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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And they’re right to be frustrated.

Why ABA Doesn’t Work

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

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

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

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

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

The Research Confirms What Parents Already Know

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

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

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

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

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

What Actually Changes the Brain

At NACD, we’ve spent 45 years developing a different approach. One built on how neurodevelopment actually works.

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

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

3,000+ techniques, individualized to your child. There’s no one-size-fits-all protocol. Every child gets a program built specifically for them, drawing from a toolbox we’ve developed over four decades. And that program evolves. We re-evaluate quarterly and adjust based on what’s working.

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

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

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

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

That’s not hope. That’s neuroscience. And it’s been our foundation for 45 years.

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

About the Author: Laird Doman is the COO of NACD International (nacd.org), a neurodevelopmental organization that has served over 30,000 families since 1979. NACD was founded by his father, Bob Doman, who continues to lead the organization’s methodology development.

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

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

Understanding the Whole Child

To truly understand a child, we must take a top-down approach, viewing them as a complete individual rather than a sum of disconnected parts. Every child is more than a diagnosis, a test score, or an isolated challenge. Yet too often, professionals—whether doctors, therapists, educators, or psychologists—focus on just one piece of the puzzle without seeing how it connects to the whole.

This fragmented approach is much like the classic parable of the three blind men and the elephant, where each man touches a different part of the animal and comes away with a completely different impression. One thinks he’s found a tree trunk, another a snake, another a fan—none of them realizing they are all describing the same elephant. In the same way, when we look at just one aspect of a child’s development without considering the bigger picture, we risk missing their true potential.

Parents, who know their children better than anyone, are often left out of the equation. Yet, they are the experts on their own child and an essential part of any effective intervention. Whether a child has a formal diagnosis or not, each one is unique, complex, and capable of growth beyond expectations—if we take the time to understand them holistically.

The Power of a Top-Down Perspective

One of the first things we teach professionals learning to assess children is to start with the big picture. The first 30 seconds of interaction can often reveal a wealth of insight into a child’s development, personality, and challenges. This top-down approach allows us to quickly identify strengths, pinpoint underlying issues, and develop a roadmap for meaningful progress.

In contrast, starting with individual symptoms or isolated skill sets often leads to a distorted and incomplete understanding of the child. To truly help a child thrive, we must first see who they are as a whole person, then work backward to address the specific areas that need support.

Beyond Labels: Every Child is Unique

Labels can be useful for categorization, but they do not define a child’s potential. Consider:

• Josh, who has a brain injury
• Olivia, diagnosed with Down syndrome
• Jaxon, labeled as being on the autism spectrum
• Lindy, identified with ADHD
• Ryan, considered “typical”
• Lucas, placed in a gifted program

Each of these children is more than their label. They all have complex needs, unique abilities, and untapped potential. When we focus only on the diagnosis, we limit expectations—but when we recognize the whole child, we open the door for extraordinary growth.

Building a Support System for Success

Helping a child reach their full potential requires a coordinated, individualized approach that includes:

• The Child – at the center of the process
• Parents – the true experts on their child’s strengths and needs
• NACD Developmentalist – a trained specialist who designs a customized developmental program based on a holistic assessment
• Family Coach – available nearly seven days a week to provide ongoing support
• The NACD Team – an extended network of specialists with decades of experience and over 3,000 targeted intervention strategies

This team approach ensures that each child receives personalized, strategic input designed to help them develop the skills they need to succeed.

The Truth About Neuroplasticity: No Magic Pills, Just Consistent, Targeted Work

In today’s world, families are bombarded with promises of quick fixes—from supplements to therapies that claim to offer overnight transformations. But the reality is that meaningful change takes time, consistency, and strategic input.

Brain development follows the principles of neuroplasticity—the process by which the brain creates new neural connections and adapts over time. While neuroplasticity offers incredible potential, it does not happen instantly. Real progress requires interventions that follow three critical principles:

1. Frequency – The brain needs repetitive exposure to new information and activities. Ideally, children receive targeted input multiple times per day rather than once or twice per week.
2. Intensity – Learning must be engaging and appropriately challenging to stimulate growth.
3. Duration – Change takes weeks or months, not minutes or days. Sustainable progress requires a long-term commitment.

Unlocking Every Child’s Potential

Every child—regardless of their background, challenges, or strengths—has the potential to exceed expectations when given the right opportunities. The key lies in seeing the whole child, not just their difficulties, and applying customized, targeted strategies that nurture growth at every level.

At NACD, we believe that no child’s future should be predetermined by a label. By focusing on the whole child, working as a team with families, and harnessing the power of neuroplasticity, we help children break barriers, develop skills, and thrive beyond what anyone thought possible.

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

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By Carolyn Takos

Intro by Lyn Waldeck

In many of our recent newsletters, NACD has been focusing on creating and changing behavior for the better by the feedback the child is given. Carolyn Takos is a very dedicated NACD mom who first came to us in desperation to reverse a behavioral nightmare created during their time with ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis). We have asked Carolyn to tell her story of how the wrong feedback affected her son and their family.

Carolyn:

For many years, ABA therapy has been the “cure-all” for everyone on the Autism Spectrum; our experience has been one where the bad consequences have far outweighed any benefits from it. My son was diagnosed with High Functioning Level One Autism, formerly known as Aspergers. ABA therapy was recommended for him, and I, not knowing any better, got him signed up. They had him for almost a year for 20 hours a week. It’s been two years since he “graduated” and I’m still trying to undo some of the things that they did to him. They left us with eightproblems that needed correction. It’s important to know that during ABA therapy, each child is assigned to a one-on-one therapist.

The positive outcome from ABA might be an acceptance of differences among children; but the negatives are:

1. Needs “help” with everything – If he didn’t want to do something, he’d say he needed help and they were quick to do it for him. And I mean everything, from putting on shoes to coloring to writing his name; everything.

2. He doesn’t play by himself -Someone was always with him and doing things with him, so now he expects the same treatment at home. Since he is an only child, he expects me to be that one-on-one playmate, 24/7.

3. Candy was given for behaviors they wanted to see, like treat training a dog.

4. He learned the benefits of poor behavior – He learned that if he didn’t want to do something or be somewhere, then all he had to do was act poorly and he would be removed from the situation. This could be anything from a “temper-tantrum” to hitting people in authority. He also learned that if he “recovered” from the poor behavior, he would get candy. Ultimately, he was rewarded for some of the worst behavior a child can do.

5. They used this treat training to reinforce the behaviors they wanted to see; one instance was waiting patiently. At the time of his graduation, they had “worked up” to him waiting patiently for one minute and that would result in a treat.

6. He learned that he could demand the attention of his therapist by acting poorly, even when I was getting a report on his daily progress. She stopped in the middle of a sentence and gave her complete attention to him. Even now, he will rudely demand my attention when I’m trying to talk to someone else. His rudeness can start with just trying to get my attention to making so much noise that I can’t hear or talk over him. He has even used “hugs” as a means to get my attention; not loving hugs, but an aggressive throwing himself at me to interrupt the conversation.

7. Friends aren’t friends. They called everyone there a friend, even though one, maybe two, actually acted like friends. The rest did not display anything friendly toward him. This resulted in finding “friends” at the park from kids who were trying to avoid him or were even being mean to him. It was heartbreaking to watch the treatment of the “friends” from the park and how he would happily tell me he made new friends. I’m happy to say that he doesn’t claim strangers as friends now, but he also doesn’t know how to be a friend either.

8. Sorry is a magic word. And I mean a really magic word. If he said he was sorry, even though he wasn’t, then the consequences for his actions just went away. I spoke with the directer about this; just ask anyone in prison for manslaughter and they’ll tell you “sorry” doesn’t make the consequences go away. He was absolutely shocked the first time I explained to him that you actually, need to feel remorse for your actions for “sorry” to be real and even then it doesn’t magically get you out of the consequences.

If you ask me if ABA helped, I have to say absolutely not. At first, when I looked at this list I thought, “We’ve only corrected half of this;” but reality is, we’re still working on almost every point. It’s been two years since he’s graduated, and we are only a little bit through undoing the damage that ABA caused. At least it’s been forward progress.

Back to Lyn:

Fortunately for this family, NACD understands how to harness neuroplasticity in order to create change in sensory dysfunction, how to build processing, how to develop executive function, and how to use feedback to change behavior patterns. This family is diligent in doing their program and more importantly are good at staying very connected so that we can guide them to a better place in life. From the beginning I knew we were working with a smart boy. I knew there was a sweet kid wanting to emerge. Today life is less of a horror story, and the kind, confident, and well-adjusted kid is shining through.

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

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

Related Article

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

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Many parents and professionals are confused about unusual behaviors, generally referred to as “stims,” which are usually associated with autism. These “stims,” in fact, exist to varying degrees with many children and adults, some of whom have various developmental issues and some of whom are considered “typical.” During the past year, many parents of typical children have become concerned their child may fit into the autism spectrum, and a surprising number of normal adults are wondering if they fit into the spectrum as well. That being said, there are many children being permitted—and even encouraged—to engage in what are actually Debilitating Sensory Addictions (DSAs) which do need to be addressed. It’s important to understand what is, and is not, of concern.

Over ten years ago I coined the term DSA, or Debilitating Sensory Addictions, to identify most of what was being referred to as “stims” in children on the autism spectrum. These included developmentally harmful sensory behaviors which may occur in a broad range of children with developmental issues. I incorporated debilitating into the term to indicate that these behaviors are in fact debilitating, as in undermining and impairing development. In addition, these behaviors are addictive. The more the individual engages in the behavior, the stronger the addiction to the behavior becomes, and the more inclined they become to developing sensory and other addictions. The foundation of these behaviors is sensory dysfunction or delayed/underdeveloped sensory function. 

Debilitating Sensory Addictions, although primarily seen in children on the autism spectrum, exist within the broad range of children with delayed development. This is particularly true for those with significant sensory issues. DSAs begin as a form of self-soothing or self-arousal behaviors. They originate around a “broken,” underdeveloped, or abnormal sensory channel and/or a lack of ability or opportunity to engage and interact appropriately with their environment, people, or toys. This was seen very graphically visiting state institutions for those with developmental issues back in the sixties and early seventies. The institutions were filled with “autistic” individuals who had entered after having been labeled or identified as having Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, or brain injuries, etc. The DSAs exhibited by these institutionalized children were often much more extreme than what we observe today in even the most severely involved autistic children. These children were, sadly, models of what can develop in permitted and untreated DSAs. 

DSAs can involve any and all sensory channels and can incorporate more than one at a time. The most common DSAs involve vision and hearing. The most prevalent visual issues, in both children on the spectrum and others with developmental issues, is the delayed or slow development of central vision. Peripheral vision is the first vision that develops in all children. Peripheral vision picks up edges and movement. Most people know that babies are attracted to black and white images with sharp edges and to things that move.* These are things that they can see as opposed to things involving their central, or detail, vision. Most young children are far sighted, meaning they do not see things that are up close well. As they use this central vision more and more it generally improves. If, however, this development is delayed, the central vision may not improve. Delays to central vision development can occur when a child learns to play with their peripheral vision in such a way as to become aroused by this play. This can include waving their hands and objects in front of their eyes or lining up objects and flipping pages. It can also include, once they become mobile, moving around a room looking at the edges of the walls, ceiling, and floor, as well as other objects.

Often the first thing that is apparent with a child on the spectrum is the lack of eye contact. The reality is that it goes way beyond lack of eye contact, to not actually looking directly at many things, since they look peripherally. If you watch a typical person as they look around their environment, you will notice—unless they are thinking—that they look directly at faces or objects of significance. This is as opposed to a child or individual with hyper-peripheral vision and hypo-central vision who rarely look directly at anything and instead look rather absent, which they often are.

One of the common characteristics of those “on the spectrum” is the apparent inability to read expressions. I would propose that many, if not most, of those on the spectrum with this issue simply have underdeveloped central vision. They have learned to look at the periphery of the face (the hair that is sticking up or the edge of the ear), rather than the face itself. If you are not looking at the face, you are not seeing or reading the expression on the face.

DSAs related to hearing or auditory processing issues involve manipulating sound, from producing repetitive sounds with toys, to simply tapping or banging, to various forms of vocal repetitions of sounds, words, phrases, or songs. Also included is covering or batting at the ears to block or modify sounds. 

As mentioned, all sensory channels can be involved in DSAs and can involve more than one sensory channel at a time. As an example, children can engage in hand/mouth DSAs that involve the senses of taste, touch, smell, and in some cases even hearing, all simultaneously. The DSAs involving many sensory channels are often the most difficult to resolve.

We can often equate the degree of DSAs and the degree to which individuals are or are not present with the global degree of developmental delay or the placement on the spectrum

One of the significant effects of DSAs is the child’s lack of connection to their environment or to being present. We incorrectly equate learning almost exclusively with being taught, but the reality is that most of what we learn—and what permits us to interact with our environment and the people in it—relates to the degree to which we are simply present. Those engaged in DSAs are to varying degrees not present.

Perseveration—stuck on repeat

A subtle form of DSAs involves perseveration. Perseveration involves wanting, needing, and essentially being addicted to specific input. Videos, commercials, books, and songs all have the potential of becoming perseverative addictions, or DSAs. If permitted, children will watch the same video over and over, or the same piece of a video over and over,** or want to hear the same book or song over and over. They do this to the point at which they have it memorized and beyond, because they are literally addicted to it. This type of DSA is of particular concern because the child can eventually watch the video, recite the line, or play the song in their head over and over; and although not displaying an overt DSA, they are simply not present. Many parents who are trying to get their child’s attention feel as though their child’s mind is someplace else. This is because their child’s mind is somewhere else; they are watching their video clip or repeating their sound bite in their mind. They are not present.

The greater the DSAs, the less present and connected are the individuals and the greater the impact on global development

The role of neuroplasticity is very relevant to DSAs. Essentially all development occurs because of neuroplasticity, which essentially means that the input the brain receives and how we use our brains determines how our brains become wired and develop. To trigger neuroplasticity, the more specific the input (stimulation) and the greater the frequency, intensity, and duration of the input (stimulation), the greater the impact on the brain and thus the more the brain is trained or developed in that direction. Typically, we perceive learning and stimulation as a good thing and work to utilize the components of neuroplasticity to maximize learning. If, however, we look at DSAs, they tend to occur with very repetitious specificity–high frequency, often with great intensity and extended duration—the model that changes the brain. Unfortunately, in the case of DSAs the change is all negative; it triggers neuroplasticity, but with harmful outcomes. If the DSA involves a “broken” undeveloped sensory channel, it tends to perpetuate and unfortunately strengthen what is “broken” and simultaneously wire the brain for more addictive behaviors. If the brain is focused on this intense input, it simultaneously diminishes the “normal” appropriate input that leads to “normal” development.

Sensory/developmental imbalance and sequential processing

In typical development, changes across the sensory and functional areas are balanced. DSAs and sensory issues tend not to be balanced, meaning unequal. As such, the overall development is imbalanced. A very significant related factor is found in auditory and visual sequential processing. This refers to the number of sequential pieces we can hear or see. This is typically measured in digit spans. If I said a number sequence to you at one second intervals, such as 5-2- 7- 3- 9-0-8 and if you could repeat it, that would give you an auditory digit span of seven, which is normal for most adults. This would be a measure of your auditory processing, or short-term memory, which equates with how much you process of what is said to you. Hearing a list of numbers and repeating them backwards, a reverse auditory digit span, would be a measure of your working memory, which is now being referred to as the new IQ and is the foundation of executive function. Executive function is what permits us to have self -control, inhibit inappropriate behaviors, plan, organize, set goals, problem solve, prioritize–all functions that are challenging for many on the spectrum. Typically, auditory sequential processing develops at about ¾ of a digit a year from birth to about 9 years of age. For most children this growth of processing—including short term and working memory—expands simply by people talking to the child and the child being present and listening. If the child is not present, it significantly impairs this development with global impact, affecting all aspects of typical development, most notably the ability to understand language, to think in words, to develop language, and to think conceptually. 

Essentially, we think in either words or pictures. Thinking in words is called conceptualization and thinking in pictures is called visualization. Because of not being present and other issues, many children with DSAs do not develop auditory processing well and lag behind, often dramatically, in learning to think well in words. Simultaneously, the ability to think in pictures, to visualize, keeps getting stronger, creating a greater and greater imbalance. This is often the root cause of the lack of language development and maturity in children on the spectrum. Often behavior outbursts occur because what is happening in real time does not fit the picture in the child’s mind, and their inability to think in words inhibits their ability to think their way through the situation.

Stim is short for stimulation—a misnomer

We generally perceive stimulation as a good thing, and perhaps, therefore, many tend to think of stims as being good and to be permitted, if not encouraged. But, as stated previously, stims/DSAs are providing the brain with negative input which is detrimental to development. DSAs deprive the individual the means to engage and interact with their environment and produce “bad” brain wiring. My grandfather liked to use the saying “Call an ace an ace.” If we are going to address and fix debilitating sensory additions, let’s start by calling them what they are: DSAs.

Attention, inattention, distraction, and fidgeting—good, bad or ???

What is fidgeting? I correlate fidgeting with the issue of DSA’s obstructing the individual’s ability to be present. If a child or adult is actively engaged in behaviors to varying degrees that prevent them from being present, then I would classify the behavior as a DSA. There is a disturbing tendency to see many (and tragically in some cases, most) children as needing more sensory input. Quite to the contrary. The reality is the need to teach the child, and their brain, to focus, to filter, and to ignore extraneous, disruptive input. To believe that many children in a classroom need additional sensory stimulation is ludicrous. Twenty plus children are in a classroom, with all of them breathing, moving, squirming, mumbling, and talking, while other children move down the hallways, trucks go past outside, and planes flying overhead. All the while, they are supposed to be attending to their teacher or their work. The problem is not children being deprived of sensory input; it’s children being overloaded by sensory input and learning how to tune it out, not tune into it. The more distractions, the tougher it is for the child to learn how to filter and attend. When you were going to school, would you have had a better time attending to your work in a library or in the gym during a basketball game? The few who need a thing to occupy part of their brain while they are learning to filter and focus does not justify teaching others to be distracted and dependent and even addicted to inappropriate actions or mechanisms.

For a small percentage of children and adults, the intention and function of a behavior, such as tapping a foot or a finger to help maintain focus, could be considered a short term needed mechanism, although identifying and addressing the underlying issue or issues is to be preferred. The need for fidgeting may exist because of some residual sensory deficit, such as hyper-peripheral visual distractions or residual figure ground issues; but if the result is better attention and the individual being more present, then, while not to be encouraged, it is fine. Fidgets can also be the reflection of being “wired” from a poor or individually inappropriate diet, from present anxiety or nervousness, or from a residual behavior resulting from previous anxiety. Sometimes it might not even have any direct sensory association at all. But encouraging otherwise typically developing children to adopt such behaviors is counter to healthy normal development.

It is vital to look at all these actions and behaviors that have been lumped together as stims from the perspective of the individual. Most of these behaviors have underlying sensory issues which need to be identified and developed. If understood as addictions, it becomes obvious that we need to do all that we can in order to reduce and eliminate them as much as possible. This process typically involves redirection, elimination of any tools that facilitate DSAs, and appropriate engagement for as much of the waking day as possible. If one of the net results of DSAs is prevention of the individual from being present and engaged, then we need to do everything we can to keep them present and engaged. Sensory channels that are underdeveloped, or which have developed improperly, need to be treated. If sequential processing, short-term memory, working memory, and executive function work together to be the foundation which permits us to learn, develop, to think, and function in society, we need to actively and specifically work to develop these incredibly important functions.

Every person is unique. One of the things I taught both of my sons when they were young and perceptive enough to be able to observe the differences between and oddities of their friends and classmates, was that if you met someone and you did not think they were “weird,” it only meant you didn’t know them well enough. We are all “weird” if you look closely enough, which is rather synonymous with different and unique. That is a good thing and bodes well for the perpetuation of our species. Often labels and terms can cause more harm than good. When we can be definitive, we need to be. When we can identify issues as specific to the individual, we need to. Lumping children together with similar symptoms, and often perceiving these symptoms as pervasive, tends to imply that these symptoms are just part of who and what they are and thus to accept it. Having worked with thousands of individuals with DSAs over fifty years, the most important lesson learned is that each child is unique and complex—and needs to be perceived as such. Doing so is the first important step in helping them do and be what their innate potential would permit them to be. Understanding these associated pieces which are distinctive to the individual leads to creating the necessary tools and the ability to treat each child appropriately so that we can unlock their innate potential.

The children have unlimited potential. Our lack of knowledge and the application of that knowledge is the causative factor which limits the outcomes.

*Some children on the spectrum demonstrate an exceptional ability to identify numbers, letters, and words and even to be able to read at an early age, which appears to be the result 

of an early attraction to the edges of numbers and letters. 

** YouTube has made some children on the spectrum tablet navigation experts, as they are driven to pursue their addictions to specific videos.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 36 No.1, 2023 ©NACD

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by Bob Doman

Whether you have a gifted or typical child, a child with learning or attention issues or special needs, parents need to understand what their role is, and the role, if any, of schools.

More and more parents are realizing that the one size fits all education—just plug them in and let the chips fall where they may—just may not be doing the job for their children. Some parents are ready to explore the options and are looking for a long-term plan, while others want to help their children catch up or give them a boost so they can return them to school, but at the top of the heap.

This may be the time for a change.

Questions every parent should ask themselves:

Is parental involvement in a child’s development important?

Absolutely, and the more the parents are involved with their child’s development and education, the better. Parental involvement is the single greatest factor affecting a child’s development, education, and future.

Can parents be educators/teachers?

Parents are the child’s first, best, and most important educators/teachers. Who teaches children to understand and speak their language, a foreign language? Who teaches your children how to take care of themselves from feeding themselves to toilet training, to dressing, bathing, and grooming, etc.? Who teaches your child how to behave appropriately? Who teaches your children how to throw a ball, set the table, do the dishes, mow the lawn? Who teaches your children about family, respect, compassion, responsibility, faith, religion, and probably at least the basics of reading and math and more and more and more? The truth is that on graduation from high school, measuring what your child has learned as opposed to what they were “taught” and have forgotten, the odds are that what the children actually learned from involved parents significantly outweighs what the schools “taught.” Your child’s future as an adult is more a reflection of lessons learned from parents than schools. 

Who knows your whole child best?

Involved parents know their child the best and are the only people who know their whole child.

Do teachers, therapists, psychologists, and doctors know your whole child?

No, they temporarily deal with pieces of your child, not your whole child. How often have you had a new teacher or any other professional for that matter go out of their way to ask you, the experts, about your child?

Who needs to be in charge and steering the ship, those who only think they understand your child, looking at pieces, or parents who know their whole child?

Parents. Those dealing with pieces of your child never do or can understand your whole child.

Whose vision of the child should be directing the outcomes?

Parents, your child is your child. Those working with your child should be helping you fulfill your vision.

Have parents been largely encouraged to abdicate their roles to the professionals over the last 50 years?

Yes, the trend has been to let the professionals take charge. Parents are often perceived as irrelevant or even as interfering pieces of the equation.

Are the teachers, schools, psychologists, etc. responsible for your child’s education and future?

These folks will often tell parents that they, the experts, are responsible, and you need to trust their training, their vision, and that you and your child need to follow their direction. The system doesn’t grade the teachers, psychologists, and therapists based on how your child does, they grade your children. They, the professionals, don’t fail, your child does. While they are well meaning, their role is limited and transient. Transients working with pieces of your child are not responsible for your child’s future. If they fail in their job, your child won’t be living in their basement when they’re thirty.

Should schools be viewed as a tool in the parent’s toolbox that they can choose to use or not, and if so to what extent?

For many families today, school is an option, not a foregone conclusion. Some families do not have a choice, but for those who do, school needs to be perceived as optional—there if and when needed.

If you take your child out of school, how hard is it for them to return?

In most states if you decide to take your child out of school, you can do it tomorrow. Just let the school know that you are going with another plan. In a few states it is a tad more involved, but not much. And generally, to put them back in requires nothing more than contacting the school. For some children a placement test may be part of the process; but every child can attend public school when the parents choose, with the possible temporary exception of children who have been expelled. The bottom line is that it is rarely an issue to remove your child from school or to put them back in. 

Ultimately who is responsible for your child and their future?

You are!

Do children with learning and attention problems, with special needs or the gifted require schools to address their specific individual needs?

The reality is the educational system is not able to individualize and provide for “typical” children, let alone those with greater needs. Children in need of specific therapies need those therapies multiple times per day, not once or twice a week for 30 minutes. That is what the school can provide, not what the children need. At best schools can plug children into different levels of their curriculum or change the pace, but they do not and cannot create curriculums to fit individual children.

Is group/classroom, or set curriculum an efficient, effective way to educate?

Group/classroom instruction is a means to mass education but is by no means the best way to educate an individual. Individual targeted education is by far more efficient and effective, and the younger the child the more important it is. Two minutes of targeted 1:1 education for younger children or those with special needs can easily be more effective than an hour of group, set curriculum-based education.

Do children need to attend schools for their social development?

Social interaction in most schools occurs at minimally supervised times, such as recess, in the hallways and restrooms. If your child is not learning how to interact socially at home, they will often have social issues at school. And school provides a great opportunity for bullying, and the greater your child’s need for positive social interaction, the greater the targets they are for exclusion and bullying. There are many supervised social opportunities that exist outside the school setting that afford better opportunities for social engagement than school, including church groups, Scouts, 4H, community sports, and martial arts, not to mention family, extended family, and so on

What education can and should be: home-based education

Many parents who had previously just assumed that their children had been receiving a good, if not quality, educational opportunity are starting to pay attention. “Virtual” schooling gave many parents a better look into their child’s curriculum than ever before; and many were rather shocked at how inappropriate much of it was for their child and how far it was removed from fitting or targeting their child.

The reality is that mass education, schools, and set curriculums are not producing good or what should be considered acceptable results for most children, even if our children apparently are doing well. The United States in 2018 ranked 30^th in math, 8^th in reading, and 11^th in science internationally. So much for the myth that we have a great educational system. It is certainly nothing to brag about. And to maintain perspective, think about what countries might rank above the U.S. and how good their educational systems actually are.

Many families are beginning to really examine school as they now see it to be and are considering alternatives. At the same time many work and home situations have changed; and as a result, more and more parents are finding that they can work from home for at least part of the day, or that they can do fine on one salary,weighing a new car when the old one runs just fine against assuming a more active role in their child’s education and future. If one parent could be home educating the children, even if for part of the day, it opens alternatives that may not have been perceived before. We tend to forget what was, but to gain perspective, in 1967 49% of mothers were stay-at-home moms. That number dropped to 23% in 1999 and has climbed a bit, but is still only 29%.

Many parents see their options as perhaps more limited than they need to be. The options list often includes public school, charter schools, or private schools, which are often prohibitively expensive and not necessarily better than public schools. Or there are home-based online schools that just plug children into a curriculum and keep them attached to a screen all day. Or traditional homeschool that tends to take up most of the child’s and parent’s day and just replaces one packaged curriculum for another. Packaged curriculums that children are plugged into are the bane of education and disregard our children as unique individuals. They ignore neuroplasticity and the value of targeted input, the child’s interest in and relationship to the input, affecting the intensity of the input and the effect on the brain.

What most folks think of as homeschool is not at all what home-based education started out being or can be. Homeschool as most parents think of it is essentially recreating school at home. A ton of curriculum/”stuff” that no one really expects the child to learn, nothing targeted, nothing specific to the child, and like school, most likely to produce less than stellar results.

What’s the latest U.S. literacy rate?

There is one huge piece missing from school and many homeschool curriculums—the child. What is taught, when, and how should be based on the child, the child’s level of development, their processing ability (link to Processing article), the child’s level of academic function, the child’s interests, the understanding of the needs of the whole child, and the vision. The needs of the whole child go way beyond curriculum, including turning the child on to learning, making them readers, and learning to love learning, learning that they don’t need to be hand fed to learn (they can do it themselves), teaching the child how to think, be responsible, including owning chores, and how to take care of themselves from cooking to laundry. From how to earn, save, invest, and how to learn about and even engage in entrepreneurship, to having an adult rather than peers teach them about appropriate behavior, morality, faith, respect, values, family, etc. Providing them with an opportunity to develop strong processing, short-term and working memory, which translates into greater maturity, better executive function, and simply, being smarter; and to have the encouragement and flexibility to explore and develop their interests, talents, and passions.

Achieving our vision for our children requires much more than classes and grades, and if we understand the reality of the needs of our whole child, we understand the reality that the time and energy required by school or packaged curriculum does not leave the time and energy to put together the whole package, the whole child. Targeting academic education to fit the child is so efficient that the time needed to educate them per day is a fraction of what school or typical home school requires.

The parent’s job is to turn their children into happy, well adjusted, successful, contributing adults who have the tools to succeed at something they are passionate about. Giving birth is just the beginning; the job, the responsibility, and the privilege of parenting involves years of active participation.

Unfortunately, many parents do not start off with a vision. But all parents need a vision of what their child—this wonderful, unique new person—can be. Start with that vision, then actively work with your child, getting to know them and permitting them to learn and understand, and you can then together continue to develop the vision and bring it to fruition.

As someone once said, “Look where you’re going and go where you’re looking.” Take responsibility and take charge.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 35 No.2, 2022 ©NACD

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The post Educational Options 2022 appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Most of us have no idea what creatures of habit and patterns we are, nor how stuck we can be in these behavior patterns. I have three dogs that keep reminding me of what a creature of habit I am. If I’m watching TV in the evening and pick up the TV remote, my dogs notice; and if I turn off the TV, they all jump up ready to go. Which way they go is determined by the direction of my first step when I stand up. In the morning if I pick up my cup from the coffee machine and if I turn left, my dogs run down to my office. If I turn right, they go about their business because there are too many options as to what I might do. You probably put the same foot into your pant leg first most every day. The point is that we humans create hundreds of behavior patterns, most of which we are oblivious to.

When dealing with children, particularly children with developmental issues, the connection between the child and the parents and caregivers is amazing. This connection leads to each learning each other’s patterns. Patterns can become ruts, ruts that both parent and child can get stuck in.

One very common pattern or rut that creates problems involves what children will eat. In a very significant percentage of children who come to us, ranging from severely involved children to those who are gifted, a common problem is picky eaters. Back in the early ‘70s when we created a program specifically for children with autism, I worked with a teenage girl who had eaten no food other than apples for virtually her entire life. To compound the mystery of this child, she also had pica—she would put most anything in her mouth and eat it. This included everything from dirt to bugs and her dog’s feces from the yard, but not food. The issue with her eating a greater variety of foods was obviously not an issue with taste or smell, although this can be an issue for many children, particularly those on the spectrum. It was simply a matter of an established pattern, a habit. It should be noted that food cravings that come from eating a lot of some specific foods can also be a contributing issue. Kids are not simple.

In a previous article (Independence and the Developmentally Challenged Child) I discussed how important and vital independence is for the overall development of the child or young adult. The child’s and the parent’s patterns and habits often have a very negative impact on the development of independence.

An example of a common pattern that slows down the development of independence in many children is helping them dress themselves. Most parents who assist their child in dressing and undressing assist in virtually the exact same way every time, and the child participates, or does not participate, in exactly the same way. As an example: Mom approaches Johnny with a T-shirt. Johnny sees it and waits for Mom to put it over his head, at which point he lifts his arms and she helps put his arms in the sleeves. Then she pulls the shirt down. Every day they follow the same pattern. If Mom doesn’t do something to change her pattern, the odds are great that Johnny doesn’t either; and Johnny’s development of independence in dressing himself goes nowhere. Parents need to become acutely aware of the hundreds of such patterns, habits that have been created by them and their children, and consciously work to break them.

It’s helpful when trying to grasp the significance of patterns to see how differently children perform with different people and in different places. Children who work with their parents, caregivers, therapists, and teachers are often going to react and perform differently with each person, or in each place, because patterns and habits are created together and are often person and place specific. Each adult establishes a new pattern, and to some extent the physical space helps establish a new mental picture and a new pattern as well. Most children on the spectrum are strong visualizers, creating mental pictures and videos associated with many aspects of their lives. For these visualizers anything that changes their picture (or habit) can lead to them becoming upset, with the net result being that family members and caregivers avoid upsetting the apple cart and work hard to maintain and reinforce the habits.

One of the most devastating and pervasive problems associated with patterns negatively impacting many of our children with developmental issues is prompt dependency. Prompt dependence is actually taught through creating a patten by which the child is prompted, generally verbally through virtually every step of what they are being instructed to do. Some children, after years of such instruction, develop such a strong pattern that they will do almost nothing without a prompt, requiring someone to guide them through most everything they do, creating greater dependency and stifling independence.

Referring back to the picky eater problem, parents often discover that their child will eat foods at the grandparent’s house that they won’t eat at home, or in a restaurant, or even outside. This is because a new place helps change the pattern.

The teenage girl with autism I met had her eating problem largely resolved within the week she and her family spent with us. Guess what we did to fix it? Almost nothing. The child had spent her whole life at home, eating by herself in the same kitchen at the same table and given the same food—apples—because her family been convinced that she wouldn’t eat anything else, and had established a very strong behavior pattern. When the family flew across the county, stayed in a hotel and at our offices, and ate at restaurants together, they broke the pattern. My little suggestion was to not have any apples nor bring apples to the restaurant and to simply order her the same food the parents were eating and tell her they didn’t have apples. She ate the food and within the week established a new behavior pattern, which was to eat what the family ate.

Patterns and habits affect all of our lives to amazing degrees. Having healthy diets for most people means establishing a new behavior pattern or habit. Exercising regularly for most people requires establishing a new behavior pattern or habit. Many people realize how difficult it can be to break an old pattern and create a new one and realize it doesn’t just happen. You have to very consciously work to create that new behavior pattern; and the longer a pattern exists, the tougher it is to change it, whether it is a good or a bad habit.

Typically developing children are neurologically changing rapidly, and that neurological change pushes them to do new things; and in the process it tends to break many previously established patterns of behavior. Typical children and their parents can certainly fall victim to habits. But when you slow down the developmental process, life tends to become just a series of pattens that essentially rule the child and the family’s life and can significantly and often dramatically inhibit change, development, and expectations. These patterns can affect all areas of development and function. An example is children learning patterns of communication. If whining works to get attention, and Mom interprets that as the child wanting something and becomes trained to start offering the child options until the whining stops, then the odds are good that the child will maintain that pattern of communication even though they neurologically are ready to start verbally communicating. In a similar vein there are children who develop a functional vocabulary of only a few words, who may go years without expanding that vocabulary. It becomes their pattern, and if the expectation is that it’s all he or she can do, then it becomes the perception of what can be, and it is accepted. A child who has a vocabulary of three words is demonstrating that they have the cognitive ability and the oral motor ability to think in words and produce words, why not ten words or twenty words or a thousand words?

If a child lacks mobility, the ability to move either through crawling, creeping, or walking to get to something, and learns to simply lay on the floor and space out, cry for attention, or whine until someone brings something to them, then often these become patterns and the child has no perception that they could move to go somewhere or get something. These children may have the cognitive and physical pieces that would permit them to move, but they are stuck in a pattern.

Looking at pieces of the child in isolation makes it very difficult at best to determine what is a reflection of the child being stuck in a pattern vs. what can, could, and should be. The perception of what can be is then easily limited to what has been, and doors are closed not based on the innate potential of the child, but rather on what patterns have been and are in place.

If, however, we view the “whole child,” the gestalt of the child, we can then see what could be and what pieces need to be put together to break the habits or patterns and move forward.

For example, one vital piece of the “whole child” is cognitive function. If we have understanding, auditory sequential processing, that says the child mentally has the ability to use language functionally and put two or three words together, as well as adequate oral motor skills for speech, but they only use a few words, then we know we have a child who today could be speaking much more, if not for being stuck in a pattern. If, however, we have the cognition, but not the needed oral motor function, then we know we need to work on the oral motor function hard, as well as working behaviorally to create the internal need to communicate. Conversely, if the child has sufficient oral motor function, but not the cognitive function, then the primary focus becomes the cognition.

Looking at a child as their isolated pieces and not understanding their patterns and habits can produce misdirected efforts and priorities, and more often than not turn the focus toward alternatives that lead to poor, low, or limited expectations that can negatively impact the child’s ultimate potential.

Not understanding the “whole child” or the impact of patterns can lead to pursuit of poor alternatives. For the child with limited language, the alternative may be an augmentative communication device that for the vast majority of children fails. If full mobility is deemed to be improbable, then putting the necessary developmental pieces together gets scrapped, and the therapy gets directed toward a child who will spend the rest of their life in a wheelchair. Or a child with unresolved behavior issues ends up being medicated, rather than having his pieces put together and patterns broken.

Habits and patterns impact all of our lives. For our children with developmental problems, these habits and patterns, both theirs and ours, can have devastating consequences. Every child needs to be viewed through the lens of the “whole child” and seen as a creature of habit if we are going to begin to provide them with a real opportunity to realize their innate potential.

Lack of function needs not and should not be viewed as a prognosis or predictor of potential.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 34 No.5, 2021 ©NACD

The post How Patterns of Behavior Affect Your Developmentally Challenged Child 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.

Thanks, Lucas! I’m anxious to get back on the road and see you and all of the other kids. I’ve missed you!

My friend Lucas has succeeded. He has made his dream come to fruition. What started with a nine-year-old boy’s perception of a need and a vision for a solution, after four years of work, has come to be.

One day on the school playground, Lucas realized that his friend in a wheelchair could only sit and watch the other children play. Recognizing a need, he went straight to the principal’s office. Lucas explained the need for a playground that could be used by all children, including those with special needs and in wheelchairs.

After four years of planning, presentations, working with the city, organizing fundraisers and raising almost a half a million dollars, and with a lot of perseverance, Lucas has made the playground a reality.

We can all learn a lesson from Lucas. Start with a vision. If you can’t perceive it, you can’t do it. Then make it happen.

I am so proud of this boy and his family.

Bob

To read more about Lucas’ journey with NACD, visit the link below:
https://www.nacd.org/small-things-big-things-come/

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, January 2021 ©NACD

The post Lucas: First the Vision appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Javier was born in Santiago, Chile on October 14, 2014. He was born by Caesarean section, weighed 3.5 kg and measured 52 cm, with an APGAR of 9. It was all normal and correct.

When he was 2 months old, he had a urinary infection and had to be hospitalized, where he was given heavy metal medications.

His growth and physical development were normal. He learned to walk when he was 1 year old. It took a little longer to start talking and we were concerned about that, since his older sister (1 year and 3 months older than him) spoke very well when she was 2 years old. However, Javier, at that age still could not communicate well or interact much with others. As parents we worry about that, but we were told that it was normal, that each child has their own pace in the physically and cognitive development.

In February 2016, we moved to Bolivia, and enrolled Javier and Maria (his sister) into the kindergarten, Javier interacted very little with his classmates, he did not follow instructions, and did not remain calm and seated when the teachers asked him to do so, the teachers shared these concerns with us, being his lack of interaction with the other kids the area that was worrying them the most. Javier did not look at people and seemed to always be in “his own world.”

We took him to different specialists (speech therapists, physical therapist, pediatric neurologists, etc.). In the area of gross motor and fine motor skills, Javier didn´t show any problem at all; in fact, he was pretty advanced for his age. However, the conclusions that the speech therapists and neurologist came to was that Javier had autism and that we should enroll him in an institution for children with autism to be treated.

Talking with some family members, we found out about NACD. My sister´s son is enrolled in the program. We contacted Marta Palmes in May 2017 and we started right away.

When Javier started the program, the evaluation showed that he was between 1 and a half to 2 years behind in his language and communication skills comparing to his peers. Bob Doman told us that he would make us a customized program to level him up and outperform his peers.

At the beginning of the program, we also changed his diet (as per NACD suggestion), eliminating dairy, sugar, and gluten from this diet.

From the moment we started until today, Javier’s progress has been really great, he has done so well that he not only leveled off in communication and language with his peers, but he is also above the average level and with a lot of potential to be able to do even better.

The program helped him boost his long and short-term memory, which helped him with his concentration and attention. His communication skills are now very good and if we compare Javier from 2017 versus now, no one could believe that he was diagnosed with autism.

We want to thank the program for what they did in the development of our son. If we’re with NACD now, it’s not because Javier has a “problem,” but because we see that he can further enhance his skills and the program helps him to do so.

We definitely recommend NACD to families because they really bring out the potential that children have to develop.

We are a happy family!

—Javier’s Parents

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 11, 2020 ©NACD

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