Whole-Brain Living and Learning

Friday, August 22, 2014

Brain Gym® for Traumatic Brain Injury

"Moving toward a higher level of daily functioning
one step at a time... with Brain Gym®"

This is the statement of intention that my Brain Gym^® colleague, Mary Ann Beebe, and I created for a very special project: We were hired by the Brain Injury Alliance here in Phoenix, Arizona, to offer two one-hour Brain Gym sessions per month for people who have experienced traumatic brain injury (TBI). It is incredibly rewarding to share Brain Gym with this special population.

We never know who will arrive for these sessions, which are listed on the monthly schedule along with such classes as tai chi, karate, strength training, and aerobics, at the state-of-the-art Virginia G. Piper Sport and Fitness Center, part of the Disability Empowerment Center, where the Brain Injury Alliance has its offices.

Not long ago, seven participants slowly arrived and found places for one of our Tuesday evening sessions – some walking, others in wheelchairs – and all had a family member or caregiver with them. Everyone that day was new.

And there sat “Dan” in the front row, a young man in his 20’s, brought by his father for his first experience of Brain Gym. Dan was clearly doubtful, resistant, and distracted.

We had no idea how Dan had ended up with a brain injury, which we could see had left him with some cognitive issues, and challenges using the left side of his body.

Mary Ann and I introduced ourselves and the Brain Gym program, and led the group through a modified form of pace, the Brain Gym warm-up.[1] Everyone but Dan seemed interested and ready to participate; Dan we ended up coaxing, humoring, and cajoling in a good-natured way, to complete these simple activities.

Then we went on to the core activity of the day’s session, a group Brain Gym "balance."

As licensed Brain Gym® Instructors, Mary Ann and I typically do balances with individual clients - children or adults - with special needs, or typically-abled - who want to make a change in some specific area of life. They may choose to address reading, focus, organization, coordination in physical skills, etc. In a one-on-one session, balances are focused on the specifics of that particular "learner" and his goal for change.

A standard Brain Gym balance is a five-step process. The learner gets into his best pace for taking on new learning, sets an intention, or goal, for what kind of change he’d like to make, notices his current ability level at that target skill or ability, chooses Brain Gym movements that he’s drawn to in that moment, and notices changes in his ability or skill.

When Mary Ann and I began planning how we would go about offering Brain Gym balances to an entire group of participants in this special population, we realized that our key word would be “simplify.” For the balance process itself, that meant paring down to three primary elements – Notice, Brain Gym, Notice. And rather than a balance, we called it a “Learning Adventure.”

We again simplified by choosing a single physical activity that we thought would work for everyone in the group to use for their initial “noticing.” Our intention is that any given physical activity will represent the kinds of coordination and cognitive challenges that people with TBI experience on a daily basis.

On this day, we distributed balls and suggested that everyone see what they could do with them – bouncing, tossing – with or without a partner. Mary Ann and I modeled a few options. Some participants chose to partner with a caregiver or family member, and bounce the ball back and forth to each other. One man with limited movement chose to roll the ball from hand to hand. Another chose to bounce the ball on the floor next to his wheelchair, which he accomplished by simply letting go of it. His partner would catch it and return it to him, as it often bounced out of range of his reach.

Dan chose to sit on his chair and bounce the ball on the floor, which he did with his right hand – the hand on the “unaffected” side of his body.

After a few minutes of this activity, we asked everyone to notice what was working in how they were interacting with the ball, and what they wished was working better. Then we introduced the Learning Menu.

For each session, Mary Ann and I simplified by selecting a Learning Menu of just four Brain Gym movements (rather than offering all 26). That day we’d posted four photos on a large board, showing Brain Gym activities that we thought would be a good combination.[2] We invited participants to call out which one they thought we should do first.

Someone in the group suggested Arm Activation, so we demonstrated that, and supported everyone in experiencing it. That was followed by The Thinking Cap, Double Doodle, and Earth Buttons. Clearly doubtful, Dan made a running commentary throughout, asking questions about how each movement was supposed to help.

When we had done all four Brain Gym activities, we invited everyone to return to their ball activity. Almost immediately, people began commenting on what they were noticing now: better aim, more energy behind their movements, improved coordination in catching. The man in the wheelchair was no longer just letting go of the ball - he was actually propelling it down with force, so that it bounced much higher, and sometimes he caught it himself.

It was at this point that I looked over at Dan, who was bouncing and catching his ball quite accurately, and with great enthusiasm. I asked him what he was noticing, and he said, “Nothing.” His father, however, had observed something that I had entirely missed. He said, “Dan, do you realize that you’re bouncing the ball with your left hand? You’ve been using your left hand this whole time.”

“Oh -- I am!” Dan said, with a really big smile.

We joined the group in celebrating all the changes they’d noticed, and closed our session with a “cool down” consisting of Hook-ups and Positive Points. We wished everyone a great evening, and reminded them of when our next session would be. Everyone left with a copy of our modified pace process, and a page showing that day’s learning menu, so they could continue with these activities at home.

Mary Ann and I love this rewarding work, which requires a whole new level of slowing down, being present and observant, and meeting individual needs. We love seeing the small changes that manifest in each and every session. And who knows how these small changes, one step at a time, will ripple out into the lives of each participant?

Warm regards,

Kathy

Addendum: As Mary Ann and I were preparing for our most recent session, Dan walked past our training room accompanied by his mother, intent on using the weight machines. His mother paused just long enough to say, "Brain Gym is helping him so much!" Since our session was about to begin, and several people were just arriving, I didn't have time to ask for details. Dan had participated in only two of our group sessions, and had experienced a total of thirteen Brain Gym activities: the five movements from our modified PACE, and two different Learning Menus of four each. I can only assume that he is doing these Brain Gym movements regularly (perhaps with guidance from his parents). I look forward to learning more, when the timing is right!

[1] The standard pace warm-up consists of four Brain Gym activities: Sipping Water, rubbing Brain Buttons, doing the Cross Crawl, and doing Hook-ups. (For instructions on these activities, please see my book Educate Your Brain, or Brain Gym® Teacher’s Edition, by Paul and Gail Dennison.) Because some of these participants with TBI may also be prone to seizures, we use Cecilia Koester’s recommendation for modifying the pace process. For the third element, rather than starting with the cross-lateral Cross Crawl, we begin with “Puppet Crawl” which is a one-sided activity: raise and lower the right arm and leg, then raise and lower the left arm and leg, etc. We follow this with the Cross Crawl, telling everyone that if they’re prone to seizures, please omit the Cross Crawl, and do only the Puppet Crawl; once they've been doing the Puppet Crawl for some time, they may feel ready to include the Cross Crawl. We all then finish with Hook-ups.

[2] My clever photographer husband created large cards for us in the same format as the wonderful cards produced by Edu-Kinesthetics. He began with the 12 photo images he’d taken for my book, Educate Your Brain, then added others we’d taken, to give us a set of all 26.

Click here for a link to the website for my book, Educate Your Brain

www.educateyourbrain.com

Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of Brain Gym® International, Ventura, California • www.braingym.org

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Friday, July 25, 2014

Alphabet 8s for Reading

Eight year old “Mark” arrived for his second Brain Gym^® session with an enthusiastic report: reading and writing were much easier since his first session, three weeks prior.

Mark had been diagnosed with “dyslexia and dysgraphia,” and, despite his clear intelligence and precocious verbal language skills, had struggled in school. Now, following his first Brain Gym session (which had included Dennison Laterality Repatterning), he found that he could read much more easily, and understand what he read. His handwriting had definitely improved, as well. Mark and I shared a high-five to celebrate these changes!

When I asked Mark what he’d like to work on now, he said that he was still “kind of confusing d’s and b’s” in both reading and writing. He said he could mostly figure them out, but he wanted to know them “instantly.”

To create a pre-check for this goal, I pulled out my small whiteboard and wrote d’s and b’s all over it. I pointed to one letter after another, in random order. Mark correctly identified each one, but his face was stressed and it looked like he was barely breathing, signs that a lot of effort was going into this activity.

Reversals

Making reversals like this is common among young children, most of whom grow out of it as they mature. When reversals persist into a child’s school years, it could indicate that certain kinds of patterning were not complete, perhaps the outcome of not going through the crawling stage, or not actually crawling-on-the-floor frequently enough, and with sufficient duration.

Crawling is a significant process that helps to pattern the child’s brain for fluidly using both hemispheres together. Without this kind of patterning, we may struggle to perceive the difference between such things as b and d, or p and q, or 3 and E.

The Cross Crawl

Indeed, I had learned from Mark’s mother that he had skipped the crawling stage. When he began his first Brain Gym session, he had great difficulty with the Cross Crawl movement, where we raise one knee and reach over to connect the opposite elbow to it; then the other knee with its opposite elbow, etc., back and forth (requiring cooperation between our two brain hemispheres). It was much easier for Mark to bring his elbow down to his “same-side” knee, rather than crossing over to the opposite knee.

By the end of that first session (which, as I mentioned, included Dennison Laterality Repatterning), he could easily and automatically reach for the opposite knee. Immediately, his reading showed a dramatic improvement. He was reading easily, with expression.

Back to today’s session…

This time, Mark’s learning menu started out with doing the Lazy 8s. This is an activity that calls on both the right and left hemispheres simultaneously, and requires the learner to “cross the midline.”

I made a sample Lazy 8 on my big whiteboard and asked Mark to begin tracing over it, until he felt “done.” This took quite a few repetitions, as his mind-body system was absorbing this pattern. When he felt finished, I asked him to switch the marker to his other hand, and do the same thing. With his non-dominant hand, he was less coordinated, and it took longer for him to feel like he had the flow of the Lazy 8. Then I asked him to hold the marker with both hands, and again trace the 8. He took some time with this activity, as well.

When he finished, I asked him where the “d” would fit, and where the “b” would fit, if they were part of the flow of the Lazy 8s. He immediately identified the “d” as belonging on the left side, and the “b” as belonging on the right side. I drew them on the board, and suggested that he trace over what I’d done.

This method of blending letters of the alphabet into the Lazy 8s pattern is called “Alphabet 8s.”[1]

I showed Mark how to do three Lazy 8s, and then, from the midpoint of the 8, flow into the letter. Again and again with letter "d," and again and again with letter "b." He did this intently, experiencing how different these two letters look, and how different they feel to make.

The letter d begins with a curve up to the left, around, then a straight line up and down.

The letter b begins with a downstroke, then a curve up to the right and around.

When Mark felt finished with his Alphabet 8s, he said he was ready to repeat his precheck. This time, when I pointed to each of the letters – d or b in random order – he not only immediately knew each one, but he supplied his answers breathing easily, and with a smile on his face.

He said, “Wow – that was easier!” And when he read a bit of a storybook to me, he again said, “Wow – that was easier, too!” And he went away, happily, with his mother.

Mark may have fully balanced for his entire goal of reading easily, or he may still have other aspects to resolve. Time will tell. But I love knowing that, if he identifies new areas where he'd like to improve, we can address them with Brain Gym balancing!

Warm regards,
Kathy
[1] The Alphabet 8s activity includes patterns for all 26 letters of the alphabet. For more information about Alphabet 8s you can refer to Brain Gym^® Teacher’s Edition, by Paul and Gail Dennison.

Click here for a link to the website for my book, Educate Your Brain

www.educateyourbrain.com

Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of Brain Gym® International, Ventura, California • www.braingym.org

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Otherwise, click here to access this article as a separate page,

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Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Brain Gym® - For a "Brand New Brain"

“Amanda” is a sweet, intelligent young girl, and she was about to be retained in third grade. She had come to this country speaking only Spanish, and had learned English over the last two years. By now she was fairly fluent in English, but somehow, she could not read easily in either Spanish or English, and the director of her school described her as being “language-confused.”

This was the story of the first child I was to work with at a visit to a local school I visit once each month for a “residency day,” to work one-on-one with students the director has identified as needing special help.

Amanda arrived for her Brain Gym session and we chatted a bit, and I went on to ask her what area she’d like to improve in. We talked about her learning of English, and she told me how difficult it had been to come to school that first day knowing only three words of English, and how hard it had been to learn. She showed me a book she had with her, and said she wished she could read more easily. She read one paragraph out loud – awkwardly, straining to recognize certain words, and stumbling over punctuation.

Somehow, the goals, “I know where to go in my brain for the Spanish,” and “I know where to go in my brain for the English” popped into my head. I asked her if this was what she wanted, and her whole face lit up. “YES!” she said. I told her that her two languages might be stored in her brain in ways that made them hard to get to, and that a Brain Gym balance might help her go more directly to the language she wanted. She was thrilled with that idea.

The Cross Crawl

Amanda’s "learning menu" called for Dennison Laterality Repatterning (a specific balance protocol that's learned in the Brain Gym® 101 course). Following this, her Cross Crawl was transformed (very awkward before, and now very smooth) indicating that the two sides of her brain may now be cooperating more efficiently. When she read out loud again it actually didn’t seem much different to me, but Amanda said that reading was indeed a “whole lot easier.” She returned to her classroom, delighted – and I wondered just what change had occurred, and how it would unfold.

One of the challenges of working one day per month in a school is that I have to wait quite a while to find out what changes may have occurred. But this time, I found out about Amanda’s outcomes sooner, and in a surprising way:

Two weeks later one of the teachers at the school called me on the phone to ask, “Did you work with a girl named Amanda on your last residency day?” It turned out that Amanda’s mother was a close friend of this teacher’s, and had quite a story to tell.

The mother reported that Amanda had come home from school and said, “You’re not going to have to follow me around and make me do my homework anymore.”

“What?” asked the mother.

“I have a brand new brain!” Amanda said.

“What? What do you mean? How did that happen?” asked the mother.

A "Brand New Brain"!

“I don’t know – they fixed my brain,” Amanda said with a big grin.

Very confused, and wanting to know what Amanda could possibly be talking about, the mother finally called her friend the teacher, who suggested that Amanda might have experienced a Brain Gym session that day, and that it might have made a big difference for her.

And indeed, overnight, homework had gone from a battle to something that Amanda did on her own, easily, every day. Not only that, both her ease in expressing herself in English, and her ability to write in either language blossomed overnight; and a check of her reading skill showed that in two weeks she had gone from reading at grade level 2.3 to 3.0. Amazing, what a “brand new brain” will do!

Six month update

The balance described above took place late in the third quarter of the academic year. At that time the school expected to have Amanda repeat third grade, as she was having such a challenge in showing competency in core areas of the curriculum. Up to that point she had earned almost all D's and F's, mostly due to incomplete work.

Her report card of the fourth quarter, following her Brain Gym balance, was almost all A's and B's! Needless to say, everyone was delighted, and this year Amanda is working beautifully in fourth grade.

Warm regards,

Kathy

Please post your comments!

If you see a comment space below, please enter your thoughts there.

Otherwise, click here to access this article as a separate page,

and scroll down to the comment space. Thanks!

Click here for a link to the website for my book, Educate Your Brain

A slightly different version of this article was published in 2005

in Notes from Center Edge, Kathy Brown’s newsletter that

predates her creation of this Whole-Brain Living and Learning blog.

Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of Brain Gym International • www.braingym.org