As many of you know, NACD is all about family. We encourage and empower parents to work with their children. We encourage and empower siblings to help siblings. We also encourage families working together to change mindsets about what truly is possible with our children, regardless of labels they may have received. I am so thankful to be able to interact and assist parents that want to help their children be all that they can be. One of the places I travel to is Chicago, and we have some great families there. Over the past year, we have had quite a few families start NACD from Davenport, Iowa. They all attend the same church and know each other well. It was a domino-like effect—one family started with their three children, then over six months we had 3 more families with all their children start on their NACD journey.

While each child has their own individualized program, the parents communicate frequently and exchange ideas on how to create intensity and how to organize their days. Many of them have large families, and they homeschool all their children. As you can imagine, that takes good organizational skills and time management! I am so proud of these parents who in such a short amount of time—some with 4 kids on an NACD homeschool program—have created an NACD atmosphere full of positivity, discipline, frequent bursts of input with high intensity, and developing responsibility in their children. And did I forget to mention that one mom had a baby over the past four months and one is having one in December? Are they teaching all their children all the subjects that would happen each day in the public school setting? No. They are teaching smarter. They are building the neurological foundation. They are accelerating processing. They are building up responsibility so that the children actively assist in keeping up the house (inside and out) and help with the younger children. They are hitting reading and math and are working to incorporate passions and interests that the children love to learn about. There are certain activities they can do as a family, and there are certain activities that have to be done 1:1. Some of these parents are also learning how to parent more effectively, understanding what behaviors are and are not appropriate. As a community they help each other in raising their children. When I met these families during evaluations in October, I saw really happy kids. I saw kids who were more mature, had higher levels in processing, and were going up grade levels in academics. I saw kids who really liked learning and were developing interests in building, cooking, money, and fitness. I saw children who were developing positive self-esteems and confidence. They are truly loved, not just by their parents, but also by their community—not to mention me!

Parents—it truly does take community in helping raise our children and to support us in the implementation of NACD programs. I know many of you reading this don’t feel like you have that sense of community. That is why we have created the NACD forum for all things NACD. The NACD forum is on the portal—the website you visit to upload your videos or to review your child’s program. If you log in, then on the top right is the heading “Forum.” If you click on that and hit “view,” you will see all the different categories. If you click on a heading, such as “Health and Nutrition,” you will see different threads about that topic. Feel free to post questions, comments, and suggestions on that particular thread of interest. This is meant to be a positive place for community! Give ideas on how you build intensity or share fun videos of your child accomplishing something new. Have a good app your child likes? Post it and why! As staff, we will post frequently and provide our feedback.

NACD Families can access the NACD Forum in the top-right corner of your Family Dashboard on the NACD Portal.

Please note:The NACD forum is not a place to market yourself or your business. It is not a place to share different program activities. Remember that each program we design is specific to YOUR child. If something on your child’s program needs an adjustment, please contact your coach. NACD reserves the right to take posts off the forum if they are negative and not relevant to helping build a positive community.

We are excited to have this for you and hope you will enjoy it!

NACD Newsletter, November 2018 ©NACD

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In an effort to help our NACD families and others maximize their efforts and make the most out of the time they have to work with their children, it is incredibly important to keep reminding everyone about the significance of intensity.

The foundation of what we do at NACD is designing very targeted individualized programs that are created to help provide the maximum results, relative to the time invested. The significance of being targeted is that we stimulate and change the brain when we apply specific, organized, targeted input with the necessary frequency, intensity, and duration. Random input is just noise to the brain; disorganized input is irrelevant to the brain; and any input that is not received by the brain with intensity never happened.

We understand that intensity, the most important of the Super 3 (frequency, intensity, and duration), is not entirely a reflection of how loud or strong or exciting we are when working with our kids. The big factor is what the intensity is with which they are processing the input. Have you ever seen someone fall asleep at a party or in a movie theater or sporting event? These are all intense environments; but if that person is asleep, it has zero intensity for their brains—it didn’t happen. I recall the question I heard way back when in school—“if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, did it make a sound?” It’s not about you, it’s about them. Back to the folks at the party-how about if they are not asleep, but just dozing? Or, they just had a fight with their significant other and are running through the last argument in their mind one more time, or have a song stuck in their head that keeps going around and around. How much did all that “intensity” that is going on impact them? Probably not much. Ultimately intensity is based on how the individual is receiving/processing the input.

I have always related intensity and impact on a scale of 1-10. If something goes into a brain with the intensity of 9 or 10, learning is virtually instantaneous. Drop it down to 7-8 and we need a fair amount of frequency and duration to change the brain. If the intensity is only a 6, we need a lot of frequency and duration—many times per day and lots of days, weeks, or months. At a 5 we are in for a very long haul. And below a 5, we are better off taking a nap.

Let’s look at some of the things that affect intensity, starting with physiological issues. Diet is one of the things we talk about with all parents. I won’t get into the specifics of diet in this article but suffice it to say that if you feed your kids pancakes with syrup for breakfast, just send them back to bed and forget about school. Sleep is another foundational issue, and doing what is needed for both you and your child to get enough sleep is very important. So before we go any further, let’s see where we are. If what you are trying to put into your child’s brain is super exciting to them and they love it, they ate some good protein, had a great night’s sleep, and feel wonderful, you might get them to an 8. Trying to input something they might like but don’t love, drop to a 7; not a wonderful breakfast, drop to a 6; and then you were up with them for half of the night, we just dropped to a 5, and perhaps you are both getting ready for a nap.

Just yesterday I had a talk with a very nice family, great, concerned parents who have a teenage son on the autism spectrum. He has had a few small seizures that did not appear to have any residual effect and is on two different anti-convulsive medications. His doctors have also put him on two additional drugs that are used for schizophrenia and irritability. When I look at this boy, he looks like he is about to fall over with his eyes open. He’s at a 2-3 for intensity, and if you work hard, you can push him briefly to a 4, and on rare occasion to a 5. Under the circumstances we hope to maintain what function he has until these medications that all slow his brain down can be altered or eliminated.

Drugs that are used for seizure control and behavior and attention control are slowing down the brain. As a side note, the neurologists and neurosurgeons that I worked with almost 50 years ago were aware that the vast majority of seizures actually caused no harm, and my clinical observations over all of these years verify it; but we still have neurologists who see their mission as stopping all seizures, regardless of the fact that they are medicating the child to the point where there can be virtually no development. I’ve been happy to hear that after 50 years, there are a few neurologists acknowledging that not all seizures spell the end of the world and are being much more conservative with the medications. And fortunately there are new very promising alternatives to the drugs.

Diet, sleep, health, exercise, or the lack of, and medications all have an effect on the brain, your child’s ability to process information, and thus to be stimulated and develop.

I have a confession to make. I do not get regular organized exercise. I played sports, and I played them hard. I have almost always lived where I had a good size piece of land and always loved working outside and work hard. I enjoy walks and hikes, but a daily exercise routine—never. It’s a good thing your child has parents and helpers to help structure their days, establish priorities for them, and to motivate them and make things fun. Perhaps if I had some great fun personal trainer who came and got me at a specific time each day and praised my success, I might exercise. I probably would also need to add a 25^th hour to every day. As adults we are responsible for ourselves. We can choose to eat well, exercise, whatever; however we are also responsible for our children, and it is our responsibility to see that our children eat well, get their sleep, and do all the other things needed to help them develop well. Even the smartest child isn’t wise. We need to make the choices for them and keep them heading in the right direction. Side note: How many of you give your pets more nutritious diets than your kids?

The younger the children, the easier it is to make things fun and increase the intensity. I constantly hear that little Johnny is bored with this or that or he doesn’t like it. The reality is that it’s not about the activity, it’s about the environment of the activity and how it is presented. Remember Tom Sawyer and how he got the kids to paint the fence for him? Create the right atmosphere, and you can get your kids to have a ball cleaning toilets. If something doesn’t hurt, you can create an atmosphere that makes whatever you are doing fun, and if something hurts, stop doing it because something is wrong. If you can’t get your intensity or their intensity above a 5, what should you do? You should go take a nap and come back to it later with good intensity.

One of the most common issues I see when watching program implementation is a lack of intensity when a child gets something right or does something well. I can observe someone working on processing, and the difference in the response when the child gets something right or wrong is almost indistinguishable. Often when reviewing program implementation videos, we have to pay close attention to see if a child got something correct or not because we can’t tell the difference from watching the reaction of the parent or caregiver.

Children of most any age will respond to your positive attitude and words of praise. If older children need something more to get their intensity up to adequate numbers, then explore some form of a positive token economy, where achievement as a reflection of their trying and doing something with sufficient intensity to impact their brains can purchase special privileges and such. But always let your child know that you are proud of them for their efforts and achievements. Don’t reward compliance that does not equate with intensity. Reward achievement even if you have to initially make it a bit easier for them so that they can experience success.

One of the most common killers of intensity is duration. Many of the activities we give children have a duration of only a minute or two, and the duration we give is a maximum. Maximum, not minimum. More often than not, more turns a positive into a negative. We encourage parents to, if at all possible, end an activity on a high note. Parents tend to continue an activity until the child has had it, and it turns negative. The result of that is the next time you go to do that activity the child recalls it as a negative, not a positive. Imagine giving your child the forbidden fruit—ice cream. You give them just a spoon or two and they love it and you stop. They want more. Now imagine that you gave your child a couple more of spoons of ice cream—still loving it—and then you gave them a small bowl. They’re still loving it, but not quite so much. Then make them eat a large bowl, having to force them to eat it over the course of an hour; and to really make it fun, make them eat more and more until they throw up. That would sure teach them to love ice cream. When should you have stopped? We have the ability to turn most anything that can be positive and fun into a negative. Remember: it’s all about intensity.

The big secret to success is intensity—the intensity with which your child takes in the input you are providing.

Intensity is not only foundational, it is mandatory: Get it?

 

Anything that adversely affects your child physiologically has a negative impact on intensity: Get it?

 

Any mediation that affects your child’s brain is likely to have a negative impact on their intensity: Get it?

 

What you do can affect your child’s intensity, but ultimately, it’s a matter of doing what works to create intensity in them: Get it?

 

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing; stop while you are ahead: Get it?

 

If your intensity or your child’s falls below a 5 and you can’t raise it, take a nap: Get it?

 

To be successful we need to provide your child with specific targeted input with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration: Got it?

 

Good!

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 8, 2018 ©NACD

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The term “neurological organization” means that the brain can take in and store information in an orderly and “organized” fashion. A child lacking in complete neurological organization is to some degree neurologically dysorganized. To a large extent, this is an environmental or inherited problem as opposed to the organic dysorganization found in a child suffering from a brain injury.

The first step in detecting neurological dysorganization is to evaluate the child against the developmental profile and to have him tested to rule out the possibility of an organic problem.

NACD’s evaluation of these children begins by determining the organization at the brain level of the pons. This is ascertained while viewing the child’s ability to crawl on his stomach. The child should be able to crawl on his stomach in what is termed a “cross pattern” without receiving specific instruction. Cross-pattern crawling is forward movement where the child extends his right arm and pulls up his left leg, pushing and pulling with the right arm and left leg. He then alternates his movement so that he is pushing and pulling with the left arm and right leg. If the child crawls in what is called a homolateral pattern (which is pushing and pulling with the right arm and right leg, and then the left arm and left leg) he is exhibiting a degree of dysorganization at that level. If the child crawls without a pattern or in a manner where he is extending both arms forward and pulling both legs up, he is also reflecting dysorganization in the pons area of the brain.

Advancing to the mid-brain, organization or dysorganization can be assessed by examining the child’s ability to creep on his hands and knees. Remember, you crawl before you creep. Crawling is on the stomach, and creeping is on the hands and knees. The child should also creep in a cross pattern. Properly, the child’s hands should be extended flat on the floor with fingers pointing forward. Ideally, the child should be looking forward at the extended hand. Again, if the child creeps in a homologous (bunny hop) or a homolateral pattern (right arm and right leg) he is exhibiting a degree of dysorganization. In assessing your child’s ability to creep, it is necessary that you have him creep at various speeds, with varied amounts of starting and stopping. A child properly organized at this level should never go into the homolateral pattern or homologous pattern.

Progressing up into the lower cortex area of the brain, you may evaluate organization by viewing the child’s ability to walk. Instruct the child to walk across the room while he points at his feet, and assess whether he is walking in a homolateral pattern or a cross pattern. You may wish to demonstrate to the child what you intend him to do, then have him mimic your actions. Have the child follow your instructions while starting and stopping his movement several times. Any hesitation he displays about which hand to point is an indication of dysorganization. He should be pointing opposite hand to opposite foot, and should not walk in a homolateral pattern. There are many children who lack this cross-pattern function, and they reflect coordination problems to a certain extent. Coordinated gross motor action culminates in a cross pattern whether it’s bowling, doing a basketball lay-up, or throwing a baseball pitch. A child who lacks complete organization will display a loss of coordination to some degree. Interestingly, there is the rare child who is neurologically dysorganized but has good coordination. Such children generally have other inefficiencies, particularly mixed dominance.

Neurological organization culminates at the top cortical level of the brain. This organization is the establishment of cortical-hemispheric dominance. This is the establishment of a dominant hemisphere, or side. A completely organized child should be right-handed, right-footed, right-eared, and right-eyed, or left-handed, left-footed, and so on.

To assess your child’s dominance, begin by evaluating the function of his hands. You can find out if he has a dominant hand, as this will be the hand he writes with, throws a ball with, etc. These functions should all be done with the same hand. If a child writes with one hand and throws a ball with the opposite hand, he obviously is displaying mixed dominance. Assessment of foot dominance is essentially done by using the same method, observing which foot the child kicks with, hops with, etc.

To assess auditory dominance, have the child put his ear next to the door and attempt to listen to conversation that is emanating from the other side. Speak very softly so that the child leans toward you. The child will turn his head to either the right or left so that the dominant ear is closest to the source of the sound.

Assessment of visual dominance is accomplished at what is called near point and far point, using vision as close as three feet and at a further distance. To assess the child at a distance, have him point his finger toward your finger while you extend your arm and point your finger toward the child. If you sight along your finger to his finger, you can find out which eye he is using. You may wish to have him alternate his extended arm from right to left to double check your findings. Also have the child look into a telescope or kaleidoscope, as he will invariably use the dominant eye.

At near point place a one-eighth inch dot on a piece of paper and put another paper with a one-eighth inch hole in the center on top. Line up the hole with the dot so that the child can see the dot by looking through the hole on the top piece of paper. Have the child grasp the paper with the hole in both hands and slowly move the paper up to his eye, watching the dot the entire time. Again, watch which eye the child brings the paper to, as it will invariably be the dominant eye.

A completely organized child will have a dominant hand, foot, ear, and eye, which will be all on the same side. If the child lacks complete dominance in any area or does not exhibit dominance on the same side, it’s a reflection of a degree of neurological dysorganization.

If the child lacks a controlling hemisphere of the brain organization is lacking because the influx of information to the brain is not occurring correctly. For instance, a child may take visual information through his right eye and store it in his left hemisphere. When a child neglects to take in information from one side and place it in one hemisphere he is not establishing firm pathways into the brain. The child cannot efficiently process that information. You might view the dysorganization as a room filled with filing cabinets. If he is properly organized all of the files are in alphabetical order and he can place a piece of information in and extract it efficiently. A dysorganized child’s files are not alphabetized, and he may absorb the information but when he attempts to retrieve it he may be unable to do so. These children are classically the ones who study for a test one night, only to fail when they go in to take it. They took in the information but lost it when they attempted to retrieve it. When you place these children under any type of stress, the system immediately begins falling apart, and their function diminishes. Often these children neglect to remember a homework assignment from the previous night, yet they can remember what color dress mother wore on Christmas two years previously. These individuals are not lacking innate intelligence. They just cannot properly take in information, assimilate it, process it, and bring it back out again.

The NACD Foundation offers a six-hour parent training seminar on cassette that explains in detail how children develop neurological organization and how they learn. The Foundation also provides neurological evaluations for children and programs to improve their neurological organization. For more information on the tapes and the evaluations, parents may call.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 8 No. 1, 1987 ©NACD

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