by Bob Doman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Significance for Those with Developmental Issues

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

ADHD

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

Autism Spectrum Disorders

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

Down Syndrome

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

Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, and Other Learning Disabilities and Issues

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

Behavior Problems and Disorders

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

Average/Typical Joe

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

IP+E=F

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

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

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

Related Posts

Processing Power: What Every Parent Needs to Know

Parenting 101: Processing, Behavior, and Maturity

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

Time to Upgrade Your Processor: Building Better Brains

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

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

The post NPD: Neurodevelopmental Processing Deficits appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That which develops changes, what changes can be developed.

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

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

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

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

** See video above

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

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

The post Time to Upgrade Your Processor: Building Better Brains appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

The Simply Smarter® program is built upon the foundation of neuroplasticity, utilizing the science of targeted input, frequency, intensity, and duration.

Targeted

The program constantly modifies itself to keep you right at the sweet spot, the spot that is targeted for you to achieve maximum benefit.

Frequency

To take advantage of neuroplasticity, we need to keep triggering the firing of neurons and reinforcing neural networks. Everyone is encouraged to use the program once or twice a day and preferably four or more days a week.

Intensity

This is an incredibly important piece. The importance of intensity cannot be overstated. How you or your child approach every session is going to determine how much the program impacts, changes, and develops the brain. Just doing it isn’t enough; you must do it with real intensity and with intention. Every activity is very short. It was designed that way so that you could create and maintain maximum attention and intensity for the seconds needed to complete each piece that you are asked to process, to watch, or listen to. Approach every sequence of every activity with the intention of remembering it, of nailing it!

If your children are using the program, sit with them, if you can, and cheer them on. The program has built-in rewards and acknowledgement, but a parent’s power is much greater, and we encourage you to provide very meaningful, big rewards for new high scores or higher digit spans. These changes can be life changing, treat them as such.

We realize that it’s not reasonable for many parents to sit in while their child does Simply Smarter®, so we have built in the means to send email and text alerts so that Mom, Dad, grandparents, coaches, whoever will know when the child did well; and each can provide their own congratulations, making every step forward all that more meaningful. Dad coming home from work and immediately acknowledging Johnny’s new high score or a call from Grandma can be very powerful.

For adults be honest with yourselves. Sitting down with good energy, intensity, and with the intention of knocking it out of the park each time is difficult. You are not only allowed but encouraged to set up your own rewards program—rewards for all new high scores. Set digit span and processing power goals, and when you hit it, reward it. It’s only your life and future that you are changing!

Duration

To change the brain, we need to keep causing those networks of brain cells to keep firing together. The longer we do it, the greater the change. Keep in mind that generally without specific intervention the development of processing, short-term memory and working memory, slows virtually to a halt at about seven years of age, creeps a tiny bit forward from then until we are in our twenties, and then usually begins a slow decline that continues throughout our life unless we target it, address it, and build it!

Simply Smarter® is an invaluable tool that has the potential to change the lives of your children, your parents, and yourselves.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 7, 2020 ©NACD

[btn text=”Learn More About Simply Smarter” link=”http://www.mysimplysmarter.com” tcolor=”#ffffff” bcolor=”#dd9933″ bordercolor=”#e58c19″ thovercolor=”#dd9933″ bhovercolor=”#ffffff” borderhovercolor=”#e58c19″ border=”2px” size=”large” icon=”kt-icon-grid3″ target=”true”]

The post Simply Smarter: Intensity – How to Achieve the Best Results appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

These COVID-19 Coronavirus times have certainly turned many of our worlds upside down. We now virtually have a world full of homeschoolers; more parents are at home with their children than at any time in the history of the world. Exceptional times and exceptional circumstances can also result in exceptional opportunities. Many of us are rediscovering and redefining basic things like family, work, school, and our relationship to institutions and society. I would like to talk with you about redefining potential and intellect and how while you are all at home, you have the potential to change the lives of every member of the family.

I would like to share a personal story. I grew up in a family of pioneers in human development. My father, a physician, and my uncle, a physical therapist in the ‘50s, worked with brain injured children and discovered that with the proper stimulation, healthy parts of the brain could learn to carry out the functions of damaged areas of the brain. This was ground breaking work that was originally seen as heretical, but is now after decades universally accepted. Changing perceptions is not an easy task, as I can certainly attest to after fifty years of trying to do it.

When I started studying psychology in the sixties, I had a tremendous advantage over others studying and working in the field. I came to understand that all development was possible through this amazing mechanism called neuroplasticity. If you understood neuroplasticity, development was no longer such a great mystery. The brain changed and developed as a reflection of specific stimulation, not because it just got older. Armed with this understanding, I looked at the brain as dynamic, changing, and most significantly, as changeable.

One area of early interest for me was learning and memory. At that time it was just beginning to be understood that there were various components of memory. Memory was being broken down into short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory. The focus was on testing it and looking for correlations between these pieces and how people learned and functioned. At that time and for decades, the worlds of psychology and education did not have a perception that you could actually help develop or change memory; and even today, they are not really working to do that. My perception, based on an understanding of neuroplasticity, was that these components of memory didn’t just pop up as adult abilities, but they developed; and what developed changed; and what changed was changeable. I set out to understand all of these pieces and to find ways to change, develop, and accelerate that development.

Decades later I am proud to say that we have developed a great understanding of all of these foundational pieces that we now lump together and refer to as “processing.” Armed with this knowledge and the tools we have developed, we have helped change many thousands of lives. Improving these pieces of auditory and visual short-term memory and working memory is quite simply making people smarter. From our first software that ran on a Commodore Pet computer with a cassette drive in the early eighties, to the Brain Builder software in the nineties, to the present online Simply Smarter program and many dozens of one-to-one activities, we are working to change lives. From brain damaged individuals to those on the autism spectrum, to those with learning and attention issues, to typical children and adults, we can build all of these foundational pieces of memory that literally have the potential to make everyone smarter.

At NACD we work with “whole children,” designing home based comprehensive programs that address everything from a child’s sleep and behavior to how they walk and do algebra, including innovative comprehensive homeschool/home-based educational programs. But there is something that in one way or another is on every child’s program, and that is processing activities.

We are fortunate that we can work via Skype with any family in the world who has Internet access and give them the tools designed to develop and improve their brains. Today everyone doesn’t need to come to NACD to work on their processing. You can take advantage of this expertise and go online and in about fifteen minutes a day put together the pieces that can help you and your children work to become smarter. The tool that is available to you is our Simply Smarter program, a tool that your children can use all by themselves!

Let me help you understand what this all really is and what it can mean for you and your family.

What is “smart?” Can you define it? Do you think you would like your kids to be smarter? How about you?

You can define “smart,” possibly, but even more so, you probably know it when you see it. Smart has to do with being present, being aware, being able to take in and process a lot of information, being able to manipulate that information, think with complexity, put ideas together, focus, and communicate.

Smart doesn’t necessarily mean knowing that the capitol Nevada is Carson City, or that Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded, or that the First World War ended on November 11, 1918, or what your bile duct does, or that “or” is a conjunction. But smart does mean that you are more likely to find such things interesting and you can learn them more easily than most. Knowing “stuff” doesn’t make you smart. (You are going to actually forget most “stuff” unless you are smart enough to make associations and connections between “stuff” and use it.) And smarter also means that it’s easier to understand and learn everything.

What is the foundation of “smart?”

The foundation of smart is the ability to process and take in a lot of information that you see and hear and to manipulate that information and think.

The more you can process and take in what there is to be heard, the stronger your auditory short-term memory. Your auditory short-term memory provides the fuel for the development of your auditory working memory, which is how many pieces or words you can hold together and manipulate, which equals your complexity of thought, or “smart.” How many pieces of visual information you process from what you see, whether from observation of your world or from reading, relates to your visual short-term memory; and as with auditory processing, your visual short-term memory provides the pieces you use to create your visual working memory and visual-spatial abilities. These fundamental, foundational pieces ultimately determine how much information you take in and use, which translates to how much knowledge you gain and your complexity of thought. All this equals “smart.”

How does processing “smart” develop?

Processing develops primarily from birth to about seven years. The rate and degree it develops is a reflection of the targeted stimulation and opportunities that you receive. In general the more quality one-to-one interaction between a child and an involved adult, the faster and the further it develops. The more enriching the environment, the faster and the further it develops. With specific targeted input designed to build processing skills, processing not only can be accelerated, it can be developed to superior levels.

When does the development of processing abilities stop?

Without specific intervention, the development of processing abilities almost comes to a halt at about seven years of age. From seven into our twenties, it typically develops perhaps another ten to fifteen percent; and after our twenties, without specific intervention it goes into a slow decline. You can continue to learn more, but your ability to do so declines, as does your ability to manipulate the information. As you continue to learn, you can become wiser, but not necessarily smarter, unless you are stretching your processing through complex cognitive activities or actively working to preserve or develop it.

How can you build processing ability and get smarter?

Everyone, from infant to geriatric, with input that is targeted to them, can incrementally build and improve processing ability and get smarter. We at NACD have been developing methodologies and improving processing abilities for the full spectrum of children and adults for over forty years. NACD designs specific processing programs for families who are members of NACD and who wish to utilize comprehensive developmental and educational programs designed so that they can be implemented in the home by parents and caregivers. But as mentioned earlier, NACD also has developed a very comprehensive targeted program for all children five years old and older and for adults up to and including seniors—Simply Smarter.

What is Simply Smarter?

The Simply Smarter program is a dynamic online system that constantly develops and modifies itself, adapting to the individual user to help produce maximum change. Specific activities work progressively to address focus, attention, intensity, auditory and visual short-term and working memory, visualization, conceptualization, and visual-spatial abilities, all of the pieces that help make everyone learn, think, and function better. The program first assesses your baseline and then builds from there, tracking and graphing progress. It has the capability of adjusting from basic levels of a child to levels of incredible function.

What can you do with children under five?

Children at or functioning under five years of age generally need specific one-on-one activities that are designed as part of NACD’s individualized programs. But in addition children from toddlers to five years old can use NACD’s Cognition Coach apps to build processing skills.

How long does it take to get smarter?

With motivation and consistent use, measurable changes can occur in a couple of weeks; and with continued use of Simply Smarter, virtually unlimited improvements are possible. Over the course of the present lockdown, you have the potential to produce a significant change.

Who has used Simply Smarter and what have the results been?

The range of those who have used NACD’s processing activities and Simply Smarter is as broad as the population. NACD’s Simply Smarter and other processing programs have been used by thousands of typical and gifted children and adults, those with learning and attention issues, as well as those with significant developmental issues such as autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, and brain injuries. Most everyone working on our comprehensive home based programs not only knows about processing, but is actively working on processing every day and understands the correlation between their child’s processing and global function and abilities. We have seen exceptional changes along the path of many thousands of children’s development and are continually heartened as we see their potential being redefined. Processing is a huge key to success and potential.

Please take this opportunity to change your child’s life trajectory. My mission in life has been to help change the perception of potential and to help develop the tools to do it. Today with more parents and children at home than ever before, I see this as a unique chance to change many lives and potentially change the perception of what can be.

To read an incredible testimonial from a couple about Simply Smarter and see what incredible things even a child can do, please read the following article and watch the video.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 4, 2020 ©NACD

The post My Greatest Discovery – How to Make Everyone Smarter appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

I have been an advocate of homeschooling and home-based educational, developmental/therapeutic intervention for close to fifty years. The whole foundation of NACD (The National Association for Child Development) is built on development, health, education, and where needed, therapeutic intervention, all centered and accomplished within the home. Our philosophy is based on children needing very targeted input, provided with an understanding of neuroplasticity, which essentially means that we need to provide very specific, targeted input with the needed frequency, intensity, and duration to produce the desired results. I also learned that the people who know the child best are typically the best people to work with the child. Furthermore, parents tend to work with their child with a different intention than anyone else. A parent works specifically to help their child, their whole child, whom they know and understand. The intentions and the goals are very straightforward: “I am doing this to help my child, to help them be all they can be.” The most dedicated others generally have a different intention and goal. Their intention is generally to apply the methodologies they are given or are using to the best of their ability, and their goal is to do their best job. This is not a bad intention or goal; however, a parent’s intention leads to them changing and modifying what they are doing if their goals are not being met.

Having started my career first teaching, then directing, schools, I learned what could and could not be accomplished in a school-based rather than a home-based program. I understood that the further we got from the input being targeted to the individual, the less effective the intervention. I learned that targeted input requires a very large toolbox and that many, if not most, educators utilize an approach which they are required to use, regardless of outcome.

Home is a child’s base, the place where the experts on the child live, the place where the whole child is understood. It is the place that is most vested in the child and in helping the child grow into a complete adult, the place that nourishes the child physically and spiritually and provides unconditional love.

Having been an advocate of homeschool throughout my career, I have determined that it is now time to eliminate homeschool. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

Home-Based Education (a.k.a Homeschool)

Home-based education, a.k.a. “homeschool,” is where education first began and, in fact, where education still begins for almost all children. However, in their attempt to provide their children with a better educational opportunity than afforded by schools, many parents have recreated in the home many of the same issues that are problematic and associated with school. Perhaps part of the problem lies simply in their attempting to create a “homeschool”, a school within the home rather than develop an individualized, targeted, home-based education. It’s time to stop turning the incredible potential we have with home education into mini institutions following a failed model.

Schools are institutions, places where many individuals are grouped together generally by age, subjected to narrow competition, which tends to undermine confidence, damage emerging self-images and self-esteem, and deprive them of their unique individuality. These institutions utilize a curriculum, created by “experts,” who neither know, nor care to know, your child or your family and your values, visions, and dreams. This curriculum is a very specific list of what is going to be taught to every individual in an inane attempt to “educate” everyone a little, have everyone think alike, if permitted to actually think at all, regardless of their interests, talents, learning abilities, individual knowledge bases, or family values. The issue with curriculum-based education has been exacerbated by the Common Core curriculum guidelines, which appear to be based on an untenable perspective of what and how children should learn.

Schools have the ability and potential to take preschool children who love learning everything and after twelve years destroy their joy of learning, curiosity, creativity, and individuality and teach them to hate learning everything. From a neurodevelopmental perspective and an understanding of the very nature of a child, school does virtually everything wrong. Basing education on a curriculum, rather than the individual, is the underlying evil of mass education; but it is an anathema that not only does not recognize our individuality, but flies in the face of virtually everything we know about learning.

From my neurodevelopmental perspective, children develop at very different rates globally. The key ingredients of this development that are significant for education include the development of short-term memory, working memory, and executive function, as well as the ability to visualize (think in pictures) and conceptualize (think in words) and to develop the vocabulary needed for complex thought and expression, all of which create the foundation that is the individual learner/child. Each individual is unique, with not only unique needs, but also unique skill sets and interests. Our strength as a species lies in our individuality.

Schools almost universally perceive children as they enter school as fait accompli, with unchangeable intelligence and working memory, who just need curriculum poured into them. The expectation is that each individual will absorb some percentage of what is provided. The perception is that there are smart kids, not-so-smart kids, slow kids, and those with a variety of innate essentially unchangeable issues. These children with various potentials will each learn what is “appropriate” based on the equipment they arrived with. Those perceived as having learning issues, attention problems, or developmental issues are labeled and categorized and provide the school with a license to fail. “It’s not the school’s fault Johnny can’t read, he’s dyslexic.” Many terms such as dyslexic or ADD or ADHD are merely symptomatic labels and not a reflection of some incurable, inherent problem.

Education should be based on the individual and, first and foremost, the development of the neurodevelopmental pieces that actually permit us to perceive, process, understand, communicate, develop, learn, and function as human beings. Children neurologically develop; they begin life barely able to perceive or understand the sights, sounds, touches, tastes, and odors that their sensory systems are sending to their brains. The process of learning how to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell develops through stimulation and opportunity. The more stimulation and the greater the opportunities, the faster these abilities develop.

Memory & Its Role in Education

The primary mental functions that determine how well we take in information and think or manipulate input is our auditory and visual short-term and working memory. These foundational pieces develop fastest in our first five years. Then they typically progress slowly until we are about ten, when without targeted intervention they show little to miniscule advancement into our twenties, and then begin a slow decline. The early rapid growth is a reflection of a brain that starts off seeking input and sucking in whatever is available. The recognition of the importance of this was the impetus that triggered the Head Start program in 1965. Head Start was and is helpful for children in deprived homes who lack quality input. However, the institutions have done what they do best—they have institutionalized children’s incredibly important early years. Proactive, involved and responsible parents have been told that they are not qualified to provide for their children and that not sending them to a preschool institution is virtually child deprivation. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a child the best quality input comes from 1:1 interaction with the parents, the people on the planet who know them the best. Every step away from 1:1, the further away we are from targeted, effective input, input that is going to develop the foundational pieces that help us learn and think. To put daycare, nursery, and preschool in perspective, think of this scenario. If a parent needed a baby sitter for an evening and called a friend to see if they could watch their child and were told to bring them over because she was only watching 10-15 other children, they wouldn’t even consider it. Sending your three or four-year old to a class of 10-15 children and realistically thinking that they will not only survive but will learn as much as they could from you if you could be at home with them, is ludicrous.

ADD & ADHD

I see a direct correlation between the increase in children being institutionalized before the age of six and the dramatic increase in ADD and ADHD, which are generally issues related to underdeveloped processing skills—short-term and working memory. Short-term and working memory have historically developed primarily from 1:1 interaction—talking with parents and looking at/reading books with a parent. The institutional “opportunities” are in fact depriving children of the opportunity to develop these foundational skills during these critical years. Those being labeled as ADD or ADHD represent the overall loss of auditory processing, I feel we have experienced with the advent of almost universal early institutionalization of our children.

Building the Foundation

Learning is a process by which we change the brain by offering the child input that is specific to the individual, not to a curriculum. We impact the brain only if that input is targeted and specific to the individual and delivered with the required frequency, intensity, and duration that is necessary to impact and change that child’s brain.

Fortunately, we now have the tools that can provide targeted input to help build these foundational skills throughout childhood and even into and through our adult years. The schools do not work from the perspective of the individual, nor from a perspective that you can foundationally help the child develop. Schools perceive the individual as a member of a group and rarely attempt to provide what is needed to actually target the individual and their needs.

Targeted input is needed to:

• Develop short-term memory, working memory, and higher order executive function, the very foundation of learning, thinking and function; to simply make them smarter and lead them toward developing their real innate potential
• Discover and explore the individual’s interests so as to supply meaningful input that builds brain connections and networks that produce real learning
• Help build each individual’s interests and expand their knowledge
• Offer the opportunity for the child to discover their talents, interests, and passions that hopefully will lead them to productive further education and fulfilling careers.
• Help teach the child their family’s values
• Teach them to love learning and turn them into lifelong learners
• Teach them to love reading and be lifelong functional readers
• Provide the means so that children can read the classics and the great books
• Teach them how to interpret, question, and challenge what is presented to them and to think for themselves

The world is in desperate need of smarter people. Most advancement comes from collective intellects, many people, many brains working together to create the new better technologies. But where are the exceptional brains that can determine what should or shouldn’t be developed or used and how to solve the real problems facing the planet? Watch the news for five minutes and you will realize how much trouble we are in, between the politicians and learning that virtually every day new and easier ways to destroy each other are created, requiring the participation of fewer and fewer people. People around the world are attempting to live and function in spite of their governments and institutions. We need alternatives and options that can create real diversity of thought and not only acknowledge the individual but understand that it is the individual and the diversity of knowledge, experience, and belief that is the human race and that which provides us with a real future.

It is vital that we learn to understand that we all can be much smarter and that we have the tools to make it happen. Defining opportunity for our children needs not only to include, but must be built upon, creating their neurodevelopmental foundation. We can all be smarter. And we all need to be smarter.

One of the great hopes for our future lies with the family, the home, and home-based education. Now is the time to take what has been “homeschool” and rename it and re-envision it. Let’s move away from the replication of the school and curriculum-based education and create unique home-based education, targeted to and for our children.

T.H.E. Way Forward is Targeted Home Education

[space size=”40px”]

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 1, 2019 ©NACD

The post T.H.E. Targeted Home Education appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

In a previous post, I talked about getting unstuck and how to help change the picture and the minds of children who have weak auditory processing and who are strong visualizers. This combination is never more of an issue than it is with children on the autism spectrum, particularly those who are becoming teens.

Before I go any further, let me say that the combination of strong visualization, addictive behaviors (DSAs), low auditory processing, strength, and hormones is a combination you really want to do you very best to prevent.

This is an issue primarily for children who are “autistic” and generally not for others that are included on the spectrum. One of the primary, if not definitive, issues that separate those on the spectrum is auditory processing. The higher the auditory processing, generally the higher the child is on the continuum. The lower the auditory processing, the more likely we are to encounter this behavior management issue.

Let’s begin by talking a bit about auditory processing, maturity, and behavior. Simplistically you can determine auditory processing, which includes auditory short-term memory, working memory, and executive function, by measuring sequential processing. The first step in auditory sequential processing is short-term memory, which is a measure of how many pieces of auditory input (words) the child can process. If I were to test your auditory sequential processing, I could simply have you listen to a sequence of numbers said slowly and repeat them. With children we can do this as well, or have them follow different kinds of sequential verbal directions.

If I were to do a simple assessment of your auditory working memory, I could again say a sequence of numbers, but this time have you repeat them backwards. To some degree this would be a measure of your complexity of thought.

Executive function is a mechanism related to working memory and complexity of thought. Executive function includes those things we would tend to attribute to people who function well, such as the ability to prioritize, problem solve, and have organizational skills and inhibition, which is essentially stopping yourself from doing things that you know you shouldn’t do or that are harmful for you.

The development of these pieces can be looked at relative to the digit spans I mentioned before.* If we look at the typical development of auditory processing correlated with digit spans or their equivalents, we have approximately the following picture (understanding that the range can easily be +/- 12 months or more):

Auditory forward sequence of 1 = 6-18 months

Auditory forward sequence of 2 = 18-30 months

Auditory forward sequence of 3 = 24-40 months

Auditory forward sequence of 4 = 3 yrs-5 yrs

Auditory forward sequence of 5 = 4 yrs +

Working memory starts kicking in when the forward processing is about a 4. Up until this point, working memory is very limited.

Disregarding various personality differences, when we look at the full range of children, we can to a certain degree associate the auditory processing and complexity of thought with level of maturity and behavior.

Babies 12 months and younger, who are just learning to understand and process language, are pretty easy to deal with as long as they feel fine, aren’t tired or hungry or need a diaper change. You can give them something and they can like it, or you can take something away and they might not particularly even miss it.

When processing starts getting into the 2s, life gets interesting; and we hit what has historically and aptly been called “terrible 2s.” At this point the complexity of thought generally permits the child to process/think “I want” or “I don’t want.” The complexity of thought provides no qualifiers; there is no “later” or “after” or “because.” At this level we should expect and get a lot of tantrums.

I have categorized 3s as “lock and block 3s.” The complexity of thought and lack of working memory doesn’t permit children to think through anything with any real complexity. They rely on familiar patterns and the perception of whether something feels good, feels safe, is non-threatening and fun, or if it breaks previous patterns, doesn’t feel good or safe, is in some way threatening, feels like work, or is important, or simply not fun. Children at this stage can be very intractable and react very poorly if pushed out of their comfort zones.

As we start moving into processing 4s and above, we start getting to a point where we can have some negotiating power and the kids start really using working memory. They can think through things or think their way out of things or old patterns.

I encourage everyone who works with child development and education, and particularly with those who work with special needs, to look at individuals through the lens of processing power and not chronological age. Just because a group of children are approximately the same age doesn’t mean that their functions are going to be very similar or that it is appropriate to be working on the same functions or skills. A typical group of 3-year olds could have auditory processing ranging from a two to a four or more and see the world as very different places. Certainly it is not appropriate to treat them all the same and have the same expectations for all of them. (Not to digress, but perhaps we should help all children development their processing skills. What a great idea! I’ve been trying to get the world to understand this for more than 40 years!)

Relating back to the behavior patterns discussed, imagine a six-foot tall, strong, hormone-driven, visualizing two or three year old. Imagine the tantrums your typical two or three year old might have thrown in the grocery store when you refused to buy them the candy they wanted. Now imagine them being this six-foot, hormone driven, thirteen plus year old child throwing that fit. Do you think that many of those typical two and three year olds physically resist and fight you? Yep! Do you think you would be in major trouble if your two year old were six feet tall and strong as an ox? Yep! Then think about throwing hormones into the mix. And now just think about adding the fact that autistic children are almost universally strong visualizers and probably have a very strong video in their heads as to what they want and don’t want and what should and shouldn’t be, and you have a very intractable child. Breaking or changing a low processing child’s mental picture when they lack the processing power to think their way out of a it can be extremely difficult and even dangerous.

For every parent of every young child on the spectrum, it is imperative that you understand that developing your child’s cognitive abilities needs to be at the top of the priority list. It saddens me (and certainly at times when a family brings me one of these low processing, out of control teenagers infuriates me) that millions and millions of hours and dollars are being spent, not addressing the fundamental sensory issues, DSAs/addictions, and processing power of these children, but teaching them isolated skills and to be prompt-dependent, using antiquated programs like ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy).

Steps can be taken, starting from when children are tiny and throughout their lives, to build and develop these basic, indispensable cognitive functions and normalize sensory issues, break addictive patterns, and develop the neurodevelopmental foundation that permits them to communicate, learn, integrate into society, and function well.

For those of you who have the low processing, hormone-driven, difficult teens, all isn’t lost; it’s just difficult, and for some very difficult. Many of you are in survival mode and need to use whatever tools are at your disposal to cope. But ultimately we must utilize all of the tools to build the processing, cognition, and maturity to move them forward.

*Assessing auditory processing with strong visualizers is a bit tricky and requires someone with experience and specific expertise. Visualizers tend to produce inflated scores that don’t necessarily reflect their true processing level.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 5, 2018 ©NACD

The post Autism – Stuck Teens appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

Developmentally, behaviorally and educationally children tend to get stuck. The younger the child, the lower the child’s processing or the slower the child’s development, the easier it is for them to get stuck.

To understand why these children tend to get stuck, we need to understand how they think. Virtually all young children or low processing children are visualizers. This simply means that if you have low auditory processing and only have the means to think in a few words, that you rely on your ability to think in pictures to function. As they have said, a picture is worth a thousand words and for these children, more often than not, there are not enough words to change a picture.

Many things for young children are place and person specific. For example, my little 20-month-old granddaughter has different rituals and behavior patterns for most of the adults in her life and different rituals and patterns for these individuals in different environments. If I go over to my son’s house and pick up little Ari, she immediately reaches in my shirt pocket for my phone so that I will play some apps with her. She doesn’t do that with anyone else. However, when she comes to my house and I pick her up she is asking for my dogs or pointing to the pantry where the special Ari crackers are. These specific people and situational patterns exist for all of the adults in her life. Most of these patterns got started with a single event, an event that created a mental picture of that certain person in that certain place. As soon as she sees that person in that place, it triggers the visual memory and pattern of what is expected. A child’s ability to modify the picture and to not get upset about a change is generally related to their auditory processing and their ability to think their way out of a pattern and get unstuck.

For many behavior patterns, particularly for low auditory processing children, you can only change the behavior pattern by changing the picture. Issues around eating illustrate many different aspects of this.

Lets start by looking at children with a limited list of foods that they will eat. To some degree, what they want and what they refuse to eat is related to familiar tastes, textures, odors and cravings, but to a large extent it depends on the picture and pattern. If a child is given the same food or foods in the same form (pureed, mashed, small chunks, etc.) in a particular place such as their highchair in the kitchen, that creates a little mental video. The more times the event is replicated the stronger becomes the video. The stronger the video the stronger the behavior pattern and the more difficult it becomes for the child to accept something that doesn’t fit the picture. These pictures can quickly generalize, which means the pattern becomes strong enough that it continues in other places and if permitted to generalize to a second place its easier for it to generalize to a third and so on and so forth. However, often the way to change the video is to change the set. Many parents discover that their picky eaters will eat something at Grandma’s house that they won’t eat at home, or a restaurant, or a picnic, or a friend’s house—someplace with a different picture. A different person, even at home, can create a new picture.

The greater the variety of foods, food consistencies and places where a child eats and whom the child eats with, the easier it is to avoid negative patterns. If for example, Mom is the only one who feeds the child and Mom sings while feeding and the feeding is always in the same spot and the food is the same and the food looks the same and smells the same, you are well on the way to creating a very strong specific picture/video and pattern that is going to be very difficult to break.

The next piece of this puzzle involves children eating with parents or family and children being fed alone. If a child is fed alone, what is the picture that is being created? What the child does and doesn’t eat or do is the picture. It’s a really short movie without a lot of characters or sets. In my experience little children who have their highchair at the table and who eat with the family learn quickly to accept a much broader range of foods, consistencies of food and learn to finger feed and then eat with utensils much faster than children who are fed alone. What models, what pictures do children who are fed alone have other than the one they create? A child eating with the family sees what everyone else is eating and how they are eating and smells what they are eating and hopefully shares what they are eating. This creates a very different educational picture and generally a very different outcome.

For these young or low processing children to change a pattern when they become stuck requires changing the picture.

Many of our families doing NACD TDI programs are working on improving their child’s processing ability with the understanding that with increased processing power comes higher receptive and expressive language, level of cognition, maturity, problem solving, etc. Essentially the child becomes more educable and easier to work with and live with. It’s a bit ironic that for these young or low processing children the thing that is going to help move then forward is one of the more difficult things to change, because we need to change the picture or motivate the child to move beyond their comfort level and change their own picture or behavior pattern. For example, if your child can do an auditory object sequence of 3 (they listen to you say the names of three objects and they then repeat the sequence) and has been at that level for a long time, you very possibly are having a hard time breaking that pattern and getting to a four. How do you get them unstuck?

Breaking a pattern and getting them unstuck requires creating a new picture. Perhaps a new place or new people will work. If that doesn’t work, you need a different strategy. Understanding that if their picture is them doing a 3, the odds are pretty good that as soon as you say a fourth number you have broken the picture and they have shut down. Hear a 4 and shut down—broken pattern, broken picture. One of the things we encourage parents to do in general to partially avoid this issue, is to give the child a variety of different levels of sequences to avoid creating too strong a pattern or picture. Rather than saying a lot of 3’s and trying to throw in a 4, you give them a 2, then a 3 then a 4, a 3 a 4 a 2, etc. We are hopefully having the child be successful (an important part of the script) and we are avoiding establishing a strong pattern of 3’s (trying to keep it off the script). Once a pattern has been established, or if we need to ease into a higher level, we can make the transition easier by doing what we call bridging. Bridging is done by cheating a bit. Rather than giving the child a real 4, which is four words said in the same tone at one second intervals, we cheat by either repeating the third word (cat, monkey, horse, horse) or we chunk (cat, monkey—horse, dog) by chunking the first two words by saying them together then a space and another chunk of two words. After we are successful at bridging 4’s, we add some legitimate 4’s. We are slowly changing the pattern and the picture in small increments.

Another way to get unstuck is to add some intensity. You might want to exchange the word intensity with reward to understand this unstuck procedure. Rewards can add sufficient intensity to move a child forward. A child gets stuck because it works for them. Having things stay in a familiar pattern keeps the child in their comfort zone and every time an event fits their picture, they get a little endorphin rush and take another step toward becoming addicted to the pattern and the outcome. So, if maintaining the picture is in the child’s best interests and has them stuck, we often need to provide something stronger that is in the child’s better interests. The stronger the pattern to be broken, the bigger the carrot needs to be to get them unstuck.

Having watched thousands of people do activities like processing, sadly its often difficult to tell from the reaction the child gets as to whether the child got a sequence correct or not. Often the result of getting one right is the honor to do another and another. It is surprising how often there is no feedback whatsoever. The quality and specificity of the feedback is really important and if you are trying to get unstuck, look for really big rewards to change the picture. “Give me just one 4 and we’ll get a pizza!” When they get the 4 and the family immediately goes and gets a pizza, guess what that creates? A new and better picture. You can screw this up by not changing the new picture really fast. If you did this a few days in a row and Johnny got a pizza for every 4, guess what? You have created an amazing pizza video—could be a tough one to delete. So, you use the big gun to break the old picture and then you lower the power and use sustainable rewards. But, if you get stuck again when you are going for the fives, change the picture and bring out the pizza.

So, we have a number of tools to get us unstuck, we can get unstuck by creating new pictures by doing things in new places, with new people, in new different ways and with strong rewards. What else? How about new videos to replace old videos?

We have been having parents create therapeutic videos for many decades. Often the best way to put a picture into a child’s mind is with a picture. We have used therapeutic videos to show a child how to do everything from produce a “B” sound to how to make their bed, to modeling getting a 4 and seeing someone get rewarded for it, to putting down a toilet seat. Not too tough and the child is much better for watching and learning from new therapeutic videos than watching that YouTube video for the thousandth time.

If you don’t like the picture give your child a new one.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 5, 2018 ©NACD

The post Getting Unstuck – Changing the Picture for Your Child appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Years ago, I saw a TV show on Discovery with an organization from England that transformed “typical” children into geniuses using programs close to what NACD is using. I was fascinated but frustrated because I believed that I would never have an opportunity to follow this type of program in Romania. After I registered my son in an NACD personalized program [NACD TDI Program] last year and saw how fast a brain-damaged child can learn to process information, I quickly understood that NACD was the key to success. My dream created by that TV show was about to come true. I read about Simply Smarter and registered immediately. When I first started the Simply Smarter program, I was processing 7 directions. Some studies show that “smart” people are able to process between 7 and 10. NACD said that if you are processing 10, you are doing very well. It has been more than one year since I started Simply Smarter and I can process 15-16 pieces of information at this point. This is huge, folks, very huge. I was in the dark a year ago. I started a discussion and after 2 minutes forgot where I was going with the conversation. I could not remember too many things, nor could I understand many important pieces of information because of my weak auditory processing. There are many of you out there in the same situation that I was experiencing. Now at a processing level of 15-16, things have changed so much. I can think, talk and learn faster, hear more, and write better. I have many good ideas. I can function better. I have improved my life and the life of my family also. I’ve started to remember things from my childhood, memories that I thought were lost!

Thinking gives you strength and you can achieve things that most people find impossible to achieve. For those of you who have children in NACD, you know what going from 7 to 16 means. For those of you who don’t know about NACD, let me try to explain it to you. It is like lifting weights. At the beginning, perhaps you can lift 10 kg. Then you start building your body and after one year you can lift 200 kg. In this case, however, you are building your intelligence which is so much more important. Much like those body builders who become addicted to growing muscle, I am addicted to building intelligence. I now am 36 years old and by the time I am 40 I want to process 25-30 pieces of information.

I love Simply Smarter and I will use it for the rest of my life. If you want to ask me questions about my experience with Simply Smarter, feel free to do so at roviancom@yahoo.com

—Razvan

P.S. My wife started Simply Smarter at a processing level of 8 last year. She can now process 20-21 pieces of information (However, I am still the boss in the house!).

The post Manole Family – A “Discovery” Leads to Success with NACD & Simply Smarter appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Last summer, a group of researchers
 published a study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in which they
used fMRI technology to show
auditory working memory training
 (such as the auditory sequential processing activities in Simply Smarter) resulted in physical changes 
to the brain. In addition to showing
 auditory working memory can be
 trained, this research was able to demonstrate such training is more
than just learning a skill, but literally 
transforms the brain and the mind. These findings are consistent with Bob 
Doman and NACD’s 40+ years of experience in the development of tools for building processing and working memory. The researchers also found that physically altering the brain did not take very much time—only eight training sessions in 2 weeks!

Over the course of two weeks, a group of normal, healthy college students had a total of only eight training sessions that consisted of performing auditory working memory activities. Previously, they had taken part in an fMRI pretest alongside a matched control group; and at the end of the two-week training, they took part in an fMRI posttest that was conducted in the same manner as the pretest. The tests measured brain activation of all the participants as they performed auditory and visual working memory tasks and control tasks. When the fMRI posttest data was compared to pretest data, measured changes in the brain were observed in certain brain sections of the “fronto-parietal working memory network” for the treatment group but not the control group. These physical changes were also accompanied by an improvement in the performance of auditory memory tasks.

Other findings concluded that auditory training by itself did not significantly enhance visual functioning and vice versa, which is again consistent with NACD’s methodology of addressing both auditory and visual sequential processing.

Please explore the NACD Foundation initiative the Simply Smarter Project, as well as NACD’s Cognition Coach app and Simply Smarter.

Source:

Schneiders, J.A., et al. (2012). The impact of auditory working memory training on the fronto-parietal working memory network. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 173. doi: 0.3389/fnhum.2012.00173

The post Science Corner Vol. 2: Working Memory Training Physically Changes Brain for the Better, fMRI Neuroimaging Study Finds appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

We are sometimes asked how NACD differs from the ABA – Applied Behavior Analysis therapy approach to individuals with Autism. In simplistic terms, the two approaches have profound philosophical differences that impact on the specific practices as well as the understanding of what needs to be changed.

NACD approaches any individual as a whole person. We seek to understand all of the factors that impact on how that individual functions to understand what works well and what is struggling to work in all areas. Having looked carefully at all areas of function that include things such as speech, depth of receptive language and conceptual thinking, health, and much more, we then look at how to strengthen and stimulate areas of delay or difficulty using neuroplasticity to allow us to improve that function.

Many individuals with whom we work have something that Bob Doman refers to as “negative neuroplasticity” which is the brain changing how it is functioning and developing based on poor input provided by the individual themselves. This occurs when some major channel of processing has been blocked or delayed. The tendency is for the individual to use and misuse other channels and the development that follows has a negative impact on their overall function. In most cases, the key channel that is blocked and or delayed is the auditory channel that allows for conceptual thinking, receptive and expressive language and attention to language.

The delay of the development of auditory processing has a profound negative impact on the development of other basic neurological functions such as working memory and executive function. In turn, all of these issues profoundly impact on the day-to-day function and overall development of the individuals. Not only are the expressive and receptive language abilities delayed but potentially also the ability to think conceptually, to imagine change in the future, to manage time or problem solve when faced with an unexpected situation.

Again to speak simplistically, NACD’s approach is to remove all barriers to the development of auditory processing and to immerse the individual in a rich and varied auditory environment that is designed very specifically to improve and enhance thinking in and understanding language while also addressing any other issues that may be delayed or interfering with positive development such as health and diet, issues with tactility, etc.
NACD is seeking to always work with the whole individual to improve overall function.

Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy (ABA) addresses specific skill building through a strict behavioral approach of repetition and reward. It seeks to produce change by building skills and compliance through sustained one-to-one interventions. NACD, on the other hand, seeks to change global function through developing those neurological functions that have been delayed and promoting their use. NACD does use one-to-one targeted interventions but they are designed to produce broad changes in neurological function as opposed to building individual skills.

NACD acknowledges the individuality of each person and the programs are designed to take theses individual differences into account. The approach is both eclectic and creative as opposed to protocol-driven. As the individual’s preferences, strengths and interests are understood and developed, their program of targeted interventions shifts and changes to meet the goals of better neurological function and also support their individuality. The values of the family are also reflected in the individual programs and how they are designed. NACD programs are not protocols but rather fluid targeted interventions that change as the individual changes.

We at NACD also know that we have more to learn. We are constantly seeking new information, new strategies in all areas of health and development that are effective in helping individuals function better and live happier lives. We are constantly changing, adding, including and learning new ways to enhance what we do. Again, we are not protocol–driven. Our work is collaborative with parents and with many other professionals in a variety of fields. We don’t know all there is to know about Autism yet or brain development for that matter. We will continue to strive to learn more about the complexity of how the brain functions and develops.

The post NACD and ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy)—Very Different Approaches appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.