It’s always good to see celebrities using their fame to help people. Learning Breakthrough salutes British star Kara Tointon for going public about her Dyslexia. Kara Tointon’s BBC Documentary, “Kara Tointon: Don’t Call Me Stupid” will help people overcome the stigmatization and seek treatments that can and do help adults with dyslexia.

From the BBC.UK site:

Actress and Strictly Come Dancing contestant Kara Tointon has battled with dyslexia all her life and longs to be able to read a book from cover to cover.

You can see how Kara tries to overcome the condition in Kara Tointon: Don’t Call Me Stupid on Thursday 11 November at 2100 GMT on BBC Three. The programme will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.

via BBC News – Kara Tointon’s struggle with dyslexia.

 

Our clients are frequently telling us that overcoming the stigma is one of the hardest things about seeking treatment for dyslexia.  This documentary will help thousands of people by shedding light on the dyslexia challenge.

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.

Misdiagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – WrongDiagnosis.com.

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.

Page 74-75 The Still-Missing Core

“One of the basic principles of a two-engine airplane is the synchronicity between the two engine systems that are fixed on either side of the plane. If one engine puts out more thrust than the other, it causes problems in flight. If the disparity is sufficiently severe, it can cause the plane to go out of control and crash. Remembering this principle caused an idea to begin to percolate: was the issue these children were experiencing related to the balance between the two sides of their bodies?

In the mid-1960s, It was not a popular idea to look for learning ability in the body, but the more I observed the children in my classroom, the more the two problems seemed corollary. And why shouldn’t they be? The movement of the body through space is defined by brain functions, just as the ability to read and do arithmetic are defined by brain functions. If the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone, wouldn’t it make sense that the various departments in the brain are connected, too? I began to wonder: what if an individual’s body provides a graphic representation of the inner workings of the brain?”

Dr. Frank Belgau-author of A Life in Balance, Discovery of a Learning Breakthrough

via Facebook 2 | Excerpt from Life in Balance, Discovery of a Learning Breakthrough

Guest Blogger

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.

Publication of the Fifth Edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is scheduled for publication in May 2013. This is an important document, you might even call it hugely important, for a number of reasons. The manual’s effects are such that its revisions can have a rippling impact for decades to come and this extends far beyond the psychiatric community of professionals that oversees its publication.

The DSM-5 is a listing of ALL psychiatric disorders in the USA and effects treatment regimens, how doctors approach diagnoses, how insurance coverage is defined, how health care is delivered, how labels are meted out for those who suffer with a covered diagnosis, and for every constituency in the medical field and many educational fields. Organizations and industries that use the DSM as a basis for their operating guidelines include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), insurance companies, medical companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, pyschiatrists, psychologists, learning pathologists, researchers, developmental specialists, clinical administrators, lawyers, judges and any group that interacts with special education and psychiatric disorders in any fashion.

Some of the headlines that are coming out of the proposed changes in this iteration of the DSM are:
•    Asperger’s Syndrome is out – everyone’s going to have an “autistic spectrum disorder” identification instead
•    Personality Disorders are out – kind of. In their place, there’s five Personality Disorder types, each of which you can have to varying degrees, and also six Personality Traits, each of which you can have to varying degrees
•    Hyperactive Sexual Desire Disorder is out, and is to be replaced with a definition of Sexual Interest and Arousal Disorder
•    Binge Eating Disorder, Hypersexuality Disorder, and Gambling Addiction are in

There are more detailed and difficult to interpret things in the DSM that have to do with diagnostic approaches, classifications, assessment standards and structural frameworks for a range of clinical definitions; and many other things that go beyond our simple observations listed here.

There are a few “DSM revision petition” sites out there and the one we are watching is at the SPD Foundation which is working to have sensory processing and sensory integration topics formally included in the DSM for the first time.

Inclusion in the DSM means a lot of things. It would serve as validation of decades of work by skilled sensory development specialists (like Frank Belgau) and open the way for Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) to become formally recognized as a DSM-qualified disorder treatment. This would impact regulation and open the doors for countless people to have their sensory challenges treated with a level of scrutiny and resources that has not existed previously. It means pediatricians and others will have standardized criteria for making a correct diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder. It means treatment opportunities, funding and research priorities will be identified and propelled forward. It also means that children with Sensory Processing Disorder will be more likely to receive school accommodations and public services.  In this context, “hugely important” is probably a very fair characterization.