pulse the light 120 times per second. You cannot see it, but the visual system processes it. The engineering body IEEE published a formal standard on the health risks, listing headaches, eyestrain, reduced task performance, distraction, and increased autistic behaviors in children. Flicker is a solved problem that costs a little more per bulb, and nothing on the package tells you which bulbs have it.

Yes, light is an endocrine disruptor

You have probably heard the term endocrine disruptor applied to chemicals like BPA, things that get into the body and interfere with hormones. Wrong evening light does the same thing to a child’s hormones, it just gets in through the eyes instead of the mouth. Nothing leaches out of the bulb. The light itself is the exposure: it enters the eye, shuts down melatonin, and disturbs the timing that other hormones, like the stress hormone cortisol, are built around. That is why researchers formally classify artificial light at night as an environmental endocrine disruptor.

This is taken seriously at the highest levels. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency rates night shift work, which scrambles the body’s light and dark schedule, as probably carcinogenic to humans. France’s national health agency officially recommends warm bulbs below 3000K at home and specifically warns against children’s evening exposure to blue rich LED light. American parents have simply never been told.

For perspective: the famous Southampton food dye trial found that artificial colors increased hyperactivity in children, and that finding changed how a generation of parents shops. The measured effect was small. Meanwhile the light fixture over the dinner table is cutting a preschooler’s primary circadian hormone by 70 to 99 percent, three hours a night, every night. We read every ingredient label and have never once audited what falls on our children’s eyes.

The most powerful fix is free: real sunlight, morning and evening

Before you buy anything, understand that the bulbs are only half the problem. The other half is that our children get too little of the light they were built for. The body does not judge evening light in isolation. It judges contrast. A child who gets bright natural light all day is far more resistant to evening disruption than a child who went from a dim classroom to a dim house to a bright screen.

The gap is enormous. Indoor lighting measures a few hundred lux. Outside, even under full cloud cover or tree shade, light measures in the thousands to tens of thousands. A window cuts most of it. There is no bulb, no app, and no supplement that substitutes for going outside.

Morning light is the anchor, and it pays out all day. Within an hour of waking, get your child outside for 10 to 30 minutes. Breakfast on the porch, walking to the bus stop instead of driving, ten minutes in the yard before school. Morning light sets the body clock, and nearly everything a parent cares about hangs off that clock. Tonight’s melatonin release is scheduled by this morning’s light, so kids fall asleep easier and sleep deeper. Morning light triggers the healthy morning rise in cortisol that produces natural alertness, which means easier wake ups and a sharper first half of the school day instead of a foggy one. Bright daylight also drives serotonin activity, the brain chemistry behind steady mood, which is one reason mood dips in dark winters and why light is used to treat it. Appetite, energy, and emotional regulation all run on the same clock. One habit, ten minutes, and it compounds every day.

Evening light closes the day and protects the eyes. The low, amber light near sunset is the signal every generation before ours ended the day with, and twenty minutes outside after dinner tells the body the day is wrapping up. It doubles as movement, which itself deepens sleep, and as unstructured time together, which most families are short on. It also carries a benefit most parents have never heard: outdoor daylight is the best proven protection against childhood nearsightedness, which now affects nearly half of kids in some parts of the world. Adding 40 to 80 minutes of outdoor time per school day cut new cases of myopia by 25 to 50 percent in randomized school trials. The same daily walk that settles bedtime is protecting your child’s vision.

Pull natural light into the places your family actually spends the day. At home, open the blinds fully every morning, move homework and play toward windows, and eat breakfast in the brightest spot in the house. At school, ask whether your child can be seated near a window, and advocate for outdoor recess staying outdoors, since recess is many children’s only real light exposure of the day. At the office, the same biology applies to you: take a call walking outside, eat lunch outdoors, claim the desk near the window. Parents who fix their own light sleep better, and the whole household’s rhythm improves together.

Then fix the bulbs

• Start with the two rooms that matter most: wherever the family sits after dinner, and your child’s bedroom. That is usually six to ten bulbs. Replace the rest of the house gradually as bulbs burn out.
• After dinner, turn off the ceiling lights. Overhead light is the geometry of noon. Use two or three lamps at or below eye level instead. This costs nothing.
• Buy by the numbers on the box: 2700K or lower (2200K amber for the last hour before bed), CRI 90 or higher, labeled flicker free, and dimmable on a compatible dimmer.
• Test for flicker yourself. Point your phone’s slow motion camera at any lit bulb for two seconds. Rolling dark bands mean flicker. A steady image means a decent driver. Test what you already own before buying anything.
• Use up any incandescent bulbs you still have in the evening lamps. They no longer sell for general lighting in the US, but the ones in your garage are the best evening light in the house. Note that Edison style filament bulbs on store shelves are LEDs in costume, so test them like any other.
• Night lights should be red or amber and near the floor. Cover the blue standby lights on electronics in the bedroom. And be honest about screens: a tablet at close range is a bigger blue dose than any ceiling fixture. Warm mode on, and off before wind down begins.

What this means for your family

LEDs solved a real energy problem. Nobody was measuring what they did to children, so that never entered the decision to put them in every home in the country. The savings are real and they are small. The cost lands in places no one tracked: how long it takes your child to fall asleep, how the afternoon goes, how much patience your child has left by dinner.

Changing your lighting will not resolve a significant attention or behavior problem by itself, and no one should promise you otherwise. What it does is remove one obstacle that has been working against your child every evening, and it is one of the few obstacles you can remove yourself this week without a waiting list or a prescription. NACD has spent more than 47 years working with families on the daily inputs at home, because that is where change actually happens. Light is one of the most overlooked inputs there is.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 40 No. 2, 2026 ©NACD

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The quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but it actually came from novelist Rita Mae Brown. I must admit I liked it better when I thought it was Einstein’s, but coming from a novelist doesn’t make it any less true. And nowhere is it more true than in education.

Look at a 1971 Cadillac, the top-of-the-line American car of its day and compare it to a self-driving Tesla. The development and change have been more than dramatic. As an old Star Trek fan, I notice the same thing watching reruns: in many ways we’ve already surpassed what those writers could even imagine. Captain Kirk used a flip phone.

Almost everything has changed dramatically over the last fifty years, with one glaring exception: education. I can think of nothing that has progressed slower. Long-term trends in educational outcomes show a graph that is virtually a straight line from 1971 to today.

Why Education Is Stuck

There are many contributing factors. A few of the biggest:

• Self-perpetuating training. Most professors in college departments of education are themselves graduates of the very programs they now teach, preserving the same practices decade after decade.
• Questionable curriculum and resistance to choice. There are little real competition and little willingness to let parents choose what works.
• Lack of parental involvement. Many homes have effectively been removed from the educational equation.
• Homework that does more harm than good. Schools try to make up for ineffective use of the six hours a child is in class by sending more work home, often with negative results.
• Teach, test, forget. Material is taught, tested once, and for the most part never revisited, so it never truly enters long-term memory.

One Size Fits No One

But high on my list as to why progress has been so minimal is that our schools are still focused on set curricula, one-size-fits-all education. What is taught is grade or class dependent, not student dependent. In any classroom, at any grade level, there can easily be a disparity of two, three, or even more years in students’ academic levels, with similar differences in their processing levels. A child’s processing level determines how much of what they hear, read, or see they can actually take in, understand, and assimilate.

What Targeted Education Looks Like

At NACD, we see every day what targeted education can do: education tailored to the individual. Targeted education means teaching the child at their level in each subject, tailoring instruction to the child’s processing level, leveraging the principles of neuroplasticity, and providing targeted input with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration until the information moves into long-term memory and is associated with other things the child has learned. Developing processing abilities changes the whole picture and the child’s future.

Parents, You Don’t Have to Wait

Changing a system that doesn’t really want to change is going to take a long time. But parents, you don’t have to wait. Consider taking charge: if possible, bring your kids home and provide them with a targeted, tailored education. It can accelerate your child’s learning, turn them into active learners and readers, and yes, make them smarter.

If you’d like to learn how NACD can help you build an individualized program for your child, visit nacd.org or contact us directly. The system may not change in time. Your child doesn’t have to wait.

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

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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.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already tried ABA therapy. Maybe for months. Maybe for years. And somewhere along the way, a quiet voice started asking: Is this actually working?

You’re not alone. And you’re not wrong for asking.

The Problem Isn’t You. It’s the Model.

Here’s what we’re hearing from parents right now:

“Currently we aren’t seeing much progress, so I’m looking into other therapeutic support models.”

“We had to switch therapists. I like to say we fired them. It just wasn’t the right fit.”

“The constant turnover makes it very difficult for him to get acclimated.”

These aren’t outliers. A recent analysis of parent conversations across major online communities found that 68% of parents who question ABA aren’t anti-therapy. They’re frustrated with compliance-focused therapy that doesn’t honor who their child actually is.

And they’re right to be frustrated.

Why ABA Doesn’t Work

ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) is built on a simple premise: reinforce desired behaviors, reduce undesired ones. On paper, it sounds reasonable. In practice, it misses the point entirely.

It treats symptoms, not the whole child. A child who struggles with transitions isn’t just exhibiting a “behavior to extinguish.” They may have sensory processing differences, working memory challenges, or anxiety rooted in unpredictability. Targeting the behavior without addressing the underlying neurodevelopment is like putting a bandage on a broken bone.

It doesn’t happen often enough (or it happens too much, in the wrong way). Many families receive in-home ABA services 40 hours a week. That sounds intensive. But here’s the problem: those 40 hours are often spent on compliance training and behavior management, not neurodevelopment. And let’s be honest. For exhausted parents, having someone in the home for 40 hours a week is attractive even when progress stalls. It becomes free help. Free babysitting. That’s not therapy. Meanwhile, the brain doesn’t change from this kind of exposure. Neuroplasticity requires the right kind of input, delivered with frequency and intensity, in the environment where the child actually lives. Skills learned through compliance drills often don’t transfer because they were never built on a foundation of real development.

Staff turnover destroys any progress. The ABA industry has a well-documented retention crisis. Therapists leave. New ones arrive. Your child has to start over, again and again, with people who don’t know them. One parent described her adult son (6’5″, nonverbal) who hasn’t had consistent therapy “for YEARS” because of this revolving door.

It labels behaviors without understanding them. Because ABA doesn’t look at or understand the whole child, behaviors like collecting things, lining up items, or deep interest in specific topics are automatically labeled as “stims” to reduce. But that may or may not be true. Some of these behaviors are developmentally appropriate. Some are meaningful ways your child engages with the world. You can only determine what a specific behavior actually is by looking at and understanding the whole child. ABA doesn’t do that. So it treats everything the same way, regardless of what’s actually going on.

The Research Confirms What Parents Already Know

For years, ABA was the default recommendation because it was the most studied. But newer research confirms what frustrated parents have been saying all along:

A 2018 study found that ABA participants were 86% more likely to meet criteria for PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) than autistic people not exposed to ABA. To be clear: PTSD is the same condition we see in combat veterans and trauma survivors. The fact that a childhood therapy is associated with this level of psychological harm should stop every parent in their tracks.

Academic peer reviews have called for significant reform of ABA-based interventions.

Major publications (including STAT News and The 74 Million) have investigated whether ABA may be doing more harm than good.

Meanwhile, insurance remains the gatekeeper. Many parents stay in ABA not because it’s working, but because it’s the only covered option. That’s not a therapeutic choice. It’s a financial trap.

What Actually Changes the Brain

At NACD, we’ve spent more than 47 years developing a different approach. One built on how neurodevelopment actually works.

Parents are the intervention. Not therapists who rotate out every few months. You. The person who knows your child best, who sees them every day, who has the most to gain from their success. We train and coach parents to implement targeted activities at home. Not once a week, but daily. That’s how you get the frequency and intensity the brain needs to change.

We see the whole child. Not a collection of behaviors to manage, but a complete human being with interconnected challenges and strengths. Our evaluators look at sensory processing, motor development, cognition, language, behavior, what they eat, how they sleep, how they play. Because none of it exists in isolation. You can’t fix one piece without understanding how it connects to everything else.

1,000+ techniques, individualized to your child. There’s no one-size-fits-all protocol. Every child gets a program built specifically for them, drawing from a toolbox we’ve developed over four decades. And that program evolves. We re-evaluate quarterly and adjust based on what’s working.

Your child’s interests are assets, not problems. We don’t suppress what makes your child unique. We build on it. Those “obsessive” interests? They’re often the key to unlocking engagement, motivation, and learning.

You’re Not Starting Over. You’re Moving Forward.

If you’ve been in ABA and it’s not working, you haven’t failed. You’ve learned something important: your child needs something different.

The brain can change. Every child has unlimited potential. And parents are the most powerful change agents in a child’s life.

That’s not hope. That’s neuroscience. And it’s been our foundation for more than 47 years.

Many of these children also show strong avoidance behavior when tasks feel overwhelming, which is often a sign of underlying anxiety rather than defiance.

About the Author: Laird Doman is the COO of NACD International (nacd.org), a neurodevelopmental organization that has served over 50,000 families since 1979. NACD was founded by his father, Bob Doman, who continues to lead the organization’s methodology development.

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

The post When ABA Therapy Isn’t Working: A Different Path Forward appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

Neurodevelopmental Processing and Neurodevelopmental Processing Deficits are terms needed to help people understand the significance of processing and processing inadequacies, or deficits. Neurodevelopmental processing deficits are becoming ubiquitous because of numerous factors that limit the perception of what could be and factors that limit the opportunities needed for the development of strong processing.

Neurodevelopmental processing, or simply “processing,” is a term referencing mental cognitive functions that include the ability to learn from what we see and the words that we hear, as well as what we can remember, mentally manipulate, and use to think and function. These components include short-term memory, working memory, long-term memory, executive function, and fluid intelligence. These pieces are part of the whole which determine our brain’s processing ability, cognition, and simply how smart we are.

An NPD, or neurodevelopmental processing deficit, is simply not having the processing power appropriate for your age or the demands placed on you educationally, needed to meet requirements for daily living, healthy social interaction, or work/career. Neurodevelopmental processing grows as a natural process, but the rate of development, degree of development, and later sustainability and further enhancement can be impacted through opportunity and intervention.

I use the equation IP+E=F.  Our innate intelligence to the power of our processing ability, plus educational opportunity and knowledge, determines our function, or simply how smart we are. Our innate intelligence is generally untapped, and our ability to develop our processing function is essentially unlimited. We all have the potential to be smarter, much smarter, and to function at higher levels.

Processing is something that typically develops from birth to about nine or ten years of age. There is often a slight progression from the age of ten to our twenties, and then there is usually a slow decline throughout the rest of our lives, if not for intervention or exceptional use of these functions.

From lack of maturity, inappropriate behaviors, and receptive and expressive language issues to problems with learning, difficulty with social interaction, and later to problems with job performance and interpersonal relationships, often the underlying issue is processing function that is inadequate for the expected or needed level of function.

Processing develops through opportunity, stimulation, and input. For children the first years of life are vitally important. The quality and quantity of 1:1 input and interaction largely determine how targeted the input and how effective the environment and opportunities are for the developing child. Factors that limit quality input negatively impact the development of processing. Some of the limiting factors include lack of the most fundamental piece affecting this development, i.e. 1:1 positive interaction with parents. A child provides parents with instantaneous feedback as to whether the input they are receiving is appropriate and stimulating and targeted or not; and parents innately respond and modify their interaction. This 1:1 interaction can produce targeted input, meaning input that specifically fits that individual at that point in time. The further we get from targeted input, the less effectively the child’s environment develops their processing function. Even trying to interact and be targeted with two children of the same age and keeping them both engaged can be challenging. What about 1:5, or 1:10, or even 1:30? The younger the child and the lower the processing level, the more difficult it is to provide them with targeted input. Opportunity is that which produces neurodevelopmental processing.

There are many factors which produce NPDs, including the decline of the family unit, an increase in the number of working mothers, limited expectations, negative societal influences, decline of reading ability, addictions to screens, inferior educational practices, and sensory processing issues, as well as the increase in labels and “diseases” that limit expectations.

For five decades we have assessed and worked with neurodevelopmental processing with tens of thousands of individuals, covering the full range of individuals from babies to geriatrics, as well as the full spectrum of developmental issues and labels from brain injury, autism, Down syndrome, dyslexia, and ADHD, to the “gifted.” Utilizing interventions, which have included many 1:1 activities, apps, and software such as our Simply Smarter program, it is unquestionable that anyone at any age can improve their processing ability and improve their overall function.

Significance for Those with Developmental Issues

To varying degrees, NPDs are significant, or the primary factors, in determining the level of function in the entire population; but they may have the greatest impact on all of those with developmental delays or issues.

ADHD

The primary issue for many if not most children labeled as having ADHD is an inadequate level of processing. If you have a ten-year-old child with the processing function of a four- or five-year-old, which is not unusual, and even possibly having good innate intelligence, you have a child with the attention span of a four- or five-year-old, the distractibility of a four- or five-year-old, the lack of executive function exhibited by most four- or five-year-olds, and often the maturity and behavioral issues associated with four- or five-year-olds. The “diagnosis” of ADHD is a checklist that essentially characterizes a typical younger child. Should we be using medications to slow down four- or five-year-olds so they can sit and attend longer? Then why do it with that with those labeled as ADHD, when we can easily address the common cause of the issue– a neurodevelopmental processing deficit? The medical disease model implies some mysterious, underlying limiting factor in these individuals. There can be contributing dietary factors, as well as issues related to their home, school environments, and negative behavior patterns; but the most common issue with the vast majority labeled with ADHD, this perceived incurable disease, is simply a processing inadequacy, and particularly an auditory sequential processing problem. Their processing ability is inadequate for the demands of their chronological age. We establish patterns of behaviors in our early lives. If processing has not been developed adequately when we are young, it can result in attention and behavior patterns that can remain with us for the rest of our lives. Patterns can be changed, but first we need to address the underlying issue, the processing deficit.

Autism Spectrum Disorders

The severity of those placed on the autism spectrum is essentially measured by the degree of sensory dysfunction, as well as the degree to which the child is not present and engaged, or engaged in DSAs, debilitating sensory addictive behaviors. Sensory issues impair the child’s ability to participate in, engage in, and learn from their environment; and this directly impacts their ability to develop their processing abilities. The impaired processing and related lack of engagement leads to varying degrees of global immaturity, poor receptive and expressive language, difficulty understanding and relating to people, and lack of executive function, etc. Foundational to improving the function of those on the spectrum or getting them off the spectrum is addressing their processing inadequacies. The higher their processing, the higher their global level of function. The primary difference between those on the various levels of the spectrum is processing level.

Down Syndrome

Children and adults with Down syndrome have NPDs, and their overall level of function can universally be determined by their processing level. Low functioning individuals with Down syndrome have low processing function, and those given the opportunity to develop “typical” processing levels can function in” typical” ranges. Processing can be improved in every individual with Down syndrome, at any age, and their global function and independence developed with it, if given the opportunity.

Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, and Other Learning Disabilities and Issues

Children learn differently, and a significant component in those differences reflects inefficiencies in auditory and/or visual processing and one size fits all curriculum.  Children will generally get labeled as having a learning related disability if they are seen as having “normal” intelligence, but have a problem learning to read, or doing math, or learning in general. These problems can often be remediated and fixed by identifying and addressing their processing issues and by modifying the approach to better fit their individual strengths, while remediating their weakness.  Having seen literally thousands of such children go from having issues to being at the head of the class in a short time bears testament to where potential really lies, if the children are given the help they need to turn their weaknesses into strengths.

Behavior Problems and Disorders

Behavior problems are becoming increasingly prevalent, largely as a reflection of societal trends which have impacted the role of parents and family and decreased such fundamentals as teaching children that there are consequences to their behavior, teaching them responsibility, and developing independence. There is, however, often some level of issue relative to sequential processing that impacts their global maturity, ability to process directions, and the development of executive function. Behavior issues and resolution require a thorough understanding of the whole child, including the family situation, parenting, schools, and other influences. Addressing any NPDs improves their executive function and helps to address their behavior issues.

Average/Typical Joe

There is no more limiting perception of individual potential than being viewed as “average” or “typical.” The vast majority of the population fits into this category. Being “average” or “typical” limits expectations and opportunity. “Average/typical” is generally perceived to be simply a reflection of innate intelligence. It is not! Every “average/typical” adult or child is not restricted by innate potential. With rare exception, all our innate potentials are sufficient to develop super levels of function if provided with the opportunity to develop our processing.

IP+E=F

Your innate potential to the power of your processing ability plus your E (education/knowledge) determines your functional intelligence– how smart you are.

Using the tools to develop processing should be at or near the top of every child’s curriculum and parent’s priority. Everyone trying to improve the quality of their lives can and should work to be simply smarter, and they can.

We have the tools to help everyone function better, and we need to use them.

Related Posts

Processing Power: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Parenting 101: Processing, Behavior, and Maturity

California- They’re Not Dreamin, They’re Doing! Getting Serious About Processing and Working Memory

Time to Upgrade Your Processor: Building Better Brains

If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Achieve It

•             Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 39 No. 5, 2025 ©NACD

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The recently released ‘Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) report, spearheaded by Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., presented a critical examination of the factors contributing to the decline in the health of American children. The report identifies several key areas of concern that align closely with the mission of the National Association for Child Development (NACD).

One of our ongoing efforts for almost half a century has been to educate parents and assist them in their children’s development and education, part of which has included guiding and assisting them in addressing dietary and health issues. Every year our experience and data underscore the significance of diet, nutrition, and exercise for general health, as well as the correlation between these pieces and brain function and development. The correlation between these basic physiological pieces and development, mental receptivity, behavior, energy, awareness, sleep, and on and on is unquestionable. In addition, the tremendous number of children we have worked with internationally has strongly indicated a causative relationship between environmental toxins, immunizations, and neurodevelopmental issues such as autism, ADHD, and global developmental delay being high on the list. Research is indicating that there are multigenerational and transgenerational effects of toxins in our environment and foods that can produce developmental issues in our children, but also disorders such as asthma, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases.

One of our roles is helping parents understand that they are responsible for their child’s diet and exercise and providing them with the expertise and support to make the needed changes. Some children come to us with absolutely horrendous diets.  Many decades ago I was puzzled by the number of low functioning children who would eat nothing other than McDonald’s fries, chicken nuggets, or burgers. Most of these children would not have known Ronald McDonald from the president and would not or could not attend to TV and be influenced by advertising or peers. We assumed there was something in this food that had the children hooked. It turned out it was sugar.  Between addiction to things from gluten to sugar and the tendency of children to get stuck in behavior patterns, many parents were unwilling or able to modify their child’s diet. Working with the whole child and the family, we were able to guide and coach the parents so that they could break addictions and patterns, as well as modify the child’s senses of taste and smell and even increase their cognitive function to increase the child’s reasoning ability. Without comprehensive help many parents are lost as to how to make the necessary changes. Changing a stubborn or addicted child’s diet, getting them away from screens and moving is often perceived by parents to be a futile task. And truth be known, many parents have neither the expertise nor support to make these changes, and as a result they do their best to try to convince themselves that it’s neither possible nor important. Creating healing healthy diets and exercise is not only possible, it’s vital not only to the child’s function and behavior today, but to their future development, health and even their longevity.

Changing addictions and behavior patterns may not be simple, but it’s often a lot easier than many parents believe. But parents need a lot of guidance and support to do it. It can be done, and it is not only important, but often required if we are going to help the children become what they can and should be.

Children are not responsible for creating good diets and exercise programs, their parents are.

We have prepared a summary of the Make America Health Again report, and we encourage everyone to review it. It’s important!

Our Summary

On May 22, 2025, the MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) Commission—led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—released its Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment, spotlighting four main drivers behind the rise in chronic health conditions among American children:

1.  Ultra‑Processed Foods

• Nearly 70 percent of children’s daily calories now come from ultra‑processed foods—high in sugars, refined grains, industrial fats, additives, and dyes.
• These diets are tied to obesity, diabetes, learning and behavior challenges, sleep issues, and weakened cognitive abilities.
• The report urges reconsideration of dietary guidelines and federal food programs to reduce processed food consumption. org+14whitehouse.gov+14fabbs.org+14mofo.com+1adhdevidence.org+1

2.  Environmental Chemicals

• Children face daily exposure to tens of thousands of synthetic chemicals—PFAS, pesticides, microplastics, heavy metals, and even electromagnetic radiation.
• The report links these exposures to developmental delays, endocrine disruption, and metabolic problems, calling for stronger oversight, cumulative-impact studies, and stricter regulation.org+2whitehouse.gov+2wlj.net+2

3. Sedentary Lifestyles, Screen Time & Chronic Stress

• The increase in screen time—up to nine hours a day—is coupled with reduced physical activity, poor sleep, and increasing stress and anxiety.
• These factors contribute significantly to obesity, mental health issues, and behavioral problems. MAHA places equal emphasis on lifestyle and dietary concerns.org+2americanactionforum.org+2fabbs.org+2adhdevidence.org+7mofo.com+7americanactionforum.org+7

4. Over‑Medicalization

• The assessment warns against excessive prescribing of psychiatric medications, antibiotics, acid suppressants, and emerging weight-loss drugs for children.
• It flags insufficient long-term safety data, lax oversight, and undue influence from pharmaceutical interests, advocating for enhanced informed consent and post-market monitoring.

What NACD Families Can Do Now

• Opt for whole foods—eliminate processed snacks, dyes, and excess sugars from meals.
• Reduce toxin exposure—choose cleaner produce, limit plastic use, filter water, and avoid pesticides.
• Promote movement & healthy routines—encourage outdoor activity, limit screen time, establish consistent sleep patterns, and manage stress.
• Vet medical interventions thoughtfully—research prescriptions and vaccines, seek second opinions, and engage in informed decision-making.
• Stay engaged and advocate—keep track of MAHA’s next moves and support measures that promote healthier schools, cleaner environments, and safer food.

Bottom Line

MAHA confirms what NACD has always emphasized: the profound impact of diet, environment, lifestyle, and prudent healthcare choices on child development. Though not without flaws, the report offers a compelling framework to shift national policy toward prevention and family empowerment. NACD stands ready to guide families in turning these insights into real-world, healthy practices.

• Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 3 No. 4, 2025 ©NACD

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I just returned from my annual trip to the beautiful pastoral mountains of Transylvania. Once a year I travel to the family friendly resort Cheile Gradistei to see our Eastern European families whom we work with via Zoom throughout the year. Over the course of the three weeks, my staff and I met with about 50 families who were able to join us. Some of these families we have worked with for over a decade. One of these is the Spatariu family, who has done a terrific job with their lovely daughter, Monica. Monica is a model for families with children who have Down syndrome.

Monica is now thirteen, and we have been helping her since she was eleven months old. Monica is in Romanian public school, and her parents work with her around her mandatory school hours. Monica is and has always been in a typical class, and on recent national testing received all A’s. She is proud to be at the top of her English class at school. The only thing I heard regarding issues at school was that Monica tends to argue with the boys because she doesn’t like how they behave. I gave her a point for that. Monica, like many of my children over there, gives me the great compliment of working hard on her English at least partially so she can speak with me. I still can’t speak Romanian or Bulgarian or any of the other languages my kids over there can speak.

During Monica’s evaluation I asked if I could record her speaking English. I wanted to be able to share how well she was doing with her second language. Her English is already dramatically better than my Spanish was after two years of Spanish in high school and another in college. My intention was to ask her a simple question and record a brief sample of her English to share with our speech pathologist. As she often does, Monica surprised me with her response to a very simple question, “Monica, tell me about your cat.” I loved her response, which I think speaks volumes of what can be, should be and needs to be.

Our Eastern European families are helping to approach a tipping point in thier respective countries, demonstrating what special needs children, from those labeled as autistic to those with Down syndrome like Monica, can achieve.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 39, No.4 , 2025 ©NACD

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Your computer’s CPU, or Central Processing Unit, carries out instructions and performs calculations that run programs and operate the computer system. This processor collects information from computer memory, decodes, executes operations, and stores results. The better your processor, essentially the better your computer.

Our combined internal processor and CPU, our brain, gathers information through our senses, associates that input with information stored in our memories, and then performs all associated functions—learning, thinking, planning, organization, self- regulation, inhibitory control functions, and cognitive flexibility. 

Every day we hear more about AI, Artificial Intelligence, the future. AI is the technology that enables computers to act more like brains, to carry out advanced functions, and perform functions that would normally require human intelligence, including learning, understanding language, problem solving, making recommendations, and more. While all this development is taking place, we are ignoring the development of HI- Human Intelligence.

As the world works hard to create smarter computers, our society is tending to produce dumber brains. Some research is showing that we may now be dropping as much as 2.5-4.3 IQ points per decade. * Recent academic outcomes, addiction to social media and screens, and societal trends would tend to suggest that the decline is now accelerating. There are many reasons for this decline, all of which have an impact of the development of and use of our internal processors, our brains.

It was once correctly said that the brain is the only container in which the more you put into it, the more it can hold. It’s true! We build a better brain by permitting it to process more. The mechanism of neuroplasticity is that which not only permits growth and development, but it is also the brain mechanism that grows the brain the more we use it. The better our processing, the more input our brains receive, the greater our complexity of thought and function. The more and better we process, the smarter we get.

The human brain, human processor, typically develops its foundation in our first ten years of life; but development can and does continue beyond then. Neural connections and networks start developing from birth as the brain is stimulated through sensory input and use. The more targeted to the individual and organized the input, the greater the benefit. The primary components of our processor are generally referred to as short-term memory, working memory, long term memory, and executive function. These terms do not accurately depict how our processor works. Our brain function is our intelligence, which is much more than memory. It’s how we process, manipulate, associate, create, think, and behave. These dynamic systems of our brain effectively determine how we learn, think, function, behave, and ultimately who we are.

Neuroplasticity is active throughout our lifetime. We have the potential to keep growing, to keep getting smarter, given the opportunity. How our brains develop reflects the stimulation and opportunities we receive. Input develops our brain and literally grows connections and neural networks, physically growing the brain. A typical baby’s brain weighs about three-quarters of a pound, and an adult brain about 3 pounds. The degree of growth is a direct reflection of the input, the stimulation we receive and how well our processor works. Neurodevelopmental problems ranging from things like Down syndrome to autism, ADHD, ADD, dyslexia and learning disabilities are all issues that adversely affect the brain’s ability to process input. Perhaps nothing reflects the value of targeted treatment/input as the changes that are produced in all of those with obvious neurodevelopmental issues when provided with programs that organize their brains and build their processors. All of these neurodevelopmental issues can be affected and improved or eliminated if these individuals are provided with the targeted input needed to address and build their processing.

Educators and most parents are familiar with the term “curriculum.” Curriculum implies a planned course, a sequence of planned input that incorporates practice to produce proficiency. Our schools have reading, math, science, history, and other areas of curriculum, but where is the curriculum for the most important piece that actually makes us smarter? Educators have been stuck for decades with a convenient grey area defining the difference between intelligence and cognition, which are functionally the same thing and equate with “smart.” If you believe that intelligence (cognition) doesn’t, or can’t, change, the educational system absolves itself of the responsibility to develop it, which also assists in categorizing and limiting expectations. It is what it is and has resulted in accepting mediocrity in most and limitations in all of our children. Our more than four decades of experience at NACD in developing processing in many thousands of children and adults, from those with brain injuries, Down syndrome, autism, learning and attention issues to “typical” and gifted, etc., undeniably shows that not only can intelligence be improved, it can dramatically enhance and change lives. There is formal research showing the positive effects on IQ, cognition, with Head Start, preschool, and education in general. ***These changes are correctly attributed to improved quality and quantity of input, change that occurs although “education.” These changes are made even though “education” rarely if ever includes targeted activities to address the foundational components of cognition, our processing power—the ability to process more of what we see and hear, and the ability to mentally manipulate more pieces of information, the workings of our human processor, our brains.

That which develops changes, what changes can be developed.

At NACD we work with families and their whole children. A rather important part of the whole package is the brain. We have developed and utilized literally hundreds of targeted activities to build and change cognition, to build human processors. When we design individual educational and developmental programs, they include everything from diet to behavior, social skills, language, physical structure and function, to reading and math, etc. But inevitably high on the priority list, if not at the top, is processing: building and developing the human processor, the brain, and simply making people smarter.

Smarter is better. We all have the potential to be smarter and a responsibility to make our children smarter.

Trying to help a child achieve their potential without addressing their processor, or cognition, is like trying to win the Indy 500 without building an engine.

*https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-iq-scores-1970s.html#:~:text=In%20studying%20the%20data%2C%20the,was%20not%20all%20bad%20news.

** See video above

***https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-iq-scores-1970s.html#:~:text=In%20studying%20the%20data%2C%20the,was%20not%20all%20bad%

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

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