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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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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What do you remember from last month, last year, a decade ago, or five decades ago? I still have some vivid memories from college over fifty years ago, and none of them have anything to do with what occurred in a classroom.

I take every chance I get to speak with young people graduating from high school or who are attending or have just finished college.These talks help reinforce for me the value of intensity or the results of the lack of it in education.  I ask these young people whose education should be fresh in their minds very simple questions about everything from geography and science to civics and history. I’m no longer surprised when many of these “A” students cannot answer even the most rudimentary questions, the answers to which should be essential to simply functioning in our society. What happened?

All learning involves impacting and changing the brain. The mechanism for this change is neuroplasticity. The world of education has largely ignored the basics of neuroplasticity even though the fundamentals have been known for many decades.

Sadly, the term neuroplasticity has become synonymous with the simple statement – the brain changes.  This is true, the brain constantly changes based on the input it receives and how it is used. But to take advantage of neuroplasticity we must understand and pay attention to the fundamentals of neuroplasticity. The fundamentals are not difficult to understand, but as mentioned, are very rarely employed in education.

Targeted Input

The first fundamental of neuroplasticity is providing the child’s brain with input that is targeted to them. We optimize neuroplasticity when we provide the brain with targeted input. Targeted input simple means that which is significant, relevant, and which specifically fits the individual.  If we try to apply this to a typical classroom we are unfortunately far away from targeted. In a typical classroom of about thirty children, we have thirty individuals, each with their own experiential background, level of related knowledge, their own unique learning and processing abilities, and of course various levels of interest or lack of such in the subject. Classes are often being taught by someone who is merely following a one size fits all set curriculum and who may not have a real interest in the subject themselves.

Frequency

The second component of neuroplasticity is frequency.  

We grow brain connections when we supply the brain with specific targeted input with sufficient frequency, often enough to produce relatively permanent change. One of the most glaring examples of the lack of frequency in typical education is in math. Only twenty-four percent of high school graduates in the United States are proficient in math. If they had in fact learned and retained what was “taught,” the proficiency rate would theoretically be very high. (The present Common Core math is a failure, as was the “new math” of the sixties from which it is based.) In truth math outcomes have never been good because there is almost never enough review, i.e. frequency. Case in point: the year students take Algebra, their overall math score tends to drop. Why? Not enough use of or review of previously taught processes.  The majority of what is taught in school is never to be seen again after the exam, the exam which is supposed to be an indicator of what was “learned.” Most students, even the good ones, do not approach the content with even the intention of really learning it.  The intention is to pass the exam, because they generally are not interested in or see the relevance of the material to them. If you don’t know the information weeks or months, let alone years, later one might question if it was in fact ever learned. What was the point? 

Duration

Going hand in hand with frequency is the third component of neuroplasticity–duration.  The input needs to come in over time to help grow those connections that change the brain and produce memory. That period of time generally takes us back to frequency, because in one session as we increase duration, we lose intensity. Short and sweet. The less targeted the input, the less the impact on the brain and the greater the duration needed to impact the brain. However, the more targeted the input, the higher the intensity and  the lower the requirement for high frequency and long duration.

Intensity

Intensity, the fourth component of neuroplasticity, is extremely important and the least realized of the fundamentals of neuroplasticity in most schools, classrooms, and even homeschools.  Mentally go back to one of your classrooms, be it from elementary school, middle or high school, and hopefully to a lesser degree college. What did that classroom look like?  Kids half asleep, kids doodling, kids looking out the window, kids listening to what was going on in the hallway, some staring blankly at the teacher, and perhaps a few who were interested in what the teacher was saying and were paying attention. There rarely is much of any intensity. Intensity is student specific, a reflection of how targeted the input is, what you bring to the moment, to the class, to the subject. This brings to mind the paradox of some “learning disabled” children struggling with every subject in school and failing, but who can tell you the name of every major league baseball player and their stats. Often, it’s all about intensity, to what degree what is being taught interests, fits, or targets the student. Is what is being taught targeted to the student? Is what is being taught being presented in a way that involves and excites the student? 

The typical educational, curriculum-based model doesn’t really work, if measured by the time invested by both the school and the student (time which can never be reclaimed) and expense relative to what is actually learned.  Our brains demand something different.

Our brains only learn and change through the mechanism of neuroplasticity. Go back to those long-term memories and think about what they had in common.  The odds are the common component is intensity.  

Where is the student in the equation? 

When instructing parents or other educators, I always address intensity.  Do your best to target the student. Do your best to understand them, know them, interact, and observe them. I even suggest that they imagine a number in the center of the student’s forehead that constantly fluctuates, that rates their intensity on a scale of 1-10. 10 is such high intensity that learning is almost instantaneous; it’s an experience that happens once and you never forget it. The odds are you’re not going to see a 10, but you can shoot for a 9. Bring down the number to 7 or 8 and learning is occurring, but you are going to need a lot of frequency and duration to change that brain. At 5 or 6 the impact on the brain is getting to be marginal at best, and below 5 everyone would be better off taking a nap. This is real, and the truth is we are kidding ourselves and wasting our children’s time and turning them off to learning if we are trying to cram information into a brain that’s not being targeted.

One of the major issues related to focusing on curriculum and largely leaving the child out of the equation is that we miss the fact and the reality that we have the ability to actually change the student. We have the means to make every student smarter. We can develop short-term memory and then build on that foundation and develop working memory, which is now appropriately being called the new IQ. And then the working memory creates executive function, which is the higher-level cognitive function that permits us to control and orchestrate all our cognitive functions and behaviors. But the fact is that “education” ignores the individual to such an extent that these incredibly important fundamentals that affect how well we learn, think, and function in every aspect of our lives are lost. This is a travesty. 

We need to put the child, the student, at the top of the equation, not leave them out of the equation other than to give them a grade that reflects our failure.

There are better ways.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 37 No. 1 , 2024 ©NACD

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Upon the prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome for her daughter, Ashleigh left her work in Egypt to turn her focus towards her family. When her daughter was a year old she was invited to attend a photo shoot where Ashleigh met a parent using NACD with their child. Ashleigh joined NACD when her daughter was four and it was clear that something more was needed beyond the traditional therapies and programs at the local school. She was determined to help her daughter reach her highest potential. Ashleigh would later have two more children and all three kids are utilizing the NACD program with great success.

Ashleigh and her family moved to Camano Island in 2019 where they raise sheep, chickens and ducks. They have one livestock guardian dog that protects the animals outside, two indoor dogs and four cats in the barn. In her free time Ashleigh enjoys knitting, crocheting, weaving and processing the wool from her sheep into yarn. She is excited to join the NACD team and hopes to use that excitement to fuel another family’s journey with NACD and to help unlock their child’s full potential.

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“All great change in America starts at the dinner table.” 

— Ronald Reagan

If your children are infants, toddlers, of school age, or adults, or somewhere in between, family meals can be incredibly important. Whether our motivation is teaching a skill (such as eating or participating in meal preparation) or fostering family dynamics (such as communicating about the day, participating in discussions, building independent thinking), family meals may not just be the most important meals of the day, but the most important times of the day, or even their lives.

We are all aware that times have changed and that all the changes have not been for the better. Some of the more significant changes involve family, perception of family, and perhaps even the definition of family. There are many family traditions that are being lost in our fast-paced consumption-driven society. One very important piece that has been lost in many families is simply family meals. As a society and for the sake of our children, we need to revisit what has been the norm virtually throughout human history and has been lost to a great extent over just the last 50 years.

In many homes today, family meals are becoming more and more something that is part of family history or perhaps something reserved for special Sundays and holidays. For most families, breakfast is something you grab on the way out the door or something that gets shoved into children before they start the day. Today, rather than someone taking time to prepare a healthy breakfast meal for the family, most people grab the home equivalent of fast food. How about lunch? Lunch is rarely something that is done as a family. Everyone is off doing school, work, or whatever. In most families the best shot at getting the family together for a real meal is dinner. Let’s look at some of the problems being caused by the loss of family meals, as well as the benefits that we can derive from this old foundational family institution.

Over the past number of decades, I have observed an increase in several issues negatively affecting virtually all children that can be associated with missing family meals.

Just last night I had a family dinner with my son, Laird, his lovely wife Sadie, and my grandchildren, 5-year-old Arielle and just-turned-two Lachlan. Lachlan sat across the table and as he typically does, he kept an eye on me throughout the meal. The degree to which he observed me became obvious when he carefully nudged a piece of carrot to the edge of his plate, then onto the table with his fork. I had not had a chance to comment before he looked up at me and did an amazing job of imitating my head tilt and disapproving expression, which resulted in my smiling at him in spite of the fact that I knew I shouldn’t do it. (Lachlan fits “too cute for his own good.”) This was followed by my tilting my head and making different expressions that Lachlan mimicked beautifully. This went on for about 90 seconds, following which he picked the piece of carrot up and put it back on his plate. The degree to which children observe us and learn from us when we are in close proximity is greatly underestimated. Rarely throughout a typical day do these opportunities present themselves as they do during a family meal.

Although at two Lachlan has yet to learn that experimentation has its limits at the dinner table, there are many things he has learned from eating meals with his family and observing, things that many children who are fed by themselves or eat by themselves often do not learn until much later, and some of which are sadly never learned.

Optimally a family meal entails having the whole family together—Mom, Dad and all the kids. The only thing that generally beats this is when the extended family is included, as this grandfather can attest. Although we realistically can’t always, or even often, create the ideal, the closer we can come to it, the better. A parent, or a parent and a sibling, having a meal with a child is preferable to the child just eating alone or being fed, while the parent or caregiver simply attends to getting the food into the child. Part of this equation is delineating between eating as in consuming food vs. sharing a meal together, a learning experience. Eating is a process by which you get food from your hand, a utensil, or some container to your stomach, generally as quickly and as unceremoniously as possible. Having a meal together, sharing a meal, is often the most educational part of the day for children and parents alike. I grew up in the ’50s outside of Philadelphia. In the ’50s most mothers’ job was the family—period. Moms had time to cook and to sit down and share good meals with their family. Sunday dinners and extended family dinners often meant coats and ties for the guys and dresses for the girls. These meals were treated as significant events, even if they were frequent. I recall as a child learning early on that at a meal you talked. There was no TV, you didn’t read at the table, and an effort was made to include everyone in some form or level of discussion. Everyone participated or received some attention. I was in a restaurant recently and was shocked by a large family that was seated near us. You might not define eating at home as “dining,” although one would hope to approximate that as often as possible; but if a family goes to a restaurant and makes that financial and time investment, you might hope that the experience would approximate “dining.” On this particular evening while I was dining with my family, I noticed the large family next to us that consisted of both parents and six children who ranged from about six to sixteen. All sat the entire time staring at their phones. It would have been bad enough if they had answered calls, but not a word was spoken. Throughout the entire time they were in the restaurant, the only words spoken were to the waitress who took their orders. This was not a family sharing a meal together; it was an opportunity missed and lost, and sadly a statement about this family and many others.

Let’s look at our children of various ages and families at different stages and explore the significance of the family meal.

• Part 1 Infants and Toddlers
• Part 2 Three to Five Years
• Part 3 Five to Eighteen +

Part 1

Infants and Toddlers

Learning to chew, self-feeding, eating a variety of nutritional foods, auditory processing and language development

Learning to chew

As part of our program at NACD, which entails working with the whole child, we have families post many videos of their children on our NACD Portal. These videos provide our staff with vital information and insights that help us educate the family and assist in the child’s development. Observing many parents spoon feeding their little ones is often a bit of a painful experience. In these instances, it is very apparent that the obvious goal is to get the food from the bowl to the child’s stomach as quickly as possible. To accomplish this goal, the parent is often using an amazingly large spoon. Not only do we observe food being shoveled into the child’s mouth, but the rate at which the food is shoved in is such that the child has no opportunity to learn how to use their tongue to manipulate the food in the mouth. Learning how to use the tongue is a significant component of a child learning to chew and to speak. In order for the child to progress from purees, to chewable foods, to self-feeding, they need to learn how to chew. Chewing is a very important part of digestion, and children who do not chew well often have digestive issues and constipation. In addition, chewing is the first big piece of oral motor development that establishes the foundation for good articulation. If Johnny was being fed while some of the family was eating, it would be a much slower process with a significantly different goal. The goal would be to assist the child in eating, teaching them how to eat, and interacting, not simply filling their stomach. The children who are fed as previously described often are very slow to learn how to chew because they are not only being deprived of the opportunity to learn how, but deprived of the opportunity to observe Mom, Dad, and big sister chew.

Expanding taste, accepting a variety of foods

A side effect of delayed chewing is the slow introduction of a variety of identifiable foods. Pureed foods all tend to look and feel the same in the mouth and are often all mixed so that the child cannot differentiate between specific flavors and odors. It’s experiencing a wide variety of food, textures, tastes, and smells that develops the acceptance of a wide range of food and teaches the child not only to eat, but enjoy a variety of nutritional foods. Guess what else the child who is fed alone misses? The opportunity to observe what other people eat and enjoy. The nature of the beast is to want what others have; and observing what other family members have and then being offered the same thing contributes to the child’s trying and enjoying different foods and textures. The child who is fed and eats alone is deprived of these very important opportunities that can lead to picky eaters and lifelong rejection of many nutritious foods. The first tastes that a child perceives are sweet and salty. Delaying the introduction of other tastes often leads to the child rejecting the more nutritious foods and craving sweet and salty food.

Self-feeding

As we move from baby to infant to toddler, we want to be teaching the child how to feed themselves, moving from finger foods to utensils. Self-feeding is a very important step toward independence. The more independent a child becomes, the more the child initiates doing more things on their own; and nothing is perhaps more significant to independence than feeding oneself. The longer a child (or adult for that matter) is dependent, the harder it is to foster independence, initiation, change, and progress. The more the child initiates, the faster their global development. There are many other pieces to this, including the child who eats alone and is trained to need a distraction for meals, such as a screen or toys.

Moving along in the child’s development, eating with the family teaches many important things, from how to eat appropriately with utensils, to table manners, to simply sitting at the table until the meal is finished. Children learn how to be civilized from adults who are and who model appropriate behaviors. Eating with your child is an important modeling and teaching opportunity.

Family meals often present one of the most important opportunities for the child to observe and learn. Young children learn visually, by observing. If a child is eating alone and not sitting next to family members who are feeding themselves, they do not even have a mental picture of someone feeding themselves. As a result, they are slow to initiate self-feeding and are content to continue being fed. Conversely, the child who closely observes people eating with utensils learns how to eat with utensils.

One disturbing thing that children who are learning to self-feed, but who are eating by themselves, commonly learn is to throw food or drinks and plates and whatever is within reach. Why not, if they do not have sufficient modeling to show them how to eat and act appropriately or do not have the opportunity to simply observe and interact with other members of the family during a meal? If they are eating with someone else and happen to throw something, someone is there to give them immediate feedback. 

Processing, receptive and expressive language

Young children learn by being in close approximation to other people and observing. They also tend to observe some more than others. The family meal affords them the opportunity to focus and learn from specific family members. The family meal is an ideal time for the child to observe, listen, and begin to understand and process language and produce sounds and language themselves. Auditory processing (the ability to process a word, then phrases, then sentences) is of paramount importance to the development of cognitive function. The child at a family meal is a relatively captive audience who can observe and listen to what is being said and learn.

One of the keys to development is neuroplasticity. The child’s brain develops from specific input being provided with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration. Children need consistent opportunities to observe, interact, and learn.

Part 2

Three to Five Years

Table manners, expanding taste, attention, processing and language development, chores, responsibility and independence

We often think the goal of meals is simply to eat, to get nourishment; but as already discussed, there are many associated pieces that are extremely important. At each stage of the child’s development, there are important developmental pieces that relate to, and are aided by, family meals.

Table manners—taming the beast

It’s often easy to spot a child who typically eats alone: their table manners are horrific, and it takes longer to clean up the table and the floor after a meal than it was for the child to consume it. Teaching a child appropriate table manners requires first and foremost modeling appropriate table manners and then providing the child with appropriate instruction and feedback. The more often someone else is present and demonstrating appropriate table manners, the more quality input the child receives, and the faster they learn what they should do and how to do it.

Expanding taste—nutrition

Children who eat meals alone tend to learn to want the same things at every meal. Breakfast and even lunch is often the same every day. It is often easy for parents, once they discover what the child will eat for breakfast and lunch, to give the child the same thing every day; and unfortunately the child learns to want the same thing. So they both establish a pattern that neither is motivated to change. Eating the same thing daily is not nutritious, particularly if we look at what the children typically get for breakfast and lunch. Often the only opportunity the child has to learn about different foods is at dinner, assuming that the child is eating with the rest of the family. Healthy foods are rarely a child’s preferred foods, which again tend to be sweet and salty foods, which are often followed by grains. Gluten is becoming of greater concern in regard to allergies and intolerances. Children eating cereals, breads, and pastas often become addicted to these foods and reject what they should be eating. The taste for a variety of foods needs to be developed for the child to not only learn to eat, but enjoy the variety of meats, fruits, and vegetables that contribute to a healthy diet. The greater variety of foods we can introduce, and the earlier, often the better.

One good example of children learning to eat more sophisticated foods if exposed to them from an early age is what I observed in southern California in the ’80s. The first couple of times I saw this I was honestly a bit shocked; but it occurred so often that it became almost the norm in southern California. The snack food of choice of these families for their children under five and often as young as eighteen months was sushi. And the kids loved it! It was a great demonstration of how rapidly taste can be developed if given the opportunity.

Processing—cognition

Young children, when seated at a table with family members, attend to those family members. If they are not offered distractions like the TV, iPads, crayons and toys, they pay attention to what the other members of the family are doing and saying. Hopefully the family members try to engage these little ones during the meal. This process of attending without distractions helps build the child’s processing and attention span, which is a key to learning.

Perhaps the most important thing that drives the development of receptive and expressive language, cognition, and global development is the development of sequential processing. Building sequential processing develops short-term memory, then working memory and executive function, the pieces that determine our level of function even more so than innate intelligence. The primary thing that pushes processing is specific targeted auditory and visual input. One of the things that most children do well is let you know whether what you are saying to them, showing them, or doing with them is targeted to them or not. The test is their attention to it. If you are hitting the nail on the head, the child attends; if not, they don’t. Children sitting at a table with family members can be relied on to give the rest of the family feedback as to whether they are being included or not. The children tend to shape the family’s behavior. The more targeted the input, particularly from a family member, the faster the development of these vital processing abilities that will influence how the child ultimately learns, thinks, and functions.

Language development

Teaching a foreign language is not an easy task. It’s important for parents to understand that any language is a foreign language to a child learning their first language. The best way to teach any language is through immersion. Immersion simply means that you are living with the language and learning from your observations and involvement and out of need. Throughout the course of the day, the child has an opportunity to observe and interact and start to learn the language; but throughout most of the day there are many things going on, and it’s difficult to isolate words and their meanings. The family meal gives the child an excellent opportunity to isolate, observe, model, and learn to understand and then use language. It’s not a shock that one of the first words that a child learns is “more” and that one of their first word combinations is “Mom more,” followed by the phrase “Mom more please,” to using full sentences. The family meal should be a focal time in the day for relevant talk that contributes to the child learning the structure of the language and developing their own receptive language abilities. The language function of most children in this age group is a direct reflection of the targeted interaction between the child, parents, and siblings who naturally expand their use of language to fit the child they are speaking to. 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.

Chores, responsibility, and independence

I have written several articles talking about the importance of teaching a child to do, be responsible for, and to own chores. Most parents grossly underestimate their child’s capabilities and the global importance of their children learning to be capable, contributing, and independent and “owning” chores. The best initial chores to teach a child to own are those that are associated with specific events that occur daily. The first such event is simply getting up in the morning, but following that are meals, and again, particularly family meals. It is important to separate “helping” from “owning” a chore or job. Many children learn to follow specific helping directions and prompts even before the age of three and can be helpers. This period between three and five years, however, is an ideal time to teach your child not only how to do chores, but to own them. In response to the questions asking what chores children have, I often hear such things as “Johnny takes his dish to the sink.” My response to that is often, “If Johnny is capable of taking his dish to the sink, why not everyone else’s, and how about him completely cleaning the table?” Sadly, the parents’ response to that is often that Johnny eats alone, and if not, the parents do not even perceive that Johnny could do it if taught. They totally miss the understanding of the huge benefits Johnny would derive from doing it.

Unless children learn otherwise, they are egocentric, believing that the world revolves around them. Unfortunately, egocentric children can become narcissist adults. At three or even before, most children are ready to learn and own jobs and to learn that they can contribute; and they will learn to welcome and seek other ways to serve and contribute.

Ownership of a chore or job means that the child owns a particular task and preferably that they alone do it, so if they don’t do it, it doesn’t get done, which creates a problem. One of the first meal-associated jobs is teaching the child how to put silverware away from the dishwasher. Most children enjoy doing this job and can see that they are contributing and like it. Other meal—associated jobs that children in the 3-5 year range can do includes setting the table, cleaning the table, cleaning the floor under the table (even three year olds can learn to use a dust buster well), moving into washing dishes, loading, and unloading a dishwasher and even initial food preparation. Family meals can provide consistent opportunities for children to learn that they can be capable, contributing, members of the family. The earlier our children learn to happily and competently contribute, the sooner they start on the path of learning to be responsible, altruistic and selfless, self-reliant, contributing members of the family and society. Learning to be responsible with definitive chores helps children understand intention, which generalizes to other things including academics.

The more our children learn to do independently, particularly things that go beyond their own needs, the more they perceive what they could do, and the more things they initiate doing on their own, creating attributes that will serve them well in everything they do.

Part 3

Five Years to Eighteen Years +

Language development and social skills, processing (short-term memory, working memory and executive function), communication between parents and children, education, learning family values and history, learning critical thought and expression, becoming highly capable.

Theoretically a child moving from five years through adolescence to eighteen year of age is taking a young child and creating an adult. Unfortunately, there are not many eighteen-year-olds who we can confidently consider adults today; and that number appears to be shrinking every year. If you have a child five years of age, it’s not too early to remind you that your job is to put together the pieces to turn that child into a functional adult, who is equipped to go off to college or trade school by themselves, seek full time employment, start a business, join the military, or explore other adult options. These years pass at an amazing speed, and the target needs to be kept within the sights. This job requires putting together a lot of pieces. At NACD we know the need to work with the whole individual and the need to have someone at the helm steering the ship. No one knows a child as well as the parent. Teachers, relatives, coaches, clergy, and friends do not know as many pieces of the child as do actively involved parents. I have built several houses which have all come out well. Each one required my vision and design, the help of an architect, an engineer, a head contractor, and sub-contractors. The vision for the houses were mine, and I needed and used the various folks to help put the projects/visions together; but the houses were my babies and from concept to completion they were my responsibility. If they had not turned out as I envisioned, it was my fault and no one else’s. Building a house, even a large, complex house, is nothing compared to helping to assist a child in becoming a happy, successful, capable adult. And the need for attention to detail and ongoing participation cannot be overstated. One needs not to look too hard at society in general to see and hopefully understand the need to have actively involved parents steering the ship.

Language development and social skills

One of the most important jobs as parents is simply to talk to our children. In our busy lives meals are often the best, if not the only, regular opportunities parents have to get and hold the attention of their five-to eighteen-year-old and speak with them. A parent innately knows how to speak to a specific child. You innately use sentences of a length they can process and language they can understand. You have a pretty good idea as to what your child knows and doesn’t know, so you know if they have a frame of reference for a topic or not. A parent with the knowledge of their whole child is better suited to provide this invaluable input than anyone else. We call this targeted input. This targeted input and verbal interaction creates the building blocks of language and much more. If we are verbally interacting with our children throughout the day, it is often language that is directing them to do something or stop doing something; and although there may be opportunities throughout the day, particularly for families who are home educating their children, to really talk and communicate, the family meal can and should be perceived as a daily unique opportunity to have Dad, siblings, and even extended family participate. Language development occurs most rapidly when verbal interaction is of interest to the child, meaning you are talking about things your child has a frame of reference for, knowledge and interest in, and when the actual language being used is targeted to them. Parents almost universally use language that their children can understand and process, and constantly, even though they are rarely aware of it, they use language that is always just a notch above their child’s, which helps develop their language skills. This targeted interaction can be tremendously more efficient in building the child’s language structure and vocabulary than most group classroom instruction or interaction between children. Such group or child-to-child interaction is either not targeted to an individual or, as in the case of verbal interaction between children, they are modeling sentence structure and language that is not developmentally advantageous and perhaps not even acceptable. Children often speak to each other in abbreviated code, economizing on words and using vocabulary that Webster would scratch his head over. That’s not exactly conducive to proper language development.

Verbal interaction during a family meal is also an opportunity for parents to model and guide their children in proper table manners and acceptable ways to have a discussion, to agree or disagree appropriately. We all have many patterns of behavior that affect virtually all aspects of our lives. Children interacting with other children without the benefit of quality targeted parental modeling and feedback can lead to negative patterns of behavior, which can be difficult to modify or develop.

Processing (short-term memory, working memory, and executive function)

A major key to global development and function is processing power. Most children today have better visual than auditory processing power as a reflection of opportunity or lack of such. Children generally develop visual processing before auditory simply because until they can understand language, they learn and understand their world based on what they see.

As children develop, we need to provide as much targeted auditory language input as possible to balance these critical pieces. Ultimately, auditory processing is the more significant piece relative to cognitive development. Auditory processing facilitates thinking in words, and as it develops, so does the complexity of thought, language, maturity, behavior, attention span, and so on. The importance of auditory processing cannot be overstated. And what builds auditory processing? Targeted language input. Targeted language input is that which builds auditory processing. I believe that over the past decades as we have seen the increase in mothers working outside of the home, we have seen a corresponding increase in attention disorders, which are largely a reflection of auditory processing issues. You attend to what you can process, and the more and better you can process, the longer you attend. Parents talking to children is hugely important to the development of processing and its associated pieces. To learn more about processing, please read the associated article.

Communication between parents and children

If you are aware of a problem, have a misunderstanding or a question or just feel out of touch with someone you work with or a friend, your first thought should be to talk about it.

As important as it is to establish this relationship and open and maintain the avenues of communication, this often does not exist between many parents and their children. Ongoing, regular family meals do, again, provide rather special opportunities to establish this open communication. Parents can throughout the course of busy daily interaction with their children throw out questions in an attempt to find out what is happening with their children, but often this is not sufficient to facilitate good responses and open good lines of communication. As a case in point, ask the majority of kids upon their return from school about what they did at school and most parents get the same response—“nothing.”

Family meals can be used to open these critical lines of communication. If families simply talk during meals, the meal becomes this regular time to talk and communicate, and a question like “What did you do at school today?” is much more likely to produce a very different answer and open the door to further exploration, teaching the child how to express feelings and problems and to share their lives with their siblings and parents.

Education 

Most parents miss the boat when it comes to taking advantage of their unique position in helping, if not taking the lead, in their child’s education.

To understand how significant the parent’s role can be in education, let’s start by separating “what was taught” from “what was learned.” Schools and most curriculums are packed full of tons of “stuff,” and we tend to confuse all of this “stuff” that was “taught” with what was learned. If you learned something, you know it. If you don’t know it, you didn’t learn it. Pick a subject, any subject, from the explorers, to anatomy and physiology, trigonometry, astronomy, chemistry, or whatever you were “taught” and today write down everything you remember about that subject. This might not take long. Some of these things you might have been “taught” for years, and what do you remember? Perhaps not much, and certainly the more years that have passed since you were “taught” these things, the less you remember. But what you remember is very important and significant.

We tend to remember the more important pieces, the pieces that were reviewed over time, that were practical, interesting, or relevant to you—knowledge and information that helps you make connections between what you learned and understanding your life and the world today. These gems should be shared with your children, before, during and after they have been “taught” these things as part of their curriculum. “Did you know that…”. “Would you believe…” “That reminds me of…” are all phrases you can use at these family meals to introduce subjects; and over the course of a few meals, you can plant seeds, create interest and relevance, or even provide an entire foundation so that when these gems are part of your child’s curriculum they have more relevance and significance; and perhaps because of your meal discussions, your children will learn more of what is “taught.”

Talking at meals is different for your child than when you are sitting down to “teach.” Topics at dinner are presented in a more relaxed manner and are felt to be more like sharing than “teaching.” For this reason they are generally more welcome and have a greater impact. Another great benefit of sharing your knowledge at meals is that you get to pick and choose the topics. There is nothing wrong and everything right about first teaching your children about your interests, interests that you hope would be shared by your children and lead to lifelong shared interests and sources for ongoing interaction between you and your children. It’s often more important for your child to learn about your family business, your favorite sport, or any other of your interests and things that bring you joy and that you can possibly share with them for the rest of your lives than many of the subjects taught in school.

Family values and history

I recently had two visits from family members who I haven’t seen for many years. I live in Utah and most of my family still lives in the greater Philadelphia area where I’m from. It was great seeing them and reconnecting. A lot of our time together was spent sharing memories and getting confirmation of our joint recollections. The foundation of many of our memories came from recollections of extended family meals that generally occurred around holidays. These events were always opportunities to explore family history and values and to connect as a family. Family history offers perspective, perspective that is often missing from our lives. One of my visitors was a cousin whom I was very close to as a child and who I haven’t seen for about forty years. His short visit offered an opportunity to get him and his wife together with my extended Utah family and explore family history together over dinner. As it happened, my cousin, a recently retired judge, had done some searching and discovered that both our fathers had lived as children with their parents and grandfather in a very modest 700 square foot row home in Philadelphia. His father became a physical therapist and mine a physician. Both were innovators, and their service made great contributions to the treatment of brain injured children and others, and all from their very humble beginnings. Our families’ histories are rarely documented, and if not for the verbal communication of our families’ legacies that often only gets communicated at family meals, most of it gets lost; and our children and grandchildren are deprived of the history and perspective that helps give meaning to their lives and has the power to influence their futures.

Learning critical thought and expression

We want to create a safe welcoming environment around our family meals that produces a safe place for the exchange of ideas and views. Today more than ever, our children are exposed and often bombarded with a plethora of opinions and views that they have difficulty sifting through. Without a safe place to communicate what they have heard and a forum to openly discuss these views, they are often left with simply accepting what they hear at face value and following the latest and loudest voice.

Family meals can provide our children with the forum they need to safely talk about what they have seen and heard and learn how to speak of it and, with help, to critically evaluate it, form their own opinions, and learn how to appropriately express those opinions. Through healthy discourse with people they love and trust, they can also learn how to respect and value other opinions and learn not to be threatened by differing opinions. As parents, at family meals we need to understand that we are models, and how we react and what we say, and how we say it will teach our children how to think critically and express their views and listen to others. Often our softly spoken, non-confrontive words provide the food for thought that our children can later digest.

Becoming highly capable

Several years ago, I was a keynote speaker at the Washington State Conference on the Gifted and Talented and had the opportunity to help the educators see the correlation between cognitive processing and creating higher functioning students. At that conference they were using a new term, replacing “gifted and talented” with the term “highly capable.” I liked the term and have since redefined it and now use it more globally to mean essentially an individual who knows how to function in their world independently and competently. As I see it, helping our children become highly capable adults means that we are teaching them from an early age how to be independent in all aspects of their daily lives, understand responsibility, and develop qualities that will permit them to be confident, capable, and successful adults.

Relative to the discussion at hand of family meals, we can start the process of creating highly capable adults when our children are 5 years old. Hopefully by 18 we have succeeded in helping our child well down the road of becoming highly capable. As mentioned in the previous 3–5-year section, we can start teaching chores that the children own associated with meals. As we proceed in the development of our children, we want to continue to build on this by progressively adding to these pieces. By the time our children are 18, they should know how to plan meals, shop intelligently, understand budgets, prepare meals from A-Z, and clean-up and much more; but we can use the family meals as the foundation.

I had one of our NACD graduates who chose to go off to start her college career in England from her home in the U.S. An 18-year-old with the guts to go off to college in another country says something about confidence and capability. Shortly after beginning life in her new dorm, she made a discovery that most of the other students were lost. They had kitchens in the dorms, but the other students didn’t know how to cook or even buy food for that matter and couldn’t budget. The result was that they ate out and burned through their monthly allowance halfway through the month and had to beg Mom and Dad to send more money. As our highly capable young lady discovered, these other students also didn’t know how to clean or take care of their rooms or wash and iron their clothes. They also didn’t know how to be responsible for organizing their time, getting up in the morning on time, studying, and doing class assignments. She ended up holding classes for her dorm-mates to teach them how to take care of themselves and how to become more capable. Learning the pieces involved, learning to be responsible for all these pieces surrounding planning and seeing a meal accomplished from concept to fruition can be a significant piece that fosters the confidence and independence that can help turn a helpless child into a highly capable adult. Independence produces initiation, which in turn creates the impetus to learn more and assume more and more responsibilities.

Use family meals as the foundation to start building an adult. Do not underestimate what your children are capable of doing if given the opportunity and the responsibility. They will rise to your level of expectation.

Adults

The fabric that largely defines and holds our society together is the family. The fabric that is the family is woven together, built, and reinforced by the threads of our ongoing connection and interactions as a family. This connection needs to be reinforced and built upon on a regular basis. Sadly, for many, the connection between family members often only consists of short calls or text messages. The need for real connection is perhaps greater today than ever before, as we all shift though the bombardment of media that on a daily basis questions and even attacks many of the basic tenets that have formed the foundations of our beliefs.

Speak with most any adult about their close family times and recollections growing up and they will often speak of family meals, particularly meals with the extended family.

Speak with seniors and you will discover that past family meals are memories that last when others have long faded away. You will also discover that if such family meals are now available with children, grandchildren, and extended family that these events don’t just keep them connected to family, but to themselves.

Our sense of self, our identity, who we are and continue to be is woven into the fabric of the family.

The family meal is the foundation upon which our family is built and upon which we learn to know and maintain ourselves.

What’s for dinner?

Family Conversations App

If you’re looking for questions to get the conversation started, we built something for that: Family Conversations

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 35 No. 3 , 2022 ©NACD

The post The Most Important Meal of the Day is Not Breakfast, It’s the Meal(s) the Family Has Together appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Sara Erling M.ED.

“Program has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. For many years, the focus was primarily on addressing my physical, visual, and processing abilities. Despite ongoing physical and visual challenges, by the time I got through high school and into college, I had a solid foundation for academic success. My program has always been tailored to address my specific needs at any given point in time.

Being on an NACD program has made me very self-aware and has given me the self-knowledge necessary to effectively advocate for myself. Ultimately, it has provided me with a foundation I can build on for the rest of my life. I will be forever grateful to everyone at NACD for helping me grow into the young woman I am today.” – Sarah Benedix

Sarah was a preemie, had been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, right hemiparesis, and strabismus, and she was fed through a G-tube. When she was a baby, her parents came to NACD, as they were determined to help Sarah reach her fullest potential. I first started working with Sarah back in the early 2000s when I started traveling to Chicago to conduct the evaluations there. She was around six years old and had beautiful blonde braids with big blue eyes. She was already quite smart and witty at that time! When I stopped traveling as much to have my own babies, she started working with Ellen Doman. Fourteen years later, I was able to increase my travel again and returned to the Chicago evaluation site. It made me feel very old to work with Sarah again, as she was no longer the little girl in pigtails, but an accomplished young woman! What a transformation!

Over the years of being on an NACD program, Sarah’s parents worked very hard to develop her ability to walk, to eat, to use her eyes together, her fine motor development, her ability to communicate, and to think (cognition). As many parents of children with CP often face, working with muscles, tendons, and structural issues is not an easy task. However, if we simultaneously work to build a child’s cognition, it makes working with their bodies and physical development significantly easier. Because Sarah’s processing and global cognition was really high, it was, and still is, much easier for her to understand how to place her body, how to direct her movements, and how and why she needed to work on certain muscle groups. Sarah can walk well, run, do yoga, and really enjoys bike riding. Sarah could be taught how to do certain exercises by herself to assist in her gait and could understand how to do them correctly through verbal cues. In her words, she is very self aware.

Over the past 20+ years of being a part of our organization, Sarah has blown us away with her accomplishments. She received a Masters degree in Sports Administration from Valparaiso University in August 2019. She graduated in May of 2021 with her SECOND Masters Degree in Disability Services in Higher Education from CUNY School of Professional Studies. With this degree, Sarah hopes to “advocate for other students with disabilities in the future.” She is ready to fly. Sarah, we are all so very proud of you and feel blessed to have watched you grow into one pretty cool human!

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Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 34 No.6, 2021 ©NACD

The post Sarah – Beating the Odds! appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Today is marked as a day to raise international awareness of Down syndrome and to help advocate for the rights of people with Down syndrome.

Having worked with many thousands of individuals with Down syndrome from all over the world for over fifty years, NACD needs to begin a discussion of rights, with the right to be perceived as unique individuals with unlimited potential as a primary focus.

Perception of potential is used to define what constitutes an appropriate opportunity. If you do not have a vision of what can be, your limited vision will dictate what will be.

Individuals with Down syndrome can live a “normal” life, including being educated and going beyond high school to college, trade schools, and other specialized training. They can drive cars, live independently, have decent jobs, and good social lives. And they can fulfill dreams if given the opportunity. But the first requirement is the vision of what can be.

I’m writing this having just finished a Skype evaluation with a five-year-old little girl with Down syndrome, who has been on an NACD program since she was ten months old. Ioana, who lives in Romania, is reading and doing math on about a high second grade level and loving it. Her processing and short-term and working memory are above many of her typical peers. All of her functions are equivalent to her typical peers. But Ioana is not a miracle. Where she is today is the reflection of the vision that we all have for her and the opportunities that we have provided. Ioana is not alone. We have children all over the world doing this well because we, NACD and the families, have the vision of what can be and are providing the opportunities so it can be.

One of my all-time favorite NACD videos was one made by one of our children (who happens to have Down syndrome), Arianna, who lives in Barcelona. When she was 17 years old, she approached her mother and told her she wanted to make a video so that people could understand Down syndrome better and provide them with some insight into the life of a teen with Down syndrome. Arianna wrote her own script and filmed her presentation in English, Spanish and Catalan, the three languages that she speaks, reads and writes fluently. As you will see, she is a very intelligent child with a message that should actually resonate with everyone. You do not have to be perfect.

Today Arianna has a very full life and is in her 4th year of trade school in administration and customer service. She is presently doing her internship as a receptionist in a psychologist’s office. She is a very competent young lady. We are very proud of Arianna, as we are of our other children and families around the world.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 34 No.3 2021 ©NACD

Start with the vision!

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NACD has worked with Arianna, a teen with Trisomy 21 – Down syndrome, since she was two years old. Watch her self-produced video (above) where she comments in three languages!

The post World Down Syndrome Day 2021: A Vision of What Can Be and Should Be appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

I will never forget the feeling I had the day when Jack was labelled as autistic, he was five years old and had received a heavy educational input from myself and my supportive family with reading, math and general learning. My husband and I had left our jobs to take our son to “the best” child psychologist in London, primarily because the private school Jack was attending in Andorra had asked us to withdraw him. The schools’ headmistress said that they did not know what was wrong with him, but they did not have the facilities to educate him. This was quite a shock to us because from when he was a baby, I had seen how intelligent he was and I thought the milestones he wasn’t making was a result of him going to a multi-lingual school for the past year, as before he went to school, he was reading well for his age and showed a great memory for stories and I had no reason to believe he had any issues. My husband and I work on Super yachts, myself as a captain and he as a chief engineer. Before we left our jobs for the trip to London, we had had an amazing guest, who was a pioneer in reducing biological age and in practical uses of increasing knowledge of neuroplasticity. We had mentioned to him why we were leaving our jobs and he gave us the following parting words of advice:

1. Do not take the psychologist’s opinion as the only option, because they specialise in only one specific part of the child, which is a result of the problem.
2. Ask about possible effects of other factors, such nutrition and genetics.
3. Read the book “The brain that changes itself” before you make any major decisions. (This was key to us understanding what to look for in the solution which we finally found in NACD).

After a very expensive, one hour evaluation of Jack, the psychologist in London advised us, in no uncertain terms, that I should move to London and put Jack in a school specialising in children with autism (which he was the resident phycologist for), he advised us that Jack would regress and he would be nonverbal by the time he was 8 years old, he would never be very academic, although he was clearly intelligent by nature and if he did manage to have a career as an adult, he was very likely to grow up to be a selfish and self-involved, egotistical adult, who would have little thought for others. He would not be able to do math or learn to play music, as that part of his brain would never function properly.

My whole world fell apart, we asked the psychologist if there could be any links to genetics or diet that could help him, but he shut us down. We left his office feeling completely overwhelmed. How could we have an autistic child, could there be such low expectations of child of whom we had seen had a natural high intelligence level, who was happy and fun to be with and furthermore, what could we do to help him?

Luckily, throughout our training and careers, we have been taught not to mop up the symptoms of a situation but to find the root cause of the problem and to find a solution to fix these problems. My husband instantly identified that we should find somebody who understood how the brain works and how to fix the neurological root cause of Jack’s disability.

After over a year of home schooling and trying different methods to help an autistic child without improvement, I came upon The Listening Programme (developed by NACD), which is a music recording on an iPod, linked to bone conducting headphones, which trains the ears to learn audible frequencies. Within the first month of using TLP, I saw the first real step forward, in what had been over 12 months of intensive and soul-destroying work, one-on-one with speech therapists, occupational therapists and many other experts with no steps forward and so I read all the recommendations that parents had given on TLP’s website, hoping to find like-minded parents that had found the solution we were looking for; luckily, one of the recommendations mentioned NACD. I searched the internet and was so delighted when I realised that their method of working with disabilities was based on fixing the root cause of the problem, through a series of proven exercises, based on an understanding of the ‘plastic brain’, the effects of neurological issues and how they manifest themselves in symptoms. NACD had managed to help a range of children with disabilities of all kinds of different labels as well as “normal” and gifted children.

After an initial interview with an assessor, we were sent an introductory audio file to listen to, where the NACD method was outlined. I was a little overwhelmed hearing about digit spans etc, but intrigued and totally onboard, so a short while later, in September of 2014, with full enthusiasm, we went to Chicago for Jack’s assessment. Ellen Doman completed a one-on-one assessment of Jack in a hotel room office, whilst we sat anxiously in the foyer. She then brought us into the room and explained how she had identified a number of issues including: sensory dysfunction, developmental motor issues and poor auditory sequential processing amongst other developmental problems. She explained that he was ‘stimming’ and told us what this meant, I still remember being on the phone to my mum during the 4-hour drive home, explaining that Jack was watching movies in his head at hundreds of times the speed and getting a dopamine kick from it, and that this was more addictive than morphine and when he was ‘in a world of his own’ he was actually completely immersed in these movies. It took a long time for this to sink in. I was hesitant at first, as it seemed so far-fetched, but over the years, the theory was proven again and again and when Jack was communicating well enough, he explained this in his own words. Ellen also told us where he was in his fine and gross motor skills, specifically linked to where he was neurologically and noted that Jack was using his peripheral vision over his central vision and she explained why this was not good.

Ellen reassured me that there was a lot we could do with Jack to get him back on track and I was very impressed with the systematic and detailed approach. She said that she would send me a program for Jack and to contact them with any questions or concerns, but in the next few days, while she put the program together, we should avoid dairy, reduce sugars and gluten, not watch any movie or TV shows more than once and get as much time reading together, engaged in games and conversation and to go on walks etc as much as possible. We saw a big improvement within two weeks, particularly in Jacks’ responsiveness and use of language, which we later confirmed was due to stopping milk is his diet as he was lactose intolerant (something I did not really believe in before I saw the evidence in Jack). Our journey on a new path had begun.

The First Program

We were somewhat overwhelmed with the first few programs as they were educating us on how to help and improve Jack’s issues. With the whole family completely involved in every step of the way on how to teach and retrain Jack. NACD reset the way we understood education (My mother lives with us and was the primary teacher because I have a demanding job and my Mum is trained in educating young children and so it took her a while to adapt to these new methods). The program made sense as a whole, but we could not quite see the reasons for some of the tasks until a year or so later, but we started working on the basic fundamentals of a properly functioning brain, starting with developmental motor activities, as well as continuing with TLP and implementing many basic sequencing exercises. Ellen explained where Jack was with math (which was a lot lower than we had realised) and how to teach him the meaning and sequence of number and the difference between math facts and math problem solving. We learned how to teach reading with flash cards of the first 1,000 words and the importance of frequency, intensity and duration. Having the training videos online to access whenever we needed a refresher of how to complete a task has been incredibly useful and the simplified approach to teaching math has helped us teach the children in a fun and engaging way.

The program progressed with Jack and was adapted to suit his level of ability rather than his age. We hadn’t realised how far behind he was on basic neurological assessments initially, but over the years, he has caught up substantially and academically, he has overtaken his peers.

One of my most vivid memories from before NACD, was watching a mother with her 7-year-old boy in Barnes and Noble, she was discussing a topic in the Encyclopaedia with him and they were happily engaged in a two-way conversation. My heart sank and my world fell apart as, I thought, I would never have this relationship with my son, as he would be non-verbal, never mind able to hold a conversation, but now Jack is thriving, he is almost fluent in Spanish, has basic Chinese and French, is learning to study independently and is able to take on any chore in the house. Jack has also just published his first book called “Albert and the Karnikans” in the UK, a process that he had a lot of involvement with, (this is one of many stories he has in his creative space at home). Jack enjoys playing the piano and cello, which I will admit was a struggle for the first few years, he has a very high level of vocabulary, actively engages in conversation and discussions (although his is still quite shy in social situations) and last year, at aged 11, he scored at sophomore college level on his math test. Jack loves to read philosophy and history and writes his own computer code to make basic computer games. In his free time, he draws comics and tells and re-enacts stories and plays with his sister for our entertainment. In short, he is thriving.

Our daughter, Charlotte, is now 10 years old. She was an “average child” when she began NACD at 4 years old (we removed her from school when they asked us to take Jack out). Charlotte loves maths and she tested sophomore level math at 9 years old. She scores 12 in her digit spans in person, 9 on Simply Smarter, which makes more advanced learning in STEM subjects and coding more enjoyable and engaging for her. About a year after starting on NACD, Bob and Ellen discovered she had issues related to reading that a psychologist would have labelled as dyslexia and with early intervention we were able to fix this issue with simple methods that we easily implemented into our daily program, she now tests at reading grade 12 and is an avid reader. She is happy, highly capable and is becoming an independent learner who loves history and science. She plays the harp, piano and violin and is almost fluent in Spanish and is learning Chinese and French.

NACD has made us realise that we can all reach our full potential. The methods we have learned and implemented into improving ourselves has had an everlasting positive influence on us as individuals and as a family. We have all developed with Jack and Charlotte in the process of learning the NACD methods, we have a greater understanding of how the brain works, specifically, how we learn, which has led to a great desire to help other families and children who are experiencing the fear and frustration that we had in our lives only six years ago. All of our family have improved in so many ways and as a result of NACD our lives are so much more enriched, we have become better leaders, communicators and able and willing to take on new academic challenges that otherwise may have been daunting.

My mother, who is now 72 years old, is improving her own brain capability and is reaching her own true potential by completing NACD’s, Simply Smarter in her free time. She is learning Spanish and is still teaching both children English and math.

If I could give advice to other parents it would be to trust the incredible knowledge that the team at NACD have from their education, training, years of experience and teamwork which they draw on with great care, when making up a new program which is specifically designed for each child.

Myself and my family will be forever grateful to Bob, Ellen and everyone at NACD for giving my children the chance to realise their true potential and for making us a stronger and happier family, we intend to continue with NACD for the rest of our children’s journey through education.

The NACD Foundation, Volume 34 No.1, 2021 ©NACD

The post Our Journey With NACD appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

The National Association of Child Development has been a member of our family since 1999. This became necessary when it was discovered that Adam, my brother, had suffered some serious neurological damage years earlier after infant vaccinations. Impressed that Adam made such strides within the first year of working through NACD, our parents decided to make it a family affair. The next ten years of NACD would drastically change the course of our future. Growing up with a brother who was neurologically delayed was challenging as the younger of the two. Spending every school day learning together was not our idea of fun. Growing up with the “homeschooled” label the world provided was an additional challenge, but I am grateful for all the opportunities an NACD life has given to my family and me.

Trips to Florida from Ohio for evaluations were far better than an entire summer off, which was the norm for most kids. The Daunhauer family saw all 50 states in 10 years, learning more than any history class could teach us. Our travels later inspired my thesis and creation of my own children’s book. The hobbies that our evaluators encouraged eventually turned into careers. Adam now owns and operates a dog kennel and specializes in digital preservation, and I designed the mascot for the business. I graduated from high school in 2011, a year early, and spent 4 years at Huntington University, majoring in Animation, with the idea that I was going to work for Disney. But along the way, I discovered a passion for children’s books and completed my Master of Children’s Literature at Eastern Michigan University in 2017. The result of my childhood experience with NACD gave me the desire more than anything to make a difference in the lives of children. Along the way I would enhance this learning with my favorite children’s books. I have been an educator in various capacities since college. However, teaching preschool at two different centers was all but encouraging. Because of NACD, I knew firsthand that things could be better for children and their families. Having had multiple students in my classroom with cognitive challenges and no way of helping, I knew my talents had to be used elsewhere to make a difference. I am thrilled to be a part of NACD and being part of helping others reach their full potential.

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For those exploring options and asking questions about NACD Home Education or interest in homeschool for your child, we have collected a list of questions and answers that may help you with your decision making process.

The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about our NACD Home Education (Homeschooling) program:

What is NACD Home Education? 

NACD Home Education is a proven, time flexible, efficient, effective, home-based educational program for those choosing to homeschool. 

NACD Home Education is an individualized, dynamic, targeted, and comprehensive developmental/educational program designed to accelerate every child’s rate of development and education. Using the science of neuroplasticity, it is possible to accelerate important aspects of development, cognition, and education in significantly less time per day than traditional school or homeschool. NACD Home Education programs are applicable for children across the developmental spectrum, including those with special needs or learning issues, as well as typical and gifted children. For over 40 years NACD has been a leader in cognitive development and working with the whole child within the context of their family. NACD works proactively with the family, working in unison to help our children develop into successful adults. We have a long history of working with homeschoolers. 

Helpful links

T.H.E. Targeted Home Education: https://www.nacd.org/t-h-e-targeted-home-education/

Targeted Home Education – T.H.E. Way Forward: https://www.nacd.org/targeted-home-education-the-way-forward/

NACD Targeted Home-Based Education: The Vision and the Plan: https://www.nacd.org/nacd-targeted-home-based-education-the-vision-and-the-plan/

Helping your child establish the foundation that will help them become successful adults.

Although curriculum has become almost synonymous with education, it is not. Education is a process by which we teach and develop the whole child. The foundational pieces that are addressed by NACD Home Education include:

• Improving your child’s cognition, including short-term memory, working memory, executive function, and maturity—making them smarter
• Improving your child’s reading
• Teaching them to love reading and turning them into lifelong readers
• Accelerating your child’s math abilities
• Teaching them that math can be easy and to love it
• Helping them learn how to love learning and become independent thinkers and motivated learners
• Providing a functional, comprehensive academic education
• Teaching your child how to be highly capable, be responsible for chores, and to contribute
• Building their self-esteem, confidence, and independence
• Physical and emotional health and wellbeing
• Helping you establish a strong, positive, healthy relationship with your child
• Helping your child discover and pursue their strengths, interests, and passions
• Educating the child in the family’s social, spiritual, and philosophical ideals.

Is NACD a homeschool program?

Yes, NACD is home-based, but not a typical curriculum heavy homeschool program. 

NACD provides a home-based education, administered and implemented by parents, family, and caregivers, that addresses the needs of the whole child within the context of the family and the family’s vision for their child. NACD home-based education does not have a specific curriculum and is not curriculum heavy, but rather curriculum specific, individualized, and targeted. With NACD home-based education your child is not plugged into a specific packaged curriculum, but rather the educational approach and content is built around your child, which among other things permits you to accomplish more in much less time per day.

Helpful links

Who We Help – NACD Homeschool & Home Education: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/homeschooling/

Is Home Education the same as homeschool? 

No, NACD Home Education is not the same as homeschool.

Many homeschool programs are simply curriculums. Homeschool programs are often built around specific curriculums much like schools. Your child is plugged into a curriculum whether or not it fits them, just as it is done with typical brick and mortar schools. It is not targeted, not specific, and not time, energy, or outcome specific. NACD Home Education Programs assist the parent in every aspect of the child’s development and education, reaching far beyond curriculum.

Helpful links

How to School Your Child: https://www.nacd.org/how-to-school-your-child/

How long per day does it take to do an NACD Home Education Program?

The time commitments per day are flexible and based on the goals and the family’s available time for implementation.

NACD has been designing home-based programs for forty years and has learned how to accommodate a broad range of needs, circumstance, time, and manpower availability. Because each program is individually designed to fit each child within the context of their family, there is great flexibility. Programs have been designed that take minutes per day, hours per day, or that structure the entire day. Programs can be accomplished by stay-at-home parents or parents who work from home or leave the home part time, or even have full time employment. Home education programs have even been implemented by families not just within their homes, but also within their businesses, offices, or as multi-family teams. NACD works with the families to identify the child’s needs and then explores a range of program options and manpower needs, including getting help from grandparents, siblings, college students, and others. We enjoy being creative.

What are NACD’s goals for the children being home educated with them?

Our goal is to help the family create a vision for their child and help them achieve it.

Success is not just not just being able to read or do math or recall a lot of curriculum, but to develop the whole individual. Sadly, whether a child is attending a brick and mortar school or doing a typical homeschool curriculum, the focus is on the curriculum, most of which is quickly forgotten. Our goal is to work with the family to help and develop the whole individual, including development of super cognitive function, a strong academic foundation, and to turn the child into a lifelong reader and independent lifelong confident learner, to teach responsibility, help them become highly capable and to learn service, and to provide the child with the opportunity to discover and build their talents and passions. 

What this entails is close coordination between the family and NACD—a highly individualized, targeted program. So whether the student and family’s goal is to overcome learning or developmental problems for medical or law school, nuclear physics, liberal arts college, trade school, or maybe building a business of their own, NACD will provide the support and guidance to develop that plan. Success is not defined the same way for everyone, but being able to maintain and sustain an independent and successful adult life is important for everyone. However that is defined, NACD is there to assist the student and the family in achieving that dream.

What curriculum does NACD use? 

NACD does not use a packaged curriculum, but creates an educational program designed to fit each specific child.

For decades education has focused on curriculum—what is being taught, not what is being learned. NACD acknowledges and values our children’s uniqueness and works with the family to provide a comprehensive, targeted education that fits the child and focuses on outcomes. NACD does not use a packaged curriculum and develops each child’s educational plan and approaches so as to teach them as effectively and efficiently as possible. Through targeted education more can be taught in significantly less time per day than is typically done in schools or through typical homeschools.

Helpful links

The Sweet Spot: Optimizing Education & Developmental Intervention: https://www.nacd.org/sweet-spot-optimizing-education-developmental-intervention/ 

NACD Articles About Curriculum: https://www.nacd.org/?s=curriculum

If NACD does not follow a specific curriculum, what education materials do you use?

NACD uses a broad range of educational content.

Providing a targeted, individualized education requires an understanding of the learning strengths and weaknesses of the student, targeting and developing their weak areas while taking advantage of their strengths. This necessitates the use of many different materials and different techniques to teach each subject. In addition we need to target the materials for each subject so as to fit the individual’s specific level and to teach to their academic “sweetspot.” Fortunately, between materials created by NACD and the range of books, programs, and online materials and courses available today, we are able to tailor the curriculum to the child. NACD works to target each child’s program to fit their unique needs. 

Do parents need to purchase additional materials?

Yes, at times parents will need to purchase specific books and materials that are recommended. 

Most educational materials needed are very low cost, but effective materials. With high school level students, specific coursework may be recommended depending upon the needs and function of that particular student, as well as requirements by specific states. It is important to keep in mind that the educational plans are truly individualized so we cannot make broad statements as to what specifically will be needed at each level of education or how the materials are to be used.

Is NACD a school?

NACD is not a school in the traditional sense. 

NACD assists parents in providing a home-based education, addressing the needs of their whole child. This includes cognitive development, nutrition, physical and emotional development, teaching the child how to be highly capable; all while accelerating education and turning them into lifelong readers and learners. Through tri-annual evaluations that are carried out in one of our national or international evaluation sites or via Skype or Zoom and access to daily coaching, NACD can assist any child anywhere on the planet.

Does NACD have a facility where I take my child? 

No.

NACD provides only home-based programs that are designed by NACD and implemented by family and caregivers, in the home environment, under the direction of NACD and with the training and support of NACD staff. 

Does NACD replace going to school? Can my child go to school and NACD?

NACD Home Programs can replace school or work in conjunction with schools.

Every child is unique, every family is unique, and for every family in every area the school opportunities are unique as well. Most of our families do entirely home-based programs. Some children attend school full time and do an NACD program either before or after school or on weekends. And some families do a hybrid program, part time home and part time school. As an example, some of our special needs and typical children as well attend part-time school primarily for the social experience. In some enlightened states, such as Utah, home educated students can participate in any school classes or sports that they wish, so they can go play on the highschool football team or take a physics class. Because every NACD program is individually designed, there are many options.

Does NACD follow the academic guidelines of my state?

Yes.

States and countries all have their specific requirements. NACD works with the family to create a program that meets each state or country’s requirements.

Who actually implements the program with my child? 

NACD staff teach the parents and caregivers how to work with their child and coach them through the process.

NACD home education programs are designed to be implemented primarily by parents and caregivers. For 40 years NACD has successfully trained parents and other non-professionals to implement our programs. Parents primarily work with their child at home each day and receive unlimited support from their NACD coach and NACD Developmentalist. In some cases, the parents are not able to work with their child. College students, nannies, grandparents and other relatives, and older siblings have implemented NACD programs. It does not have to be the parents; however, we do strongly encourage that parents play an active role in managing their child’s programs, ensuring that the activities are being implemented correctly by the person responsible for carrying out the child’s program. 

What does “teaching the parents” mean?

In NACD Home Education Programs NACD works with the parents and the family. The family and caregivers under NACD’s guidance and coaching implement the NACD designed program. 

In an NACD home-based program, parents and caregivers are trained to implement the programs that are designed specifically for their child by NACD following an assessment. Parents are given access to their child-specific online portal that contains their child’s assessments, their programs with implementation videos and instructions for parents, and a chronology of videos that are used to communicate with the child’s evaluator, demonstrate program implementation for parental training, and to document specific educational and developmental problems and progress. Parents and caregivers are given daily access to a coach who provides support and who coordinates and provides ongoing communication with other NACD staff.

Helpful links

Parenting 101 – A Child’s Education Begins with Educating the Parents: https://www.nacd.org/parenting-101-a-childs-education-begins-with-educating-the-parents/

Does NACD give any assistance to parents when the child isn’t cooperating with learning?

Absolutely.

We do. Raising children and improving their function is not always an easy task. NACD evaluators and coaches are there to help with issues as they arise, providing support and guidance when and as needed to help resolve and prevent behavioral problems that may impede progress. We will walk you through those tough times and help develop the cognitive and behavioral foundation that helps avoid most behavioral or compliance issues.

Helpful links

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say: https://www.nacd.org/say-what-you-mean-and-mean-what-you-say-part-2-educationbehavior/

Does NACD help when the work is too hard for my child?

Yes, NACD addresses and resolves these issues.

If “schoolwork” is too hard, the material and approach is not targeted to the child. To varying degrees if a child is being plugged into a curriculum, it is not going to be targeted to fit them. We help by working with you to improve your child’s processing and working memory so that they are simply smarter, and we provide assistance to target where they are academically and to accelerate their pace to get them to a point where the work is not difficult. We create education plans that are designed to target your child’s current processing level so that the work is not too hard; plus we write plans that address the issue of motivation as well. This process is most easily accomplished if the child is doing a home-based NACD program, but can also be accomplished, although a slower process, by working around and with an existing school program.

Helpful links

Does School Remediation Result in Success?: https://www.nacd.org/does-school-remediation-result-in-success-2/

Can I use NACD Home Education if my state or intended college requires sports, music, art, or things like hands-on science labs?

Yes.

With a home-based NACD program, you can access many resources and your program can be customized to help you meet virtually any specific requirements.

Does NACD work with preschool kids?

Yes, NACD works with infants and preschool children.

Because an NACD program is developmental and because the foundation established in the first five years of life can both shape a child’s future and avoid most learning and attention issues, the sooner we can start working with a child and a family, the better. 

Helpful links

NACD Preschool: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/preschool/ 

When should I send my child to preschool? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Y63vqyme4

Does NACD work with elementary school children? 

Yes, NACD works with elementary school age children.

NACD believes that targeted developmental and educational support and help is optimal virtually from birth, and therefore provides programs for all children regardless of age. NACD has demonstrated for decades that the early years are incredibly important and that the stronger the foundation, the easier the entire educational experience and the better the educational and life outcomes. Being proactive in the early years (birth through elementary grades) means that the vast majority of learning, attention, and cognitive issues can be avoided. The focus can be on creating excellent learners, lifelong readers, children who love and excel in learning, and who become successful middle, high school and college students, and become successful adults. NACD’s forty plus years of experience has permitted us to follow individuals literally from birth to adult and parenthood. We are proud to be working with many children whose successful parents were on NACD home-based and homeschool programs themselves.

Helpful links

NACD Parent Testimonial: https://www.nacd.org/testimonial-from-the-parent-of-three-nacd-graduates/

Does NACD work with middle school/junior high children?

Yes, NACD works with middle school and jr. high children.

NACD works with children and adults of all ages. Many children come to us in the middle school and jr. high years because of learning, attention, attitude, and behavior issues that are not being addressed by school or homeschool, or simply because parents are aware that their child is not being given the needed opportunities to achieve their potential. These can be challenging years for many children and parents alike, and parents’ daily access to coaches and staff can be the difference between success and failure or mediocrity and excellence. 

What can NACD do for my high school child?

NACD can make a world of difference in the lives of high school children.

Families often start on NACD home-based programs for their high school students because they have discovered that issues identified in elementary school were never actually addressed and remediated and accommodations were doing more harm than good. Many parents at this time realize that their vision for their child has become clouded, and there are questions about where their child is going, their future. Other parents realize that they have high school students who lack a love of reading and learning and have not had an opportunity to explore and develop their own interests and a direction. And other parents realize that their visions for high achievement and success are not being realized through their child’s schooling. High school is not too late. Processing and cognition can still be developed, children can still be taught to be responsible, children can still be turned into active participants, and areas needing remediation can still be taken care of, and there is still time to excel. NACD has worked with countless children who lacked a foundation and a vision for their futures who have learned who they are and put together the pieces to become successful in college and in professions, successful entrepreneurs or whatever their chosen career path, successful whole adults.

Does NACD work with college students?

Yes, NACD works with college students.

Once in college students may discover that they lack the cognitive foundation to compete or excel. Some work way too hard for the results they are achieving, or they are even working hard and failing. NACD’s cognitive programs, including the online Simply Smarter program, can often produce rapid change in cognition and help make a poor student a good student and a good student an excellent student, providing them with the edge they need to excel. In addition many bright children get through K-12 without obvious identified issues, but when they reach college and face much greater challenges both in and out of the classroom, things begin to fall apart. It is not too late.

Helpful links

NACD Articles about College: https://www.nacd.org/?s=college

Will NACD work with my child with dyslexia?

Yes, NACD has worked with thousands of children over the years that were identified as dyslexic.

What we find is that each one of them is unique and needs a very specific program designed to address and eliminate their underlying issues, along with an individualized reading program to accelerate their development in reading. We do not take a “one size fits all” approach with any child and do not see “dyslexia” as a permanent issue. 

Helpful links

Read about NACD’s views on dyslexia here: https://www.nacd.org/dyslexia-what-is-it-and-what-can-you-do-about-it/

NACD Program for Dyslexia: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/dyslexia/

My child is in special education. Can they join NACD?

Yes, NACD can work with children who are currently in special education.

Many families, once they discover NACD, often realize that they can do more with NACD’s help at home and pull their children out of school. Others do not have the option of home-based education or homeschool, and NACD works with the family and the school to provide as many opportunities as possible.

NACD has been designing and supervising home-based developmental, therapeutic, and education programs for special needs children for over forty years. Our founder and director, Bob Doman, began his career as a special education teacher in 1969 and by the age of 25 was the Education Director of a large special needs school and the United Cerebral Palsy Organization. In this capacity he was designing and supervising the special education programs and overseeing the speech, physical, and occupational therapy programs. While still in his twenties, Bob was designing home-based programs for special needs children from throughout the United States and in Spain and Israel. Since 1979 when NACD was founded, NACD has been innovative in the development of cognitive, academic, and developmental programs for special needs children. NACD is and has always been home-based, designing targeted programs that often replace not only schools but the need for other therapies as well, teaching and supervising parents and caregivers in the implementation of targeted programs for their special needs children. Part of the foundation of NACD’s success has been an understanding and application of the proven principles of neuroplasticity, acknowledging the importance of very targeted input (NACD utilizes over 3000 specific methods and techniques), frequency (specific input provided often numerous times per day, not once or twice a week), intensity (programs implemented by parents, the people who know the child the best and who are the most vested in seeing them progress), and the importance of being dynamic (constantly changing to remain targeted; NACD provides daily access to coaches and staff). NACD provides home-based, targeted programs designed around the parents’ time and resources for the full range of special needs children, including those on the autism spectrum, Down syndrome, brain injury, cerebral palsy, and many others.

Helpful links

NACD program for homeschooling children with special needs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URcjTLPcKd8

NACD Articles about Special Education: https://www.nacd.org/?s=special+education

Does NACD work with adults with special needs?

Yes, NACD has vast experience helping adults with special needs.

NACD has a long history of helping adults with special needs and literally changing their lives. As children, most of those with special needs were provided with an “appropriate” education. Unfortunately, this means that the program was lowered and the expectations limited and opportunities provided based on the perceived potential. The outcomes were self fulfilling prophecies. Expect less, provide less, and get less. Rarely if ever are efforts made to even develop cognition, the foundation of all learning and function. Fortunately, NACD has been developing cognitive function in both children and adults, based on the science of neuroplasticity, for decades and has produced often amazing outcomes. It’s never too late, and unfortunately, as many parents of special needs adults are realizing, they are either doing things to improve their function and abilities or their adult children are regressing. One of our main goals with an adult with special needs is to increase their independence and maturity. The need for help for those with special needs may never be greater than it is for the adult with special needs. 

Does NACD work with babies?

Yes, NACD works with typical babies as well as those with developmental issues.

If NACD could design programs for all babies and have parents and grandparents implement them, we could change the world. Without a doubt what can and should be done before a child ever enters school will impact the rest of their lives more than most anything that can happen in subsequent years. Virtually every hour of targeted input a parent provides a baby forever changes their brains and lives. It is vital that children with special needs are addressed and helped as whole individuals, not as pieces, and that they receive daily intervention, not a session or two a week. Learning and attention problems are referred to as developmental problems because they are mostly the reflections of steps and opportunities having been missed in the first few years of life. LIkewise, smart children are not created in schools and colleges as much as they are created before they ever go to school.

How much does NACD Home Education cost? 

There is a one time initial evaluation fee, followed by a monthly membership fee. 

To view our current fee schedule, please register for our get started process here. NACD.org/get-started. 

Are there any scholarships available for NACD? 

Yes.

NACD has scholarships available to help with the initial fee to join. To learn more about any potential scholarships available, please complete our get started process here: NACD.org/get-started

How do I join the NACD Home Education program?

To begin the process of joining the NACD Home Education program, the parent first goes through the free Get Started (https://www.nacd.org/get-started/) section on our website that helps them understand the philosophy and mechanics of our program. The family then completes and submits a comprehensive application/history of the child. The application is reviewed by NACD staff and is followed up by an interview between a staff member and the parent or parents. The interview is to determine if the family and NACD are a good fit. Following the interview the family will be given a list of any additional information that may be needed. This list varies from child to child and varies depending on whether there will be an in-person evaluation or Skype. Included in the list of requests are specific tests to be completed, as well as records and videos to be uploaded to our Family Portal. 

After everything has been submitted, the child is evaluated by an NACD professional evaluator, and with the aid of the parent, a developmental profile is completed and an overall direction and game plan is agreed upon. The NACD professional evaluator then designs the home education program, which along with the evaluation and profile, is posted on the NACD Family Portal, with written and video training materials for the parent. 

Every family is provided with a coach who is available to assist and guide them. The coach is available to the family Monday-Friday. The coach also acts as the family’s communication link to their evaluator. Within two weeks of starting the program, the parent is requested to video implementation of the various aspects of the child’s program and post them on the Portal for the evaluator’s review, comments, and modifications.

The child’s program is dynamic, and through ongoing communication with the coach and the evaluator and videos, the programs are modified on an ongoing basis as needed.

Every four months the child is re-evaluated and program modifications made.

Is there a question about Home Education or Homeschool that we missed?

Let us know by contacting us at: info@nacd.org or by leaving a question for us using the support chat feature in the lower right corner of your browser window. We are happy to answer any questions you might have!

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, August 2020 ©NACD

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