Learning Breakthrough

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) don’t dwell on why things go wrong in our lives. We are too busy moving on to the next shiny thing. ADD/ADHD medication helps us slow down our racing thoughts, so we can ask, “Is this the best thing for me to be doing?” or “Is this the right thing to say?” Writing about our ADD/ADHD lets us take things to a higher level. We can analyze our behaviors -- and misbehaviors -- and pinpoint how ADD/ADHD symptoms contribute to the problems in our lives.

I used to come home from work, in my dress clothes and high heels, and head straight to my rock garden to weed. After an hour, my dress was soiled, my stockings ripped, and my shoes trashed. Writing about this impulsive habit allowed me to see my behavior objectively. It made me realize I should change my clothes before working in the yard. Of course, making that discovery didn’t make clothes-changing a habit. I had to train my brain to get into my gardening garb.

The more I write about my ADD/ADHD challenges, the more I learn about why things -- at work, in relationships -- don’t go well. Writing makes me examine something I used to accept as another bad day, instead of just replaying the day in my mind and chastising myself for poor performance. Over time, writing has reduced the burdens of falling short of my own, or other people’s, expectations by giving me the perspective to make changes.

via Treat Attention Deficit Disorder Symptoms Through Writing | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Help and Info -- ADDitude.

Train The Brain: Using Neurofeedback To Treat ADHD : NPR.

The link above references an interesting piece on NPR about how neurofeedback can be used to treat ADD/ADHD:

Even though there are studies now showing that neurofeedback works for ADHD, all of these studies have serious limitations, researchers say. So the approach remains promising but unproved, says David Rabiner, a researcher at Duke University who writes a newsletter about treatments for ADHD...

A team at The Ohio State University has nearly completed a pilot study of neurofeedback for ADHD that was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The team had hoped to announce results last week at a scientific meeting in New York, but Gene Arnold, one of the scientists in charge of the study, says they had to delay that announcement because "we weren't able to get the results analyzed in time," he says.

Learning Breakthrough and the vestibular-cerebellar training approach to ADHD remediation more generally have been considered by the research team at Ohio State University as well. Our interest in the topic stems from the substantial neurofeedback aspect to the Learning Breakthrough Program...as the repetitive nature of LBP's balance exercises themselves generate what the user in this article calls "constant feedback during a session" through constant motor control monitoring, planning, executive function modulation, and hemispheric integration all in one system. There is much hope that as this research progresses and the pilot study information is collated that LBP will be tested along side on neurofeedback techniques and a control group.

When the cognitive paradigm became dominant, inattention became the focus of ADHD, and disorder was renamed attention deficit disorder (ADD). Two subtypes would later appear in the literature, which correspond to ADD with or without hyperactivity. The diagnostic nomenclature reflects the notion that the primary problem was an attentional (and thus, cognitive) one and not primarily behavioral. The attentional problems had to do with the ability to shift attention from one stimulus to another (something that Jonah Lehrer has called an attention-allocation disorder, since it isn’t really a deficit of attention). The hyperactivity symptoms were also reformulated as cognitive: connected with an executive processing deficit termed “freedom from distractibility.”

Preliminary findings from a study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show that sensory intervention -- for example, deep pressure and strenuous exercise -- can significantly improve problem behaviors such as restlessness, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Of the children receiving occupational therapy, 95 percent improved. This is the first study of this size on sensory intervention for ADHD.

The Temple University researchers, Kristie Koenig, PhD, OTR/L, and Moya Kinnealey, PhD, OTR/L, wanted to determine whether ADHD problem behaviors would decrease if underlying sensory and neurological issues were addressed with occupational therapy. Their study, "Comparative Outcomes of Children with ADHD: Treatment Versus Delayed Treatment Control Condition," was presented Friday, May 13, at the American Occupational Therapy Association meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

Children with ADHD have difficulty paying attention and controlling their behavior. Experts are uncertain about the exact cause of ADHD, but believe there are both genetic and biological components. Treatment typically consists of medication, behavior therapy or a combination of the two.

via TherapyTimes.com: Occupational therapy improves ADHD.

LBP's focused sensory processing program for ADHD is a perfect fit for those looking to introduce a complete and complementary set of sensory exercises to their daily routine.

So much of my reading lately and connections to new users have to do with the misdiagnosis of ADHD. There seems to be no other "disability" that generates more difficulty in accurate diagnosis and more ways to address the symptoms than ADHD. For a rather good look at the topic, a doctor friend sent me the link attached here. The language may be a little loose but the point is that there are many paths to a misdiagnosis and it is something for all of us, therapists, teachers and parents to be aware of that I thought it would be a good share.

via The Role of Brain Fitness in Self Help Programs:

All of those programs involve regular practice of certain behaviors, and there are three behaviors we humans can hope to manage or control, our thinking, our feelings, and our behaviors, or how our body moves.

If you have read Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s book FLOW, which is treatise on the psychology of optimal performance, then you know that we process sound, visual, touch, smell, and taste information at the rate of seven bits of data every 1/18th second, so self help programs need to be learned and implemented in a very short period of time. (1/18th second is twice as fast as I can blink my eyes).

Self help then must be a process of awareness and management of sensory processing done very quickly and very frequently.

I liken the process for my anger management clients to steering a car, you make thousands of small adjustments to the position of the vehicle on the road, and are paying attention to hundreds of variables at a given moment, traffic in front, behind, traffic lights, children, the policeman six blocks ahead, ect. As you do this, you keep the vehicle going in the direction you want, at the speed you want, in a safe way for yourself and other drivers. You avoid potholes.

The blog post linked to below talks about Dr. Charles Parker, psychiatrist and ADHD expert. I have spoken with Dr. Parker on a couple of occasions and he was quite gracious in looking at our program. He was helpful, open minded and great to listen to as I was getting more involved in the science behind brain fitness topics. As will many psychiatrists with expansive minds and reading lists, he was never closed minded in his approach to LBP even though he never decided "take it on" or make it more central to his studies. I recall spending a great deal of time learning about SPEC imaging and other empirical methods based on reading from his blog and last year got to enjoy his presentation to the Virtual ADHD conference. Nice article and best wishes to Dr. Parker. Thanks to Moms With ADD/ADHD site for the posting.

ADHD Medication Rules: Paying Attention To The Meds For Paying Attention - Moms With ADD/ADHD.

Dr. Edward (Ned) Hallowell, ADHD expert and best-selling author, announces making the Learning Breakthrough Program available at the prestigious Hallowell Centers in both Massachusetts and New York.

Dr. Hallowell's inclusion of Learning Breakthrough's proven balance and sensory remediation program is a welcome addition to the therapy options offered at his US centers. Learning Breakthrough will be critical to his positive, multidisciplinary, "strength-based" treatment aproach and is being used to help solve the challenges of ADHD, Dyslexia, CAPD as well as other cognitive needs. The program's value lies in enabling clients to further their developmental and academic objectives as well as social, behavioral and self-esteem ones, which is exactly why it has been so valuable as a complementary treatment in similar clinics for decades.

School mornings are hard on every family, especially those with a child with ADHD. To make mornings easier, as parents we need to organize ourselves before we organize our children.

via Book Review - A Life in Balance

by Frank Belgau as told to Eric Belgau; 200 pages. Subtitle: Discovery of a Learning Breakthrough.

"Learning Breakthrough" is a program that uses a balance board, pendulum, bean bags, and other therapy items to train kids' brains and make learning easier. Frank Belgau, who developed the program, tells of his experiences in the classroom and in academia as he worked with children to find the techniques that would turn the lights on for them. It's an engaging tale, maybe even enough to make you want to seek the program out and buy a kit at the end.

Use It or Lose It: The Theory and Practice of Brain Exercise and Fitness for Cognitive Health - 1252th Edition | Health Blog.

When we exercise our brains, we put our Neurons and connections between neurons in action.

Given the diversity of functions outlined above, it is clear that different activities are going to activate different brain areas, which scientists now know thanks to neuroimaging techniques. There is no one magic bullet that is best (either crosswords puzzles, or computer-based programs, or physical exercise): we do need a variety of mental stimulation or “brain exercises”.

Found this article with commentary and tips. many you may have heard before but regardless, reminders that keep us focused on the most important themes are always useful and I enjoyed the article as well. As an example, I found the homework advice a good refresher...

This is also first test of Zej's new tool recommendation of "Press This" for fast publishing of links and just raw text from any source. Excellent tool for efficient publishing.

ADHD Special Education Teacher's Best Advice | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Help & Info.

Many of us in the LD community have children and the need to plan summer activities just like many of the families we work with. Learning Breakthrough always gets a push at the beginning of the summer by families that know they can use the flexible time that summer brings to get kids onto the equipment and working in a fun way in advance of the next school year. We also hear from parents about their LBP advances and get recommendations on the creative ways they fill their family time.

In that vein, the following article outlining "Summer Activities for ADHD Kids" is a sampling of some great ideas and general approaches for the ADHD parent that reminds us how a little bit of structure, combined with the good fun of summer, and input from our children, can make for fun days that build family connections and memories. Working with ADHD always takes more planning for those of us who work with it but it also affords us more time than usual (outside the stressful school year) to build skills, reconnect with our families and do some "brain boosting" over long summer days instead of walking straight into the feelings of "boredom" that ADHD kids readily default to.

If you’re the parent of a child who’s having trouble learning or behaving in school, you quickly find yourself confronted with a series of difficult choices.

You can do nothing — and watch your child flounder while teachers register their disapproval. Or you can get help, which generally means, first, an expensive and time-consuming evaluation, then more visits with more specialists, intensive tutoring, therapies, perhaps, or, as is often the case with attention issues, drugs.

For many parents — particularly the sorts of parents who are skeptical of mainstream medicine and of the intentions of what one mother once described to me as “the learning-disability industrial complex” — this experience is an exercise in frustration and alienation.

The rest of the article describes some areas of similarity with LBP because of the program's substantial amount of vision-related activities. The balance and vestibular issues so critical to LBP are not described, but the hurdles that parents face and the ways that treatments are presented to parents, the pressures, etc. will be very strongly identified with by those who have had to walk that road.

Read the complete article on the Times website >>

A Big Hello to the Learning Breakthrough Blog Readers, I am delighted to have been asked to do my first guest blog post for Learning Breakthrough Program. Learning Breakthrough is one of the alternative therapy programs that I use and recommend to clients in my Hallowell Centers and also to my readers across the world. Clients continue to ask about the program, and the ones who have stayed in the program for an extended period of time have reported positive results.

I am asked regularly about my association with certain "alternative" approaches to learning disabilities. I was recently talking about vision therapy with a New York Times reporter who was asking me about skepticism observed in the medical profession regarding the topic. I told her I believe it is important to keep an open mind when it comes to alternative treatments. Most of these programs do not have the funds to undertake the multi-million dollar prospective studies that are needed to conclusively test these programs. Nonetheless, many of them, like Learning Breakthrough, have merit and have helped people a great deal.

I offer Learning Breakthrough in my offices as a powerful, approachable and inexpensive treatment that complements our other therapies wonderfully. I have found it valuable for clients with ADHD as well as dyslexia and other learning differences. It is not purely vision therapy, but rather an "integrative therapy" that makes use of several different brain systems. It is designed to get the brain working as an efficient, tight-knit system. Many of the clients who have completed the program have reported such improvements as a reduced or eliminated need for medication; better academic performance; increased organization skills; and heightened executive functioning. I hope you will read into the detailed background information posted on the Learning Breakthrough website to get a better feel for what I’m talking about.

• Sensory-motor Theory

• Neuroplasticity - Sensory Processing

With respect to vision therapy, I told the reporter I believe there is something to it. What the "something" is - is up for grabs, but we are learning more and more about how the vestibular system, visual system and auditory system can all be made to work better together and improve the treatment of attention deficit, dyslexia and other learning differences. My own son's reading problem was helped by his doing vision and vestibular exercises based on the same methods Learning Breakthrough uses which is how I came to gain an appreciation for this particular “alternative” treatment. This is not hocus-pocus. The fact that medication is the best researched intervention is due to the fact that the drug companies are the only groups with enough money to fund such expensive research. I referred the reporter, and I would refer you, to the work of Dr. Mel Kaplan, an optometrist in Tarrytown, NY who is, in my estimation, a genius and a true innovator in the field.

But note, developmental optometrists are not the only professionals that understand and apply Learning Breakthrough’s ideas. Occupational therapists, physical and speech therapists, audiologists, education specialists, and physicians have all seen client improvements along the lines of those that I’ve seen.

I tell my patients that I want to use whatever works, as long as it is safe and legal. If we wait for a New England Journal of Medicine article to report on the validation of every treatment, we'll be waiting a long time. To me, the integrative approach--making use of all the possible tools I have in the toolbox--is the best way to go.

All the best, Ned Hallowell

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MARRIED TO DISTRACTION

Announcing the publication of Dr. Hallowell's new book, Married to Distraction: Restoring Intimacy and Strengthening Your Marriage in an Age of Interruption. See a preview now! It hits the bookstores March 16, and is available to be ordered on Amazon and other online stores now.

Two happy mothers just wrote to us and (actively) asked that we share their stories with you. 
One mom said, “I would love my son's experience to benefit someone!” Maybe that someone is you…

Another mom of a college student says, “Thank you for opening Michael’s world.”

If you are a Learning Breakthrough user, please be sure to send us your “success stories” also so that you can perhaps inspire others.

Dear Learning Breakthrough Staff,

For the past 5 months my son, Michael, has been actively participating in the Learning Breakthrough Program through The Hallowell Center. He performs the exercises 2-3 times a day with the DVD. The beauty of the DVD is that it is visual and easy to follow.

Thus far the results have been remarkable. He has gone from a young adult who lived in total chaos, to one who voluntarily and easily has a clean and picked up room, a structured daily routine and a new glint in his eye!

A bright boy, barely making his way through college Michael is now talking about pursuing a career in medicine or other graduate studies. A year ago we were all at our wit's end and very concerned for his future. Now we are optimistic that Michael will lead the happy, productive life we all envisioned for him.

Thank you for opening Michael's world.

Best, Jen T., 
New York

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Dear Learning Breakthrough,

My son's story is different to the stories I have read and I would love my son's experience to benefit someone! I don't believe there is enough advertising out there on this sort of thing. I am just sorry it took us so long before trying your product to help my son. It is funny that parents only seem to talk openly when their child is bright and achieving at school. I remember being very private about our fears and confusion of our son’s difficulties, hence feeling very isolated although being on the parents PTA committee.

My son always had good balance, played all sports and had received a tennis scholarship at the age of 5. He knew his alphabet at 20 months and then went onto read and write extremely well at school (aged 4.5). However, he never spoke much, but his pronunciation was very good so his teachers never worried. He then seemed to get less and less happy at school by the time he was 7. It was oblivious to me that something was wrong.

He couldn't seem to absorb information that was in text or spoken. He refused to do an end of year test at school by turning the paper over without even attempting it. By this time the school had written him off as not being very intelligent. We knew different, as we believed he had a good brain. It just didn't add up. We were in despair as our son could not seem to absorb or retain information so I started to research and thank goodness I found Learning Breakthrough on the internet.

I immediately purchased a kit and my son loved your daily exercises as he found them great fun. It seemed so strange, we couldn't quite believe it. He started to be able to digest and retain information. His tests improved so much! He seemed a lot happier in himself, more upbeat. That was a real turning point for him. We then had him re-assessed by the Speech & Language therapist, who in the past confirmed that there were enormous holes in his vocabulary and upon being re-tested we found these holes have now been addressed and there are no more gaps.

The theory of using your product feels very simple to me. It exercises the brain in every way. This opens up and gets the brain chemicals moving as all movements have been designed for that.

Regards, E. W., England