Our interesting times continue on. Through the past year both nationally and internationally we have heard a lot of rhetoric regarding education. A year ago, there was a lot discussion regarding excessive screen time, but “education” for many of our children this past year meant being home and sitting in front of a computer screen all day. There was also a lot of talk about how important it was for the children to be back in the classroom, to get back to how things were. What we didn’t hear mentioned was that prior to the pandemic our children were not generally receiving good or even fair educations, and that most of our children with learning problems or special needs were receiving what can only be described as pretend educations.

According to studies the average American reads at a 7^th-8^th grade level¹; and to gain a little perspective, of 79 countries, the U.S. ranks 9^th in reading and 31^st in math²; and U.S. scores have been flat for two decades. Not too impressive.

Parents, consider taking charge and assuming the responsibility for your child’s development and education.

Targeted home-based education, not packaged, curriculum-heavy homeschool programs can take less time per day than many children spend on homework, and at the same time address and work to eliminate most learning problems, dyslexia, etc. For those children with special needs, it allows time daily for targeted developmental/therapeutic intervention, as opposed to the pretend short visit with a therapist once or twice a week while at school.

Outcomes are determined by the opportunities our children receive. Who’s responsible?

References

1. https://www.wyliecomm.com/2020/11/whats-the-latest-u-s-literacy-rate/#_ftn5
2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/02/28/math-scores-high-school-lessons-freakonomics-pisa-algebra-geometry/4835742002/

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

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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

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According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, “Dyslexia affects about 20% of the population and represents 80-90% of those with learning disabilities.” We are talking about as many as 62 million children and adults!

What is “dyslexia?” It’s a developmental reading problem.

Did you know that virtually every child under five could be called “dyslexic” if you tried to teach most of them to read with the same techniques that are used with first and second grade children? The vast majority of children under five have not developed neurodevelopmentally to the point that they can:

• hear/differentiate similar vocal sounds as well as needed to use phonics
• sequentially process a series/sequence of sounds/phonemes
• sequentially process a series/sequence of symbols well
• mentally hold together and manipulate a series/sequence of sounds/phonemes that would permit them to construct a word

In addition, many children under five also have not developed to the point that they have organized their brains such that they have developed a dominant hemisphere, also referred to as the language hemisphere (spoken and written) and are not even sure which hand they should be using. This lack of hemispheric dominance is also what produces reversals (Is it a “b” or a “d”?), which just contributes to the problem.

Logically, if most children under five share the same characteristics as older children labeled as “dyslexic” and would have the same problem learning to read as do the older children that have “dyslexia,” then it follows that “dyslexia” is a developmental problem that can be addressed. It’s not a mystery and it’s not incurable.

For decades millions of parents have seen their children struggling with reading and have ended up having them diagnosed with dyslexia. Generally when they pushed for an explanation and a plan, they were met with the impression that their child had a mysterious, incurable disease and was doomed to having a life long problem, but they would make accommodations for them. But prior to “dyslexia” being widely used as an administrative label, children with reading issues or related problems were perceived simply as typical kids who for some reason were not doing well with reading as it was being taught. Essentially, the uniqueness of each child was perceived as part of who we are; and that we are different; and in the case of reading, some develop differently and at different rates, and some needed different approaches. If the perception was that Johnny was “normal” and had a problem with reading, then his specific problem needed to be identified and addressed.

As special education took root around the country, administratively it became necessary to identify, then label children so that they could receive special placement, have different expectations placed on them, or so that they could receive special services. Once labeled, the door was open for the local school system to receive extra state and even federal funding. Thus all the children who previously simply had a reading problem became children with dyslexia. The result was that the child who had previously been seen as normal now became a child with a mysterious disease—dyslexia. To compound the problem, the disease/label model directly or indirectly implies that everyone with the disease has the same problem, which implies the same solution or cure. If a common cure can’t be found, then no treatment is perceived as valid, as has happened with those labeled as having ADD or ADHD. In the case of ADD and ADHD, when everyone with the “disease” is perceived as having the same problem with a mysterious cause, and if there is then not a universally successful treatment, then the answer is to retreat to a drug. It’s not too surprising that if you look at the list of symptoms used to diagnose ADD, it reads like the description of virtually every three or four year old child: short attention span, distractible, impulsive. As with children labeled with ADD and ADHD, children labeled as dyslexic or who have a learning problem share many of the same developmental issues as younger children. The origin of the problem is usually various issues associated with neurodevelopment. That which is developmental changes, and what changes can be developed. There are solutions.

The answer to the question of why can’t Johnny read changed from, “We need to find the technique that works for him and the root of the problem” to simply, “Johnny can’t read because he’s dyslexic.”

Essentially the term dyslexia means that there is a reading problem. When the “problem” was first identified, it was done so by a German ophthalmologist, an eye doctor who viewed the problem as word blindness. Up until into the sixties, dyslexia was largely categorized as a visual problem that was identified primarily by reversals. Children had difficulty distinguishing between a “b” and “d” or “saw” for “was.” Surprise, many four year olds confuse “b’” and “d” and have reversals. These reversals were, and in reality are still today, perceived as a bit of mystery by most, but are really the reflection of the level of neurodevelopmental organization. The child is young and the brain has not reached a level of organization that has permitted the development of a dominant hemisphere. The recognition that visual issues were involved in dyslexia also led to the belief that the root cause was an issue with visual tracking and convergence. It has been recognized that such visual problems may exist in children with and without dyslexia, but it is not the cause.

Today dyslexia is primarily viewed as an auditory/phonological problem, not a visual problem, because most children are now being taught reading with an auditory/phonological approach–phonics. The trend in perception of dyslexia as being primarily a visual, as opposed to auditory, problem were based on the predominant reading approach at the time.

Elimination of dyslexia can be as simple as using a different approach to reading; but ideally we will identify any of a variety of underlying developmental issues, which once identified are usually fairly easy to remediate. *

When folks ask us at NACD about dyslexia, we tell them that we refer to those who come to us with dyslexia as the “easy ones.”

*Neurologically and functionally there can actually be some advantages to having “dyslexia,” particularly once the actually reading issues have been addressed. When working with specific unique whole children, we can identify their individual issues and their individual strengths and work to help them become successful and even take advantage of some of their uniqueness.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 6, 2020 ©NACD

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You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make my happy
When skies are gray
You’ll never know dear
How much I love you.
Please don’t take
My sunshine away

How many nights I sang that song to a croupy, wheezing, fussy Sunny. Her arms would fly out, her feet would push off.

“Sunny, Sunny, shh, baby.”

Colds, allergies, ear infections, tonsillitis made her miserable. But Sunny was a bright “Little Bunny” and we kept her going and helped her grow. We were in Pittsburgh at this time, while my husband was working on a PhD, at Carnegie-Mellon University in Design Engineering. I had a BA from the University of Pittsburgh. My work experience, before Sunny, was running Horizon Home, one of the first group homes for severely brain injured children, ages 3-14. The selection process for Horizon Home was difficult because I had to go to various institutions in Pennsylvania and find children with IQ’s under 30. That meant I worked with all types of physical and developmental problems. For each child I would have to analyze their development, plan a treatment to improve their function and get them to the next level. It was all new territory for a state maintained facility and a young staff. But through thirty children and three years, I acquired love, respect and experience that serves me even today.

So, when I got that phone call from Sunny’s school counselor in first grade, “Mrs. Faulhaber, we don’t want to upset you before the Christmas holiday, but Sunny has a problem…” I was already plenty upset. Sunny wasn’t reading, her information was here today, gone tomorrow, she didn’t see the spacing between the words, her balance and coordination were off, and it seemed like she didn’t want to run and jump. The teacher was yelling at her and the kids in the class ostracized her. Her allergies were getting even worse since our move to Florida. Sunny was clearly losing ground despite my best efforts.

During the meeting at the school, my husband and I were told that Sunny had severe learning disabilities, a combination of attention deficit disorder and dyslexia, and she would not learn to read. We could expect her to get some vocational job. Although I didn’t say it, “Over my dead body!” rang in my head. If I could improve the function of the children at Horizon Home, I could do it for Sunny. Just how I had to find out.

What did St. Petersburg, or Florida or the nation, have for children with learning disabilities? It was not quite noon that same day and I was on the phone. The answers were coming up Compensate, Cope and Limit. I tried my sister Sal. Her daughter had been brain injured from a DPT shot and they were doing a program out of Philadelphia for her. I knew that program would not be appropriate, but what did Sal know about Robert Doman and The National Association for Child Development (NACD) that I had seen on a TV interview. My sister gave me the name of a contact mom in Florida who talked to me for three hours.

This, I thought, had a chance of working, but there was no center yet in Florida. So, we got our first evaluation and program three weeks later in Redlands, California. Sunny had a younger brother, a baby sister, I had pneumonia and my husband traveled a lot. I could accomplish a one hour program each day. NACD said that would work.

Back home we did our activities to improve her eye convergence, hearing, balance and coordination, lung capacity, short- and long-term memory, reading and math. Her school environment wasn’t good, so I called a public elementary school featured in the St. Petersburg Times. The principal was receptive and we talked for a total of five hours over the next few months. Later, when I asked her why had she given so much of her time when my child wasn’t in her school, she said, “I never heard a mother like you before.” She did in fact respect my views and nominated me to our county school board committee, selecting the elementary, spelling, writing and reading series for a school system with 100,000 students. I served two years.

Sunny ended up failing first grade, more because it was the school fulfilling their prophecy than Sunny’s problems warranted. So I went back to the public school principal and said, “If Sunny can pass the tests in August, she can start second grade.” Sunny passed AND the psychologist didn’t find the learning disabilities.

Second grade taught her reading and built confidence. Her teacher strongly supported my efforts by doing some of her program activities at school. And during announcements, the principal would call Sunny’s name along with other good students. Then, she’d be presented individually with a listing of her accomplishments and a gold pencil, a small mirror or comb something little that Sunny thought was wonderful.

By third grade she was on the Honor Roll. In fifth grade she won third place in the County Science Fair for a waterway lock, the Presidential Academic Fitness Award and the Pride Award in Social Studies. This award was given at Ruth Eckerd Hall, a very large concert hall in our area, to the best, eighth and twelfth grade students in Creative Writing, Science, Math, or Social Studies by the Superintendent of Schools and the School Board. As the awards were presented, I couldn’t just sit there. I had to see her face. So I worked my way slowly down the left outside aisle to get a good look. Sunny was bright and beaming, just a little self-conscious. I could hardly see that much through erupting tears. Oh, I had been frightened for her. But now, much relieved.

Winning in the Social Studies category was no surprise. My husband traveled for business and sometimes we went. But many more times when he left, my children and I left in our own directions. To date, we have been all over Europe including the Scandinavian countries and Russia, the United States, including Alaska, twice to Central America, the Bahamas, Hong Kong and China, seeing art museums, historic and scientific sites, experiencing new foods and cultures.

However, Sunny found her forte when in ninth grade she entered the Pinellas County Center for the Arts (PCCA) at Gibbs High School. PCCA is a magnet school with visual art, literary, performance, technical and musical theater, instrumental music, vocal training, or dance. For three periods a day the students take classes in their art. For four periods, they are enrolled in college prep classes. Sunny learned visual art, drawing, 2D and 3D design, all types of print making, metal and plaster sculpture, photography, watercolor, ink washes, acrylic and oil painting, large installations and art history. In class, she took math to trigonometry and analytic geometry, AP history, AP English and honors chemistry. Sunny teaches art history in her AP European history class, three times a month. Her English teacher loves her, and her chemistry teacher recently questioned her, “Why aren’t you taking more math? You are so smart in chemistry.” Last year, as an apprentice to the Renaissance Festival, she made costumes and acted. With four friends, they produced a haunted house, “Foreboden,” which they designed, then coordinated the volunteer efforts of many children and the monetary contributions of area businesses to benefit Girls Clubs in our county.

But last Sunday was truly spectacular. Sunny collected and we organized all her best art work for National Portfolio Day at the Ringling School of Design. All the best art schools and universities meet to critique the areas of art work. Sunny’s art work was accepted to her first choice, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They further nominated her for a merit scholarship with benefits of 10%, 20% or 40% for all four years. The Rhode Island School of Design spent 45 minutes talking to her about the depth and breadth of her work. “Do you know how many applicants we get who can do all this and costume design and make haunted houses, too? Not many. We want you, too.” But when Carnegie Mellon University, her dad’s alma mater, started saying good things, and “tell me about this piece,” Sunny responded with what the representative called, “the best of the right answers. You’re good, Sunny. You and Carnegie-Mellon are a seamless match. You have an excellent creative attitude and we are going to highly, highly recommend you. Please apply.” Sunny beamed. When Sunny told her dad, he said, “I’m so proud of you, and they never begged me to come.” She laughed, “Dad, that’s because I’m better than you at what I do best…”

But really, isn’t that what we want. We would like to provide the opportunities that cause our children to exceed us in what they love to do.

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make my happy
When skies are gray.
You’ll never know dear
How much I love you…

Thank you to Robert Doman and The National Association for Child Development (NACD) for first providing the expertise to eliminate Sunny’s learning problems, but also the continued benefit of that association for my son, younger daughter and myself. I more clearly see how to improve function and help families than I could have ever thought possible in my early days in Pittsburgh.

Thanks again and thanks forever.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 10 No. 8, 1996 ©NACD

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As a preschooler, Brian was a happy, busy, normal little boy. The third of four boys, he was extremely creative, very energetic, and a lot of fun. He loved to wear costumes all day every day. He and his friends chose to entertain themselves with their imagination instead of toys. They loved to put on shows with costumes and props. They transformed our playroom into the dog pound, McDonald’s, a castle, or an island with sharks all around it. Brian’s development was normal. As a young child, he crawled, crept, walked, and talked at a normal time.

When Brian was 5 years old, we decided to home school our children. The activities I did with him were almost all oral and kinesthetic to match his development and interest. He had absolutely no interest in even trying to learn letters, which I dismissed as his temperament. He wanted to be busy, not sitting still looking at letters.

Because he was born August 31, in a school district with a September 1 cutoff day for beginning school, we decided to wait until Brian was 6 to start kindergarten. That way, when he did enter a traditional school, he would not be the youngest in his class. He loved math because it was all oral and he got to play with the manipulatives. No matter how many different ways I tried to teach him his letters, though, he simply could not remember them. We played games with letters, drew letters with chalk on the sidewalk, traced letters with pudding finger paint, sang songs about letters, and anything else we could think of to help him learn. Even after all these activities, he still struggled to recall even a few letters. We both were increasingly frustrated. I knew that either he was not very smart (although he showed certain areas that seemed very bright) or something weird was going on. We decided to have some testing done on him.

In January 1991, when Brian was almost 6 1/2, we took him to the Minirth-Meier Clinic for a psychoeducational evaluation (I.Q. test, etc.). He was given the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Beery Test for Visual-Motor Integration, and the Wide Range Achievement Test, Level 1. On his I.Q. test, his verbal score was 119, and his performance score was 82. In a normal child, the I.Q. will be within five points on the two parts of the test. If the scores are 16 or more points apart, the child is labeled learning disabled. Brian’s scores were 37 points apart, which was a huge difference. The Beery Test showed an Age Equivalence Score of 5 years, 6 months (10 months behind his actual age). This was considered a severe difficulty in the areas of visual-motor integration and processing. According to the evaluator, “Brian was not able to write the alphabet in sequence and duplicated many letters, left out letters, and wrote letters backwards. He was able to write his numbers from 1 through 20, although the writing was from right to left. All numbers were written backwards except 4, 5, and 6. Brian was also unable to name the months of the year or to count backwards.”

On the Wide Range Achievement Test, Brian ranked at a preschool level in reading and spelling, and a 1st grade level in math. The comment was, “Brian was not able to actually spell any words, but he was able to duplicate some designs. He was also able to write his name. Brian was unable to read any words. He was able to do some arithmetic in his head, although when given paper and pencil, he was unable to write it down accurately. Brian has severe difficulties with written expression, both with letters and with numbers and will need special interventions in order for him to begin learning at his potential.”

The bottom line was that Brian had a severe learning disability and motor problems. They also felt that he had ADD or ADHD and gave me a brochure on the subject with the suggestion that I talk to my pediatrician about medication. I chose not to put Brian on Ritalin because he was already on numerous medications for his severe asthma.

Even at age 6, Brian was struggling with a sense of failure. The evaluator commented that throughout the testing, Brian kept saying, “My little brother can do this, but I can’t do this.” We had never put our children in a position where they were compared, but Brian knew intuitively that there were things he ought to be able to do that he couldn’t do. He felt stupid. His self-esteem was already suffering.

It was suggested that we apply to have Brian tested at the Learning Disabilities Laboratory at the Scottish Rite Hospital, and in February, we were thrilled to hear that we were accepted for an appointment in July. It seemed so far away, but I thought they would really help us.

The results of the testing at Minirth-Meier were very discouraging. The diagnosis helped explain some of the problems we were having, but did not offer very much hope for the future. I started reading everything I could get my hands on. One of the articles I found was in Teaching Home Magazine, (June/July, 1990), a magazine designed for home schoolers. This article stated that there were two camps when it came to learning disabilities: cope and cure. By far, the majority opinion was that the best you could do for your child was to help him cope with his lifelong disability. There was a program, though, that aimed at “curing” the child. That got my attention immediately. The only choice in the “cure” camp was NACD, and I started tracking them down. I ordered a set of tapes from NACD and found them intriguing. I approached NACD as a skeptic. I did not believe that Brian’s learning disability could be cured, but I thought this program might help, and nothing else I was doing was working.

We took Brian to be evaluated by Bob Doman in April 1991, when Brian was 6 1/2 years old. Bob does not like labels, but he agreed that Brian’s brain was very disorganized. What he offered us was hope. Brian’s digit spans were 4 and 4, which means he was processing and storing information in short term memory like a 4 year old. He was right-eyed, right-eared, right-footed, but his hand was mixed dominant. He wrote and colored exclusively with his left hand, but he ate with either hand, threw a ball with his right hand, and seemed to use both hands equally for most tasks. His “handwriting” at this point was almost impossible to read. Bob chose to switch his dominance to the right, which meant changing him from “ambidextrous” to right-handed. In order to change the dominance of his hand, we did many exercises and activities to strengthen his right hand and ignore his left hand. Because most of these activities were fun and certainly better than “school,” Brian gave us very little resistance to the program. We also worked on his digit spans, his balance and coordination, his lung capacity, and his academics. The hardest part of the program was the self-discipline to do it every day. Like any therapy, it gets boring and tedious. We found that we had to exert a tremendous amount of discipline on ourselves to do what needed to be done. The only thing that kept us going was the possibility that this could really work for Brian. We had to keep our eyes on the goal.

One idea that we came up with helped Brian tremendously with his self-esteem. When we first understood the idea behind NACD, (that learning disabilities and ADD are a result of neurological disorganization), we shared with Brian that we had just gotten the best news in the world. The reason he was having problems learning letters was that he had a “tricky brain,” and we had found a way to fix “tricky brains.” We invented a character named “Mr. Tricky,” and every time Brian wrote a letter backwards or couldn’t remember a letter, we would say, “Stop it, Mr. Tricky! Leave Brian alone!” Then we would assure Brian that it was only “Mr. Tricky” who was messing up his brain. It was not his fault that he couldn’t remember that letter. It took the guilt off of him and put it on a neutral party (“Mr. Tricky”) that we were in the process of banishing from his life. This helped him also see that there was an attainable goal in the future, which was no more “tricky brain.”

After 3 months, in July 1991, we had Brian re-evaluated by Bob. His digit spans had improved to 5 and 6, and his dominance was showing some improvement. With a few changes in our program, we were set to press on for another 3 months. We saw very little change in Brian, but we still held out hope that it would work. This evaluation came just before our appointment at Scottish Rite.

At the end of July 1991, we had Brian tested at Scottish Rite. The results of this testing were discouraging. They diagnosed Brian with Specific Developmental Dyslexia, ADD (moderate to severe) and a 2-year motor delay. They were most kind, but not hopeful that Brian would be easily able to overcome these problems. They told me to spend the next year (until he was almost 8 years old) trying very hard to teach Brian his alphabet. When he was 8, if he had learned his alphabet, and if he had increased his attention span, then they would put him in their Dyslexia Laboratory Class. They felt that within 2 1/2 years, by the time he was 10, they could probably teach him to read. I told them about NACD, which they had never heard of. The doctor told me that they found in their studies that 95% of all learning disabled children were mixed dominant, but in their opinion, it didn’t mean anything. I asked if anything we were doing on the NACD program would hurt Brian. They answered that it would not hurt him, but it would not help him. Little did they know what was going on inside Brian’s brain!

In October 1991, shortly after Brian’s 7th birthday, and after we had been on the program 6 months, we had a major breakthrough. Within two weeks time Brian went from struggling to remember his alphabet to reading! The phonics curriculum we were using had small, simple readers. It would take us sometimes two or three weeks to get through one reader because we had to take it one letter at a time. One day in October, Brian picked up a new reader and read the whole thing in one sitting! I couldn’t believe it! He soon was devouring books. His attention span also improved. This was especially evident to his grandparents in Atlanta. We had visited them the previous summer, and Brian was a whirlwind of activity. We were in Atlanta again at Christmas time of that year, and within hours everyone was commenting about Brian and how calm he was. What a change they saw in him! He was acting like a normally active boy instead of a hyperactive boy. We were so excited!

Another dramatic shift we observed was in the area of working jigsaw puzzles. The summer that he was almost 7, Brian could not even work a 12-piece puzzle. He could not visually process enough to tell the difference between an edge piece and a centerpiece. He also did not have the attention span to work on it for very long. When he was 7 1/2, I will always remember the day he chose to get a 100-piece puzzle out of the cabinet and work it by himself! He not only could visually process well enough to put the pieces together, but he also had the attention span to stick with it until it was done. We were thrilled!

In January 1992, we saw Bob again. This time, Brian’s digit spans were 7 and 7, and his dominance was 90% on the right. He was reading on a 4th grade level! Remember that only 5 months previously, he had not been able to read at all! His balance had improved tremendously, and his eye convergence was complete. What progress he had made!

We continued on program, but due to many unusual circumstances, we were not able to see Bob again until October. By then, Brian was doing marvelously well. He was reading on a 6th grade level (at the beginning of 2nd grade). Brian had graduated from NACD as a normal child; no, he was well above normal!

Since then, Brian has used the same advanced curriculum in home school as his older brothers. He continues to test 2 to 5 grade levels ahead on every area of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. When asked what his favorite subject is, he always answers “Reading!” without hesitation.

Now in 4th grade, we call Brian “Mr. Observant” because he never misses a thing. He plays on football and basketball teams, loves to ride bikes, rollerblade, and everything else a 10-year old boy ought to do. He is a natural leader, extremely reliable, very focused, and will be a huge asset to this world. It is hard to believe that at 10 1/2, he is such a different person than we were led to believe he would be. Gone is the dyslexia, gone is the ADD, gone is the motor delay. Here to stay is a high achieving, focused sports fanatic. We are so thrilled to have found NACD and experience the joy of normalcy! Thank you Lord, and thank you Bob Doman!

UPDATE, April, 2003

Brian is now 18 and graduating from high school next month. He has continued to excel in all areas and has never again shown any signs of dyslexia or ADD since he was “cured” by his NACD program. He is salutatorian of his high school and has been accepted into the highly competitive Business Honors program at Texas A&M University for next year. He scored 1280 on his SAT’s, and other testing has shown a dramatic increase in his I.Q. Without specifically working on it, his visual digit span has risen to 12, and his auditory digit span is at 8. We just tested him for fun last week and discovered this. We agreed he should work on his auditory digit span to get it to that superior level of 12! He is an Eagle Scout, works part-time, played football at his school, has earned the school’s highest award for character three years in a row, and is one of the finest young men you will ever meet. We are very proud of him and thankful to NACD for removing the stumbling blocks that would have kept him from becoming the man he is today.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 10 No. 8, 1996 ©NACD

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My daughter Mary Beth had been diagnosed by the first grade with several labels – ADHD, dysgraphia, dyslexia, and auditory processing. Our small private school had a program called Discovery Lab where children with learning disabilities were helped on a one-on-one basis. They used a multi-sensory approach to teach our kids. Knowing no other alternative, we enrolled Mary Beth in this program.

Homework was still a struggle every night. What would take any other child about 15 minutes, would often last 2 hours. Studying for tests took at least a week of looking over the material every night. Mary Beth attended Discovery Lab during school hours, often missing some class time instruction for 3 years. At the end of 3rd grade a friend told me about NACD. I was very excited about what it could do for Mary Beth but still dragged my heels on getting her evaluated. In August of 2006, we went to Dallas to be evaluated by NACD. I’ll never forget the first thing her evaluator Lyn Waldeck said to me. She said, “It seems to me that Mary Beth is a big mystery to everyone. She’s not a mystery to me and we can fix her.“

I wanted to cry. Someone finally understood my child and was willing to help me. I wanted to fix the problem — not put big band aids on it. I love the way NACD looks at the entire child. They helped me overcome Mary Beth’s tactility issues as well as behavioral issues. At her first evaluation at the age of 9 1/2, her digit span was a 4. Within 6 – 8 months her digit span increased to 6 and now we are at a 7.

At the end of her 4th grade year her Discovery Lab teacher told me she could not think of anything else she could do that would help Mary Beth learn better. How disheartening after spending 4 years in this program! Thank God we had been doing NACD during that year and knew what would help Mary Beth improve.

She did not do Discovery Lab this past year. She has made the A/B honor roll twice this year. She studies and does her homework independently. Doing program is easy and not time consuming. Mary Beth is motivated to do her program because she gets paid for her efforts.

I realize now that my child’s success depends on my implementation of the program. To increase processing we have to do a little bit every day. What a difference a year can make. Thank you NACD for helping me to see the great potential my daughter has and not focusing on what she doesn’t have.

I shudder to think where we would be without NACD. Everyone should do this!

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 21 No. 8, 2008 ©NACD

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Everyone who has who knows someone who has a child with a learning or attention problem needs to see this DVD. The DVD explains the pieces of the puzzle and how to address the issues relative to those with Learning and Attention issues – Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, ADD & ADHD. It contains a two-hour DVD seminar presented by Robert J Doman, Jr. NACD Newsletter, Volume 1 Issue 2, 2008 ©NACD To read more or to order, click here..

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Our story, which by no means is at its end, began in the mountains. To be specific the Transylvanian Mountains. During Christmas of 1990, a specific child was brought to our attention that was in desperate need of a family. Florin Valc, who later became our son Evan Waldeck, had spent the first two years of his life in a Romanian Orphanage, abandoned at birth. For those of you who are not familiar with the news coverage of the Romanian Orphans, severe and cruel depravation is an understatement. These children were left without attention in their beds all day, some of them tied to the slats to keep them still. They were malnourished, unclothed and never touched, held or loved. The bitter winters of Romania were often spent in nothing more than underpants in a non-heated room.

When we first heard of this, the overwhelming desire to offer more to a child set our journey in motion. A missionary friend of ours put us in contact with a Romanian pastor who lived in Dallas. Marin Tomulet, the pastor, had helped other families adopt children out of his homeland. He had relatives that still lived there who had assisted with several adoptions.

From the very first phone call we had with Marin, he told us of a specific child who was in a very dangerous situation. Florin had spent 2 years in the orphanage only to be taken out by his biological mother for reasons that we were certain pertained to child support or government assistance. Once she was turned down, she did not want the child and planned to return him or to adopt him out. We were told that the mother was harsh with the child but could not begin to imagine the fate that was in store for the precious child that we saw a picture of.

During the winter of 1991, times were very confusing. The Gulf War was in progress, so overseas phone lines were hard to come by. The Romanian government did not help either. Due to the negative press reports they were slowing down and stopping all adoptions. They began with orphanage adoptions and then voted on a law to stop private adoptions as well. For six months we tried desperately to accomplish an adoption by proxy to no avail. As we followed the news and fought time, we finally heard in June of 91 that private adoptions had stopped as well. Only by the grace of God did we find one person who offered hope. A Montana attorney that our social worker knew explained that a rumor he heard stated that “yes the law was passed, but the President of Romania had not signed it yet, although he planned to”. Only on an outside chance of the rumor being correct could we give it one last try.

Adoptions were to have stopped on June 1st, and on June 7th I boarded a plane for a far away country, all alone with no idea how I was going to accomplish this goal. We just knew that we had to give it our best shot. After arriving in Bucharest, the hard part started. All I needed to do was make it 7 hours into the interior of the country to a village called Tiush. Here I was to find Marin’s brother Daniel. I knew that Daniel lived near a bridge, drove a white van and could take me to the next village where Marin’s mother in law knew where to find the child.

If this sounded difficult to do, it was by no means the hard part of the trip. When arriving in Tiush, Daniel explained that the last time he had checked, the child had been taken to the hospital with pneumonia. If this had only been true, it would have been the good news. In reality the mother had made up this story to stop people from checking on the child.

Our next step was to go to Auid. There Daniel and I located Domnica, Marin’s mother-in-law, at church on Sunday night and she escorted us to the child’s home to inquire which hospital he was in. Nothing could have ever prepared me for what I was to experience. A young girl, about 7 years old, answered the door at the home. After a moment of inquiry she replied in Romanian and pointed to the next room. Daniel turned to me with a drained face and uttered “the child is dead”.

Quietly, in what seemed to be slow motion, we entered a small concrete two-room apartment. There the child had been set aside to be buried the next morning. I was still hoping for the best, praying they were wrong. As I picked up the broken little body, I realized there was a very shallow breathing pattern. My son, Evan, was unconscious, wrapped in layers of clothing and plastic. He had a wool cap on his head to hide the swelling. All of this clothing, in the middle of June only to hide the frail and broken body from others who might see him. As I took off the cap, what I found was a very enlarged head. All of his hair had fallen out due to mal-nutrition. He was covered in his own waste and had obviously been beaten and starved for weeks. He had cigarette burns all over his body and a hand imprint around his throat. Later CT scans and x-rays confirmed fourteen broken bones, two skull fractures and massive brain damage. Here in the region of Translyvania, we faced our first mountain.

Many different ups and downs occurred during the next 5 weeks that it took for me to get Evan home. The first of which was a trip to a physician, who through my interpreter explained “The child has a disease that is making his head explode. We must put nails in the head.” Looking back I am sure there must have been something lost in the translation, but my confidence that they could help him at that moment diminished. I would just have to wait until I got back to the medical technology of the USA.

To be very honest, this same feeling of hopelessness was only repeated later when very qualified physicians here in America saw Evan. Of course, the diagnosis was different. Basically, Evan’s damage was massive posttraumatic brain injury. There was really nothing that could be done for him medically. The first physician to give me the CT results said “What had been done to this child is appalling (as if I didn’t know). He will probably never walk, talk or see.”

Our family physician was a friend of ours and encouraged my husband and I to dismiss what we had been told. While he explained that the reading of the reports was correct, he couldn’t imagine that all this child had been through was for naught. He also cautioned me against a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If you expect nothing, that may be exactly what you get. The more you work with him the better” were wiser words. Work with him. Work with him? Okay, but exactly how do you do that?

Evan physically bounced back remarkably fast. In fact, we even had him standing and kind of walking in a short period of time. We sought out early intervention and were directed to the Commission for the Blind and a very impressive school in Dallas for visually impaired children.

This is where we were to receive services for the two school years. Three days a week, I would load up Evan and his two brothers Philip and Kenny and make the one-hour drive to Dallas. At the time Evan was about 3, Philip was 3 and a half and Kenny was 2. Here I would either sit working on a family quilt I was making or observe through a window as they worked with him, or take a drive to a local shopping center until his class was over. Evan also had home visits once a week. At the school he saw a Physical Therapist, an Occupational Therapist, an Orientation and Mobility Therapist, a Speech and Language Pathologist and a Special Education Teacher. His class consisted of 6 children and 6-7 adult therapist and aides. What more could we ask for in services? In services there was no stone uncovered. I wish I could say that Evan’s progress was proportionate to the services we received.

At the end of this time Evan’s mobility was awkward at best, he had virtually no language that was not parroted and he was functionally blind. I had really thought that Evan was much smarter than given credit. I had also seen so many articles about brain plasticity and how sometimes damaged areas could be bypassed. I kept asking if this would happen with Evan. I would usually get a very sweet smile and silence.

The people working with Evan were lovely. They truly loved the children in their care. I do not believe that they ever had anything but the very best of intentions. I just felt in my gut that there had to be more for this child. One wonderful thing about the Center we were attending was that it was free of charge. Due to grants and funding, families were spared the expense. Now I really wished this had not been the case. If we had been paying for the services that were provided it is possible that we would have explored other options sooner.

I had been planning on home schooling my other sons but the idea never occurred to me with Evan. Of course it would seem that he needed much more qualified professionals than myself. After all, my background was in Real Estate Land Development and Mortgage Finance. But, then I attended a home school book fair that just happened to have a workshop for special needs home schoolers.

I had been approaching a time of transition for Evan, another mountain to cross. His age was approaching too old for the school he was attending and the public school system was the next step.

Several issues brought me great concern. While I do not ever want to over protect or shelter, I do remember being a child. I also remember the cruelty directed towards children like Evan by other children. The thought of what it would be like was heartbreaking. Even adults had said awful things in his presence thinking, “He doesn’t know what I am saying, so rudeness is okay”.

At this home school workshop I heard other mothers speak of the problems they had seen in school. Not only did I not want this for my son, these mothers said that their children had actually done much better by bringing them home. The mothers who spoke had been to NACD, the National Academy for Child Development, and had special programs designed for their children that they could implement at home. I remember asking if they believed that a cortically blind child could be taught to see. One of the mothers smiled and said that the founder’s own son, diagnosed CVI, had learned to see. Well, this was good enough for me, as it probably would be for any mother.

You can imagine what happened when I went home to tell my husband. All we had to do was come up with the money for an evaluation. Mother’s of hurt children are very easy marks. Anything that could possibly help is considered a rainbow to be chased. But, fortunately NACD has a seminar on tape that explains in detail the premise behind the programs designed for the children. After listening intently to the tapes, my husband’s response was “This is the first thing we have heard that makes sense. This is what we need to do with Evan”.

Shortly after listening to the tapes, we were put on a waiting list for our appointment. I will never forget when the call came in. We were able to get the last slot available for several months.

At our appointment many things were brought together for us about Evan. So many of his sensory channels were operating incorrectly. He had no awareness of where he was in space, which effected his gross and fine motor development. He was easily distracted by noises due to the fact that he had auditory tonal processing problems. He had sequential processing problems that kept him from being able to put pieces together mentally. This issue held him back from being able to progress with receptive and expressive language. He had organic problems that kept the hemispheres of the brain from communicating and therefore stunting his development. As Evan was described to us, it was never in the manner of “too bad these things are broke” but rather “these things really need to be worked on and possibly fixed”. Of the greatest concern was the fact that at age 5 Evan’s auditory sequential processing was where it should be at about age 1.

Then the issue of vision came up. At the time my words were “To be honest, having a blind child is not that bad. Having a child who can not think is devastating.” It was silent for a moment and then Bob Doman, NACD’s founder, took a deep breath and said, Do not give up on vision yet. Unfortunately, 2 years have passed and during this time he has been taught to be blind, and additional atrophy of the brain is our worst enemy. I don’t know what we can get back but we have to give it our best shot.” My heart almost stopped. First at the hope of gaining any vision. Second at the thought that we had done the wrong thing for the last two years and had possibly caused him additional harm.

This is the beginning of our next mountain to climb. Needless to say, I have not touched a quilting needle since and many different interests have gone by the wayside. Amazing how some of the things I spent time on before can seem so shallow now. My life now is full to the brim with children. First and foremost are my 5 sons (we have had 2 sweet surprises since our story began), in addition to that, I am blessed to be involved in the lives of many families with hurt children.

We began Evan’s program in November of 93. It consisted of about 4 hours of numerous different exercises that lasted for only a few minutes at a time. The preface behind each and every exercise is that by giving VERY specific information to the brain in the exact right way and in the exact right time frame, new neuro-pathways are developed to create higher functioning. This sounds easy, but it has not been. But the hard days were in the beginning. Just like any life change, the adjustment period is the hardest. My obsessive nature did not help in this manner. I started with great determination and did 100% of our program 7 days a week. After about 2 months I decided to only do 50% on Sundays. I had a very nice call from the home office asking me what in the world I was doing. At first I misunderstood and began to justify, only to be cut off. The exact words were “You were never expected to do this much and especially not 7 days a week. At this pace you will never last.” I did some sole searching. I had already began to see great progress with Evan and he had improved in his auditory processing by over a year in only 2 months. So much time had been wasted before. But this is when I realized that the race I had to run was a marathon and not a sprint. If I ran too hard at the beginning I would never be able to finish.

At this time we also realized that many of the symptoms that our son Philip experienced that were classic ADHD/dyslexia could be helped as well through NACD. We did not have the money to afford a second child on the program so I began to volunteer for two reasons. One reason was that they offered volunteers credit towards the fees, and the other reason was to “cheat” and figure out what to do for Philip. Volunteering actually showed me how complex and individualized the programs were. Many kids with the same diagnosis and symptoms were given different programs since different underlying roots caused the symptoms. I realized very quickly that an evaluation was the best route for Philip. It actually took about a year and a half to help Philip eliminate his symptoms and actually become an accelerated student. Today, I have 5 sons program. Each is doing exceptionally well and loves having program as part of their lives.

Now back to Evan. During the first few months, his development exploded. He began to develop language skills, his gross and fine motor began to emerge and best of all there were glimmers of site beginning to ignite. I look back at the rate of improvement during this time and it is phenomenal. Everyone around us noticed the big differences and I was convinced that at this rate, he would be entering college at age 12. This also began the ups and downs of the mountains we climbed. Several times we seemed to stall out or reach a plateau. I could have stopped at any of these points had I not been actively involved with NACD first as a volunteer and now as a staff member. There was something about seeing other kids progress during the times that Evan slowed down that kept me realizing it was just a matter of building more connections between brain cells and stronger neuro-pathways.

I have watched clients and very dear friends get to a point after a few months or years on the program where they stop because they believe they have gotten all they will get or because they want to go on the next popular therapy. Unfortunately this is typically where the development stops. This does not diminish the preciousness of the individual child, but it is sad to wonder “what if?”

You may wonder where Evan is today. Is he still brain-injured? Yes, he is, but the wonderful thing is that most of the time people don’t realize it until they spend a good amount of time with him. He really struggles with academics and we are always having to come up with the missing pieces to gain more development. A few times we have gained an edge with outside sources such as some very good supplements but for the most part, only an edge. The development continues to come out of hard work. His brothers and I split up the work and make it fun. We figure that lemon aide is more fun than lemons. Often people ask, “will you always HAVE to do this?” With the changes it has brought in his life my response is “just try and stop me”. We also get asked, “where is he exactly”? Our response is always the same “going forward”. Some people push and ask “but what will he be able to do?“ We just smile and say “continue to go forward”. A few really stubborn, or dense, people will ask “but what are his limitations?” To this the answer is “he passed them years ago”.

Today, Evan’s mobility and structure are beautiful to watch. Conversationally, he will talk your ear off. He has a witty sense of humor and loves to tease. He can also follow conversations that are not memorized. Evan sees well enough to travel without any assistance. He can identify pictures and shoot basketballs like you wouldn’t believe. We just recently took a family vacation to Colorado. We were insane enough to take all of the kids on a breath-taking hike across the Continental Divide. To understand the depth of our insanity, we had Evan (10 and visually impaired), Philip (11), Kenny (9), Jason (4) and the new baby Grant (4 months) in a back pack. The trip was wonderful. Evan was a little slow at first but ended up completely independent and leading me out along the trail. In fact as we got back to the van and we were all exhausted, Evan smiled and exclaimed “Let’s do it again with a timer to see how fast we can make it.” For this the reward was to make a trip to the local souvenir shop to pick out the very best T-shirt for him. Without a doubt we chose a shirt which described his journey perfectly. It boldly said “Fear NO Mountain”.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 14 No. 1, 2001 ©NACD

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