The quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but it actually came from novelist Rita Mae Brown. I must admit I liked it better when I thought it was Einstein’s, but coming from a novelist doesn’t make it any less true. And nowhere is it more true than in education.

Look at a 1971 Cadillac, the top-of-the-line American car of its day and compare it to a self-driving Tesla. The development and change have been more than dramatic. As an old Star Trek fan, I notice the same thing watching reruns: in many ways we’ve already surpassed what those writers could even imagine. Captain Kirk used a flip phone.

Almost everything has changed dramatically over the last fifty years, with one glaring exception: education. I can think of nothing that has progressed slower. Long-term trends in educational outcomes show a graph that is virtually a straight line from 1971 to today.

Why Education Is Stuck

There are many contributing factors. A few of the biggest:

• Self-perpetuating training. Most professors in college departments of education are themselves graduates of the very programs they now teach, preserving the same practices decade after decade.
• Questionable curriculum and resistance to choice. There are little real competition and little willingness to let parents choose what works.
• Lack of parental involvement. Many homes have effectively been removed from the educational equation.
• Homework that does more harm than good. Schools try to make up for ineffective use of the six hours a child is in class by sending more work home, often with negative results.
• Teach, test, forget. Material is taught, tested once, and for the most part never revisited, so it never truly enters long-term memory.

One Size Fits No One

But high on my list as to why progress has been so minimal is that our schools are still focused on set curricula, one-size-fits-all education. What is taught is grade or class dependent, not student dependent. In any classroom, at any grade level, there can easily be a disparity of two, three, or even more years in students’ academic levels, with similar differences in their processing levels. A child’s processing level determines how much of what they hear, read, or see they can actually take in, understand, and assimilate.

What Targeted Education Looks Like

At NACD, we see every day what targeted education can do: education tailored to the individual. Targeted education means teaching the child at their level in each subject, tailoring instruction to the child’s processing level, leveraging the principles of neuroplasticity, and providing targeted input with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration until the information moves into long-term memory and is associated with other things the child has learned. Developing processing abilities changes the whole picture and the child’s future.

Parents, You Don’t Have to Wait

Changing a system that doesn’t really want to change is going to take a long time. But parents, you don’t have to wait. Consider taking charge: if possible, bring your kids home and provide them with a targeted, tailored education. It can accelerate your child’s learning, turn them into active learners and readers, and yes, make them smarter.

If you’d like to learn how NACD can help you build an individualized program for your child, visit nacd.org or contact us directly. The system may not change in time. Your child doesn’t have to wait.

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

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Parents can become aware of their child’s lack of progress from report cards, meetings with teachers, standardized test results, or even helping with homework. It’s a terrible feeling to realize that your child isn’t learning as well as is expected, particularly when you may not have been previously aware of it. 

A failure to progress academically can have multiple causes, of course, but there are a few things that parents and professionals in the field of education need to keep in mind. The curriculum that master plan implemented by schools and mandated by states is not written, designed, and implemented for YOUR child. This massive plan, which dictates the scope of what is taught and in what order it is taught, is not aimed at any particular student but rather designed to reach some overall goals far removed from specific students. 

Students, including your child, vary enormously in their ability to process information and utilize that information in any way. Although the concepts of visual and auditory learners, for example, are often over-simplified, there are real processing differences among students in every class, in every school. What your child is able to learn and retain out of what is being presented is based on his or her ability to take in what is being presented and store it in a way that can be recalled. 

So, although schools have this massive curriculum designed with no particular student in mind at all, your student may not be equipped to learn it. In other words, this may well be the wrong curriculum and instructional approach for your child. In fact, your child might be able to do an outstanding job of learning, given another approach and a different type of curriculum. Too often, schools function like the military. We have this institution with this structure and this agenda. Your child must fit in and learn to meet expectations. 

Consider that the issue may not be caused by a flaw in your child but rather by flaws in how this system is imposing itself on your child. No school can fully individualize what they do. Even students with IEPs don’t actually get their own curriculum but rather a slowed-down, abbreviated version of the overall curriculum. Homeschooling provides a solution, of course, as long as the parent does not simply replicate the errors the schools have made. Improving how a child processes information allows the child to learn from a wider array of instructional styles and permits the child to learn with less effort.

NACD is here to help your child improve his or her processing and also design a truly child-specific learning plan that paves the way for successful and rapid learning. 

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

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Understanding the Whole Child

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

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

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

The Power of a Top-Down Perspective

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

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

Beyond Labels: Every Child is Unique

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

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

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

Building a Support System for Success

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unlocking Every Child’s Potential

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

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

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

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Are you a vision board person? A New Year’s Resolution person? A “word” for the year person? I am. There is always something about new beginnings, fresh starts, etc., that gets me excited! My word for the year 2024 was “discipline”. At the time, I felt the need to be more disciplined in my diet, my workouts, my time between work and family, finances, etc. I have a small group of friends who help each other stay accountable to our “word”. We all encourage each other. We forgive when we mess up and we challenge each other to keep going. Guilt is a word we do not use. We give ourselves grace and move on. I think this time of year is like the New Year. For many of us, at least in the Northern Hemispheres, we are sending kids off to school or creating our home education plan, establishing new routines, and getting back into the swing of things after summer fun and indulgences. For me, it is time to reset and re-establish my dedication to my word! 

When it comes to a “reset”, I want you to think of how you reset yourself as a person. We want to think of the fundamental things for our bodies and brains to function well, because let’s face it—getting older stinks. As busy parents, it is easy to not prioritize ourselves, but I have learned in my years as a parent and as someone who talks to parents daily, that your health is priority one. Do you get enough quality sleep? Do you prioritize real food that nourishes your body? Do you exercise? Do you provide your spirit with a connection to people that matter to you? If you aren’t doing things to give yourself the attention you need, then RESET. 

When it comes to your family, what do you need to do to “reset”? Is it scheduling those regular date nights with your spouse? Is it making sure you have dinner as a family again most nights of the week? I just talked with a family who is having weekly meetings/time with each child of their family to praise and reinforce how that kid is doing as well as to discuss what things they (the child) feel could be improved upon or that they need to work on together. Talk about connection! For me, this past month has been a lot about our kids for various reasons, and not much about me and Scott. And, the next two months are not going to be any better with each of our travel schedules. He and I are scheduling time together—each week. It might just be out on our patio after dinner, but we can feel when we are disconnected, so RESET.

When it comes to your kids—not just your kids on program, but all of your children—how do you help them reset? First and foremost, sleep and nutrition are sooo important. Having consistent sleep schedules—I can’t say enough about the importance of it. Nutrition!!! What are we feeding our kids? Are their diets full of real food – lean proteins, fresh fruit and vegetables, and healthy fats, or are they full of processed food, seed oils, and sugar? We work with kids with many behavior issues and can often correlate it to what they eat. I know that we have some picky eaters and some kids on very limited diets. Keep working, ever so slightly, on improving it. For those of you who have kids at a higher level of function, educate them on food and nutrition and the importance of good sleep and general health. RESET.

Now, when it comes to program, I am always amazed by parents who come to evals around this time of year fearful. Fearful that we are going to judge them. Feeling guilty that they haven’t done much. We are parents too, ya know?! We understand summer schedules. We understand burnout. We also understand reality. As you go into this next season, RESET. Think about priorities and things that really matter to you and that you think your child is on the cusp of and/or needs the most. Is it walking? Is it processing and cognition? Is it reading? Talk with your evaluator as we are looking at your child as a whole and can guide you on those priorities. We see, too often, families taking on too much—not just with program but then also wanting to do all the other therapies, and sports, and dance lessons, etc., etc. Let’s reset, prioritize, and simplify. (I am not surprised why so many of us moms and dads end up with autoimmune stuff and thyroid issues and all other kinds of health-related issues. We simply try to do too much.) So, I would encourage you to look at the schedules, can we decrease what we have going on? Can you enlist older children who drive to take a child places? Can you enlist Grandma to help with program? Instead of spending hours each week grocery shopping and Costco shopping, can you switch to delivery? (I switched to this over the summer and it has been a God-sent AND a money saver!) Are you making all your kids lunches when they could do it themselves? When is the best time for you AND your kid to do program? Look at your schedule and modify it so that it happens. If we only have an hour, then let’s make that the best hour and focus on what matters the most in that hour. RESET. Talk to your evaluator and your coach. Let us help you figure it all out so that we are working together. 

How about a RESET challenge? I am going to accept that I may mess up. I do it all the time. But, at the beginning of each day, I try to be a better version of myself than the last. Stop the mom and/or dad guilt. Give yourself grace. Move forward. Let’s RESET together. 

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 38 No. 5, 2024 ©NACD

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My colleagues and I have a fantastic job. We spend our days helping families help their children develop and improve their lives. We do this without actually working hands-on with any children beyond doing evaluations and then designing the children’s comprehensive home programs. As an organization, NACD has proudly been changing lives for almost 50 years—the lives of children across the spectrum, from brain-injured children to autistic, Down syndrome, learning and attention issues, to typical and gifted children. All without directly working with a single child. We work with moms and dads, the real experts on their children and the ones most vested in the results. We educate and train parents, providing them with targeted, specific programs designed to address their “whole” child, along with ongoing support and coaching. We help parents parent and assume their primary responsibility, helping their children grow and develop into successful adults, realizing their innate potential.

We can achieve what are often exceptional results through the efforts of extraordinary parents. As developmentalists and educators, we question current trends and know you cannot replace dedicated, committed parents. Who has a greater vested interest in their children’s development than the parents, who hopefully know their child the best? Who knows the whole, complex, unique child? Unfortunately, today more and more parents are being left out of the equation. “It’s not their job; it’s the job of the schools, the teachers, the therapists, the psychologists, and the doctors.” Today’s schools and interventions often try to convince parents to stay out of the way; it’s the professionals’ job.

Where have all the mothers gone?

I have watched society change rather dramatically since the ’50s and ‘60s when I was growing up. The family structure is being lost, the value of family deemphasized, and, along with it, the perceived need for and role of participating mothers. It’s ludicrous to think that all of the schools, teachers, psychologists, bureaucrats, and others can replace the family and our mothers. “Helping” each unique child develop without the only people who actually know and are vested in the whole child is like expecting a basketball team to function as a whole without a coach or expecting a bunch of subcontractors to build a house without plans and a contractor in charge. If society continues to denigrate the role of family and mothers, we can forget about our children and future generations achieving their potential.

There is no more important job or greater responsibility any of us will ever have than raising our children.

At NACD, we know we can only help children achieve their potential through the family and, in reality, primarily in most families through moms. 

I just returned from three weeks in the beautiful mountains of Transylvania, where I worked with families whose children have a broad range of issues. I saw great Eastern European families addressing various issues with their children and working to resolve them. 

My Eastern European families, relative to the US, are rather “old school” and epitomize dedicated families. Our collection of moms includes medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, lawyers, a former judge, architects, a banker, marketing IT, realtors, and other professional moms. Most of these moms are now at home, dedicating themselves to their child’s future or arranging their work schedule to accommodate working with their child and/or permitting dad to stay home to do the hands-on job. 

We work with these wonderful, hardworking families virtually throughout the year, but get to see them in person once a year. These trips are invigorating and always leave me with hope for the future. Dedicated parents with the necessary and proper support can move mountains. 

Lots of pictures from the trip!

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

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By Carolyn Takos

Intro by Lyn Waldeck

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

Carolyn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Lyn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Targeted Input

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

Frequency

The second component of neuroplasticity is frequency.  

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

Duration

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

Intensity

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

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

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

Where is the student in the equation? 

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

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

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

There are better ways.

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

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by Bob Doman

Many parents of special needs children, as well as children with attention and learning related problems, mistakenly believe their children are receiving a good, real opportunity for development and education from the schools. With rare exception neither public nor private schools are equipped to provide these children with a real opportunity. What does opportunity look like, and how do we help the children realize their innate potential?

A sad reality is that the typically perceived potential for all our children, and particularly our special needs children, is not truly based on their innate potential, but rather it is defined by the very limited opportunities provided by public schools, and most private schools, and the outcomes they produce.

Opportunity Defines Potential and Determines Outcomes

The range of individual function in a typical or special needs classroom is tremendous. In a typical classroom the reading, math, and other educational levels range in years, not months; but everyone is generally placed in the same curriculum and at the same spot in the curriculum. The instruction is based on the month and year of where the class is in the curriculum. In addition to the huge range of educational levels in the classroom, the level of individual processing abilities (short-term and working memory levels, the ability to process and understand the information) varies tremendously, as do the individuals’ actual knowledge base, and learning strengths and weaknesses. Our children are all unique; and the more targeted their education is to their specific needs, the more effective.

The greater the developmental and learning challenges, the greater the variability of function, the more specific their requirements, and the greater the need for targeted intervention– “targeted” as in designed for the individual child and administered one to one.

How does the public education system determine potential and define opportunity?

Perceived potential defines what is determined to be appropriate educational and therapeutic opportunity, as defined by the public educational system. The potential is based on expectations and prognosis, while the prognosis is based on the past failures. The past failures in turn are the reflection of the realities of limited opportunity, the result of budget restraints and previous outcomes.

The Reality of School Aides

If your child is “fortunate” they are provided with a 1:1 aide. Parents generally mistakenly believe that the aide is providing a targeted program designed for your child. This is rarely the case. Often the aide assists your child in walking through a dumbed down version of the school curriculum or a version of the “special” curriculum. Aides generally assist and prompt the child through whatever is deemed appropriate work, rather than providing targeted teaching. They are not teachers and are not expected to be. They aid, as in assist, which often impairs rather than facilitates real education and often results in prompt dependency.

Physical, Speech, and Occupational Therapy

Many parents believe that their children who need specific therapies need to attend school so that they can receive the therapy they need. The reality is that one or two twenty to thirty minute sessions of “therapy” per week is not enough to produce significant change and certainly does not define a real opportunity. Very few school therapists would really define what they are providing as adequate. But, once again, outcomes predict potential and thus determine what is considered an appropriate opportunity. Sadly, the same criteria has been used by insurance companies to define appropriate opportunity, and thus limit how much therapy they will cover. Fortunately, most children with developmental issues do not need rehabilitation therapy; they need developmental opportunities that generally do not require a therapist.

Neuroplasticity

All individual development reflects and is the result of neuroplasticity, the process by which the brain changes in response to stimulation. The foundation of neuroplasticity is targeted input delivered with frequency, intensity, and duration.

Targeted input refers to specific input, specific as to the child; and because every child is different, the program needs to be designed around a comprehensive understanding of the whole child. All children are complex; and the more specific issues the child has, the more complex they are, as are their needs.

Labels

When schools started providing “special” services for special needs children and those with attention and learning challenges, the need existed for them to have administrative labels, so as to classify the children. The labels and classifications served as a means for the system to lower expectations and an excuse for the system to fail. One hundred or one hundred thousand children labeled as dyslexic or as having attention deficit, as an example, are all different and are categorized and stigmatized by a symptomatic label. They don’t have a disease, let alone an incurable disease; and they are all different. If they are all perceived as the same, then their needs are perceived to be the same, and their opportunities dictated by the expected outcomes. All the children with these labels are unique and complex, as are all labeled children, each with a multitude of different significant pieces that need to be understood and addressed if they are to be given a real opportunity to achieve their unique potential.

The Whole Child

You cannot successfully address a piece of a child without a comprehensive understanding of the whole child.

Who are the world’s greatest authorities on a specific child? The parents.

It is impossible to understand a child and provide a child with a real opportunity without the parents being in charge, the parents who know the whole child and who are ultimately responsible for the future adult. A dysfunctional 30-year-old child is not going to be living with their old teacher, or school principal, or therapist; they are going to be living with their parents or in some form of institution

What is the whole child? To understand the whole child, you must know and understand their history from birth to today– their birth history, their medical history, their developmental history, their educational history, their social and behavioral history. Who they are today is a reflection of their entire history and much more, including: any and all neurological/structural and physical issues, their sleep, their diet, current medical issues, behavior issues, social function, how they are on days when they don’t feel well or didn’t sleep well, what their relationship is with their parents, siblings, grandparents, extended family, friends, with their church or other organizations, what is fun, how do they engage themselves, how much screen time do they have, how is their vision, their hearing, their auditory and visual processing, short-term and working memory, do they have any executive function, exactly what do they know and understand, what are they afraid of, what do they like, what do they hate and on and on and on. All of these factors and many more need to be part of the consideration as to what they, these unique children who have never existed before on the planet and never will again, need. How do we target them?

How do you look at a label and determine what is appropriate for any child? You simply cannot define potential nor adequately work with a piece of a child without understanding the whole child.

Public education may pay some lip service to parents, but parents are generally perceived as the people the school sends the child home to at the end of the school day.

Reactive vs Proactive

Schools apply a reactive management strategy to the child’s development and education, meaning that the goals and thus the applications are not based on a long-term vision of what can be based on appropriate opportunity, but what is based on limited opportunity. Examples range from a perspective that the child really doesn’t have the potential to be functional in reading and math, therefore the “reading and math” programs provided aren’t really expected to produce a long-term result of someone who can actually read and understand math. If the perception is that a five-year-old really isn’t going to be able to speak and use language, then augmentative communication is the reactive approach. If the perception is that the child will never be an independent walker, then the reactive approach is not aimed at that goal, but rather life in a wheelchair or possibly a walker.

To work with a child proactively means that you are doing things today understanding and anticipating the long-term effects. What is seen as potential dictates the steps needed to achieve it and to work proactively, not reactively.

Shared Vision and Goals

Everyone involved with a child needs to share a common vision and goals. The primary voice in determining the vision and goals needs to be that of the parents. Parents can be assisted in this process with the help of those who have worked with and through families and their whole children for many decades.

A Better Way: Plan B

Home/Family Based Whole Child Comprehensive Programs

NACD (National Association for Child Development) has for over forty years been at the forefront of redefining opportunity and potential and has developed a toolbox of over 3000 specific techniques that can provide targeted intervention within the home and applied by parents, siblings, and caregivers. NACD focuses on providing individualized, home-based programs to children with special needs, those with learning and attention issues, as well as “typical” children, optimizing opportunity, changing perceptions and outcomes. This approach offers several advantages over public schools:

1. Individualized attention: NACD programs are tailored to the specific needs of each unique child, rather than labeling and plugging the child into an “appropriate” curriculum.
2. Home-based programs: NACD programs are best done at home five days per week. Each comprehensive targeted program maximizes neuroplasticity through short, intense activities that can be provided many times a day, rather than a couple of times per week.
3. Flexible scheduling: Parents can choose when to work with their child, which allows for schedules that work best for the family. It also provides the opportunity for targeted social interaction outside of the school walls. It’s not the quantity of time that a child spends in the company of other children, it is the quality and structure of the time. The reality is often whether or not a child can survive the social world of schools, not if they have learned how to appropriately interact and have developed positive social skills and lives.
4. Holistic approach: The NACD program focuses on the whole child, not just their academic needs, by addressing health and nutrition, motor skills, cognitive skills, speech, social and emotional development, behavior and much more–the whole child, and the whole child within the context of the family. NACD is constantly developing, exploring, and assessing new methods and treatments, bringing state of the art information and resources to bear on the child’s issues and needs.
5. Targeted input, delivered with the needed frequency, intensity, and duration by the people who know and care the most defines a new opportunity and changes outcomes.
6. Tri-annual evaluations and ongoing support, coaching, and interaction help keep everyone on target, working effectively and efficiently, and moving together to achieve the vision.

Learn more about how the NACD Program helps parents homeschool children with special needs:

      Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 36 No. 3, 2023 ©NACD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are a happy family!

—Javier’s Parents

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

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NACD is a program designed to improve the development of the whole child. So we are addressing cognitive development, physical development in terms of fine and gross motor skills, behavioral development, academic development, and other aspects of your whole child. Our approach to home education (or homeschool) is, for many reasons, different from everyone else’s approach.

Let’s talk about some details. The design of each child’s academic plan is based specifically on where that child is in many areas of development. Why? The plan is designed to take advantage of how that child is able to process, store, and utilize information at the time that the plan is written. As the child’s processing level improves, the plan changes with the child. This allows us to make the most of the time spent teaching so that we are not teaching above the child’s level of processing, but also not teaching below the child’s level. This allows us to keep the child’s interest and allows learning to be easy and interesting.

NACD works with children not only across the United States, but in countries all over the world. NACD home education plans are designed to meet home education requirements where the child lives, whether that is in Ireland or Illinois, Australia or Arizona. The NACD staff monitor each child’s progress on a regular basis to ensure that we are making the gains we and parents expect to make.

Throughout the child’s academic career, the NACD program addresses improving short-term and working memory, as well as executive function. In the early grades, NACD’s academic program typically focuses on developing reading skills and a love of reading; developing a love of math and a perspective that math is really pretty easy; and an interest in learning all kinds of things about the world, including science, geography, and history, as well as learning responsibility and accountability. It’s designed to improve the child’s level of fitness and health. It is also designed to support developing interests and talents.

In middle grades, NACD’s academic program continues to emphasize reading and advancing math skills and understanding, but also includes vocabulary development, grammar, organization of written expression, appreciation of literature, as well as addressing subjects including science, history, geography, technology, and other subjects required by their state, region, or country. There is a continued emphasis on building highly capable skills, independence, and responsibility.

At the high school level, NACD’s academic program continues to be designed to suit the needs of the individual while meeting the requirements of the Department of Education where they live. The plan often includes higher-level math, literature, written expression, sciences, history, and other required courses based on their requirements, but also based on their individual needs and future plans.

For all of NACD’s academic programs, the parent is the key educator. NACD designs individual plans, identifies specific resources, and monitors progress through frequent communication with the parents. Formal evaluations are typically completed on a trimester basis. NACD coaches are available via email, phone, Skype, or Zoom to provide support and answer questions. NACD evaluators provide the evaluations and programs and respond to all questions and concerns on a timely basis.

What NACD home education programs are not:

• They are not a virtual instruction program.
• They are not a one-size fits all academic plan.
• They are not taught by an NACD instructor.

What NACD home education programs are:

• Whole child programs
• Totally individualized programs
• Cognitive development as well as academic programs
• Parent-supportive programs
• Totally responsive to changes in the child programs
• Efficient and effective programs

Additional information:

• The length of the instructional day is based on the child’s ability to process information.
• The instructional day is typically much shorter than other home education plans.
• The instructional day includes physical activities designed specifically for your child, as well as chores.
• The instructional day is flexible so as to fit into parents’ employment needs and other responsibilities and availability of help from family, friends, nannies, and other caregivers.

To learn more, visit our NACD Home Education & Homeschool FAQ

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 9, 2020 ©NACD

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