Jacob's Story
We had virtually no clue our son, Jacob, needed help until he was almost five. In fact, we kept thanking God that we "rolled aces" and had such a gifted, loveable child. He spoke early at 9 months, learned to read at 2-1/2, and was reading fluently and expressively by age 3. He loved learning, thought math was a game, and could add and subtract at age 4. He was imaginative, great at amusing himself, had an excellent sense of humor and was very affectionate.
However, he had always used language more to pontificate than to converse. And while he'd happily jump into a teacher's or any adult's lap, he couldn't name more than two children in his nursery school. He played among but rarely with them, and didn't seem to notice that the other children were forming close friendships.
Just before Jacob turned 5, we moved and he switched to a totally play-oriented nursery school. Jacob fell apart. He became very oppositional. If you said "The sky is blue," he'd immediately say, "The sky is green." He began hitting and biting the teachers several times a day. He mostly isolated himself from the other children, flying into a crying rage if they tried to join in the imaginative scenes he was playing by himself. He stopped looking adults in the eye. Despite his large vocabulary, he couldn't describe his feelings. One night, he awoke with an earache and ran crying into our room wailing a Dr. Seuss line: "Oh dear, oh dear, I cannot hear! Won't you please look in my ear? There must be something there I fear!" From that moment on, we began insisting Jacob use his own words, and he burst into self-expression as though he had never before realized he could invent his own sentences.
A neighbor mentioned she was just beginning a neurodevelopmental program with her 12-year-old son and explained the approach. It made complete sense. Of course you can develop the brain by using it! Correcting the way the body and brain take in and put out information sounded to me far more useful than giving a child a lifelong label and setting limited expectations for him. We began our search and wait for a neurodevelopmentalist.
When Jacob entered kindergarten, he could express his ideas better, but still became very frustrated and wailed about something at least once a day. He hit or bared his teeth at a teacher a couple of times a week, and had trouble conversing and playing with other children. He had very poor body awareness. He didn't realize when he wasn't in line and couldn't follow instructions in gym to save his life. He needed an aide in the classroom to keep him on the teacher's agenda. To understand him better, we went through a special ed evaluation. He defied a label, so in order to ensure services they settled on PDD NOS or Asperger's. "Jacob is very teachable," the report said. Even in my sadness, I laughed at this. My kindergartner was reading at a 6th grade level, comprehending what he read at a 3rd-grade level, and doing 3rd grade math. It was, to me, a major understatement to say that he could be taught whatever skills he was lacking. From my Internet research, I decided he had central auditory processing and sensory integration problems.
Halfway through kindergarten, we finally found and met with our neurodevelopmentalist, Linda Kane. We have since come to think of her as our guardian angel. She agreed with what I had guessed about Jacob, and added to it mixed dominance, overdeveloped peripheral vision at the expense of his central detail vision (no wonder he wasn't looking people in the eye!), incomplete cross-patterning, eyes that didn't converge, tactility and proprioception issues. The mixed dominance and poor auditory processing gave him trouble responding quickly and making one side of his brain talk to the other, which explained why anything reciprocal-from the left-right-left of pedaling a bicycle to the give-and-take of a conversation-was so hard for him.
Jacob started a neurodevelopmental program right away. We did an hour of activities every morning before school, and about two hours after school, plus Samonas sound therapy. His aide did about 20 minutes in school. Most activities took only 2-5 minutes, 2-4 times a day. We saw almost instant improvement, which continued in both small increments and huge leaps. Jacob's language skills bloomed. He could finally locate and name his body parts and describe his emotions. He started playing with, rather than just tolerating, his younger brother. They still play together constantly. He listened better, followed instructions better, and developed more coordination and stamina. He started noticing how other people felt. The staff at Jacob's school were so awed by the effects of ND that they started doing some of the activities on other children.
A year after starting the ND program, Jacob's hearing was much less oversensitive. He could process language much faster and, therefore, converse with people. He was able to do most of the physical things a 1st grader should do (tie shoes, ride a bike, hang on to a rope swing). He stopped contradicting people. He had a blast at birthday parties. By the end of 1st grade, to our surprise, Jacob begged us to send him to summer soccer camp, where he was just one of the kids and had a great time.
We're halfway through second grade now. Jacob has a shared aide who stays far in the background. He never has special help in all his other activities, from a large Sunday School class to Cub Scouts. There have been no major outbursts in school, and even brief bursts of tears or frustration quickly turn to good cheer. Jacob has made friends, asks other children to join him in activities, cheers for them when they compete and comes to their aide when they need help. He loves soccer, gymnastics, swimming and Cub Scouts. He may be the least coordinated and least socially mature kid among his peers, but he's truly a peer. He has a bit of catching up to do in very specific areas of language, but is accelerated enough in literacy to be the only second grader in the Gifted and Talented program. Recently, he's shown a big leap in common sense, a milestone we've been waiting for. We still do some ND, but we've had to cut way back because, frankly, Jacob is busy being a regular kid!
There's a reason neurodevelopmentalists are almost all parents. Once you see ND's power to transform your child's life, you want to give the gift to every child you see.
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However, he had always used language more to pontificate than to converse. And while he'd happily jump into a teacher's or any adult's lap, he couldn't name more than two children in his nursery school. He played among but rarely with them, and didn't seem to notice that the other children were forming close friendships.
Just before Jacob turned 5, we moved and he switched to a totally play-oriented nursery school. Jacob fell apart. He became very oppositional. If you said "The sky is blue," he'd immediately say, "The sky is green." He began hitting and biting the teachers several times a day. He mostly isolated himself from the other children, flying into a crying rage if they tried to join in the imaginative scenes he was playing by himself. He stopped looking adults in the eye. Despite his large vocabulary, he couldn't describe his feelings. One night, he awoke with an earache and ran crying into our room wailing a Dr. Seuss line: "Oh dear, oh dear, I cannot hear! Won't you please look in my ear? There must be something there I fear!" From that moment on, we began insisting Jacob use his own words, and he burst into self-expression as though he had never before realized he could invent his own sentences.
A neighbor mentioned she was just beginning a neurodevelopmental program with her 12-year-old son and explained the approach. It made complete sense. Of course you can develop the brain by using it! Correcting the way the body and brain take in and put out information sounded to me far more useful than giving a child a lifelong label and setting limited expectations for him. We began our search and wait for a neurodevelopmentalist.
When Jacob entered kindergarten, he could express his ideas better, but still became very frustrated and wailed about something at least once a day. He hit or bared his teeth at a teacher a couple of times a week, and had trouble conversing and playing with other children. He had very poor body awareness. He didn't realize when he wasn't in line and couldn't follow instructions in gym to save his life. He needed an aide in the classroom to keep him on the teacher's agenda. To understand him better, we went through a special ed evaluation. He defied a label, so in order to ensure services they settled on PDD NOS or Asperger's. "Jacob is very teachable," the report said. Even in my sadness, I laughed at this. My kindergartner was reading at a 6th grade level, comprehending what he read at a 3rd-grade level, and doing 3rd grade math. It was, to me, a major understatement to say that he could be taught whatever skills he was lacking. From my Internet research, I decided he had central auditory processing and sensory integration problems.
Halfway through kindergarten, we finally found and met with our neurodevelopmentalist, Linda Kane. We have since come to think of her as our guardian angel. She agreed with what I had guessed about Jacob, and added to it mixed dominance, overdeveloped peripheral vision at the expense of his central detail vision (no wonder he wasn't looking people in the eye!), incomplete cross-patterning, eyes that didn't converge, tactility and proprioception issues. The mixed dominance and poor auditory processing gave him trouble responding quickly and making one side of his brain talk to the other, which explained why anything reciprocal-from the left-right-left of pedaling a bicycle to the give-and-take of a conversation-was so hard for him.
Jacob started a neurodevelopmental program right away. We did an hour of activities every morning before school, and about two hours after school, plus Samonas sound therapy. His aide did about 20 minutes in school. Most activities took only 2-5 minutes, 2-4 times a day. We saw almost instant improvement, which continued in both small increments and huge leaps. Jacob's language skills bloomed. He could finally locate and name his body parts and describe his emotions. He started playing with, rather than just tolerating, his younger brother. They still play together constantly. He listened better, followed instructions better, and developed more coordination and stamina. He started noticing how other people felt. The staff at Jacob's school were so awed by the effects of ND that they started doing some of the activities on other children.
A year after starting the ND program, Jacob's hearing was much less oversensitive. He could process language much faster and, therefore, converse with people. He was able to do most of the physical things a 1st grader should do (tie shoes, ride a bike, hang on to a rope swing). He stopped contradicting people. He had a blast at birthday parties. By the end of 1st grade, to our surprise, Jacob begged us to send him to summer soccer camp, where he was just one of the kids and had a great time.
We're halfway through second grade now. Jacob has a shared aide who stays far in the background. He never has special help in all his other activities, from a large Sunday School class to Cub Scouts. There have been no major outbursts in school, and even brief bursts of tears or frustration quickly turn to good cheer. Jacob has made friends, asks other children to join him in activities, cheers for them when they compete and comes to their aide when they need help. He loves soccer, gymnastics, swimming and Cub Scouts. He may be the least coordinated and least socially mature kid among his peers, but he's truly a peer. He has a bit of catching up to do in very specific areas of language, but is accelerated enough in literacy to be the only second grader in the Gifted and Talented program. Recently, he's shown a big leap in common sense, a milestone we've been waiting for. We still do some ND, but we've had to cut way back because, frankly, Jacob is busy being a regular kid!
There's a reason neurodevelopmentalists are almost all parents. Once you see ND's power to transform your child's life, you want to give the gift to every child you see.
Back to Testimonies