The ANSUA Learning Center was established in Brisbane
in 1976. Since 1976 ANSUA's methods have
been widely used by teachers within Australia and overseas. Over 5000 teachers
have attended our seminars.
Most children
with learning difficulties have at least two things in common other than their
learning difficulty. They are the retention of primitive reflexes which is evidenced
by immature patterns of movement and mixed laterality.
We cannot assume that all children entering school have the physical equipment
to enable them to learn successfully.
Has the child developed the physical equipment to write, to track their eyes along
a line of print, focus their eyes so that they see one clear image and hear what's
being said?
These children may be bright
but have reading, writing, spelling and concentration problems. Instead of helping
these children by having them practice reading, writing and spelling over and
over we must address the causes of the problem. although some children may not
exhibit obvious motor impairment such as coordination difficulties, the vast majority
will have poorly organized movement patterns on the floor which can be linked
to presence of primitive reflexes and delays in development of postural reflexes.
Those children need a second chance to give the
brain the opportunity to overcome their retained reflexes so that learning can
occur.
ANSUA's research in 1995 shows
a 96% improvement for reading accuracy, and a 147% improvement for reading comprehension
of children carrying out the ANSUA Developmental School Program, compared with
a control group. (See Appendices 1 and 2)
Topics
Covered:
•
Neurological development of the child
• Role of reflexes in Learning Difficulties
• Neurological
and other factors in ADD and ADHD
•
Role of the visual and auditory systems in learning
• Nutrition and Environmental factors that impact
on learning
• Sound
Therapy
The ANSUA Developmental School
Program is designed to promote:
•
Integration of the tonic reflexes and coordination of gross motor skills.
• The development
of fine motor patterns: e.g. eye movements, eye-hand coordination and manipulative
hand skills.
•
The integration of the two sides of the body.
• The development of a dominant hemisphere.
• The development
of body and spatial awareness and directionality by enhancing the tactile, proprioceptive
and kinesthetic senses.
•
The development of visual and auditory perceptual skills.
All these areas must be treated together because to treat each in isolation is
to ignore the complexity of human function and is contrary to the dynamic unity
of the developing child.
Many types of
perceptual motor programs are available. Not all of these include the developmental
exercises that replicate the child's actual developmental pattern. It is repetition
of these developmental movements that is the vital part of therapy. The development
of language skill is the result of the orderly progressive development of the
sensory motor system. Our neurological system learns through stimulation that
it receives from the sensory world.
Providing
opportunities for learning basic movement skills and teaching body awareness,
has a powerful effect on the general organization of the nervous system.
ANSUA's approach is now supported by a growing
number of specialists who hold the developmentalist's view that a child's learning
and behavior is based on early motor sensory integration and that more complex
learning and behavior evolve out of developmental stages. Educators frequently
call reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic, 'the basics'. Actually, these
are extremely complex neurological processes that develop readily when there is
good sensory motor development. ANSUA therapy is designed to treat the cause of
the problem, which lies in the area of neurological and sensory-motor development
rather than treating the symptom as it is displayed in specific learning difficulties.
Inherent in ANSUA's treatment rationale is the
hypothesis that where motor-sensory skills have not developed properly, they can
be taught and are best taught in the same sequential order in which they normally
develop. When proper sensory-motor function can be established, the brain's ability
to learn can improve dramatically thereby reducing the gap between the learning
disabled child and his peers.
Over the
past 20 years, there has been an escalation in the numbers of children who are
presenting with learning and behavior problems and the associated problems of
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD).
There can be many factors involved
in learning and attention problems, however, most children have delays in crucial
areas of development such as visual and auditory processing.
ANSUA's APPROACH has evolved over the years. the message is simple - that mature
development, together with good nutrition is the basis for successful learning
in school. This means that the eyes, the ears, and all the systems, must be mature
and functioning well. The child must also be well nourished.
The holistic approach - seeing the whole child - is the basis for ANSUA's outstanding
success. Our approach is just plain, old fashioned common sense, using traditional
wisdom, the tried and true.
Geofrey Blainey,
historian, has said that in the 20th century there has been a momentous increase
in knowledge…But at the same time, the specialization that led to the multiplying
of knowledge is now divided into hundreds of paddocks, many having narrow gates
and electric fences… The same applies to many areas in our community including
education, which is now divided into many specialties.
ANSUA has broken free of the bondage of specialization in its treatment methods.
Treating the whole child and all the problem factors involved, leads to well adjusted,
happy and achieving children.
In 1969,
Dr James Allen, former Commissioner of Education in U.S.A., announced the TARGET
FOR THE 70'S: THE RIGHT TO READ. He said, "More than one quarter of our population…has
been denied the right to read."
Nearly
thirty years on, in Australia, the statistics are the same. For more than a quarter
of our population - or more - LITERACY is still a problem. Traditional strategies
for dealing with this problem haven't worked, don't work. ANSUA has over 20 years
of proving that learning problems can be effectively overcome.
Every day at ANSUA we see children who have been calling "Help" long before they
started failing at school. ANSUA educates teachers to observe and understand the
many signs of immature development shown by all these children.
To most of us the slow learning child is an enigma. Because he is of average intelligence,
he-
• Can
do some things better than his peers, but other activities he finds much more
difficult.
• Is
usually inconsistent in his behavior and his performance.
• We wonder if his sight is normal because we see
him reversing letters and words. We send him off for sight testing.
• We wonder if he hears
clearly because he has difficulties with sounding out words - again auditory testing
proves negative.
•
In his play he is often awkward and clumsy and other children push him
aside - he then tends to withdraw rather than have other children laugh at him.
He then fails to develop important social peer relationships through normal interaction
in the playground.
•
His approach to a task may be awkward such as the way he holds a pencil,
positions his paper, his book and himself. He may even have difficulty deciding
which hand to use.
•
He may be confused between left and right, up and down, front and back
- he is quite lost in space.
Because we
know he is intelligent, it is very easy to be critical of him and make such comments
as:
• "If
only he would pay attention!"
•
"If only he wasn't so untidy!"
• "If only he would try harder!"
• "Why can't he run and play ball like his friends?"
• "Why can't he
read and write, spell or do math when he is as bright as his peers?"
Through the ANSUA Developmental School Program teachers
can help many of these children before they fail.
Those who are failing can be assisted. There will always be some children who,
because of the nature or difficulty of their problem, or a combination of factors,
will need to come to the ANSUA Learning Center for individual assistance.
Those children who appear to be learning quite
well and are of no concern to parents and teachers, do better.
Developmental
School Program
ANSUA therapy is designed
to overcome the neurological and sensori-motor delays that are present in varying
degrees in all children with learning difficulties. These children will present
with a range of symptoms associated with their learning difficulties, however,
the underlying cause is their neurological immaturity.
The ANSUA Developmental School Program treats neurological immaturity and enhances
good child development.
ANSUA's approach
is accepted by specialists who hold the developmentalist view that a child's learning
and behavior is based on early motor sensory integration and that more complex
learning and behavior are the outcome of orderly sequential neurological development.
Educators frequently call reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic, 'the basics'.
Actually, these are extremely complex neurological processes that develop readily
when there is good sensory motor development. ANSUA therapy is designed to treat
the cause of the problem, which lies in the area of neurological and sensory-motor
development rather than treating the symptom as it is displayed in specific learning
difficulties.
Inherent in ANSUA's treatment
rationale is the hypothesis that where motor-sensory skills have not developed
properly, they can be taught and are best taught in the same sequential order
in which they normally develop. When proper sensory-motor function can be established,
the brain's ability to learn can improve dramatically thereby reducing the gap
between the learning disabled child and his peers.
How
do we learn?
We learn through our
senses. the brain is dependent on input of sensory information. We feel, see,
hear, taste, smell and continually receive information about gravity and movement
by way of the vestibular and proprioceptive systems.
In order for motor output to be efficient and meaningful, the brain must:
• receive information
• interpret and
integrate
• store
and recall, and
•
respond accurately
The early years
of a child's life are often referred to as the years of sensory motor development.
It is a period of growth and maturation of the central nervous system.
Normal development occurs sequentially with each
stage overlapping and providing the foundations for the next stage.
It is the development and integration of the sensory
motor systems that provide the child with the basic foundations for academic learning.
The baby is born with his systems intact and
ready to go. His brain has about twelve billion cells, but only the cells in the
brain stem are functional. The cortex is full of immature cells with, as yet,
little connection to the brain stem.
So
what does this mean?
The child hears
but he does not understand what he hears or where it comes from. Some sounds are
familiar:
• mother's
stomach
• mother's
heart beat and voice, and
•
these are reassuring to him
Research
has shown that he does have very fine perception of differences in sound - in
tonal frequencies - better than he will ever have again.
The child sees at far distance because he cannot focus at near-point as this sense
is poorly developed at birth. He notices movement more than perceiving stationary
detail. He does not know what it is that moves.
The child feels but touch is generalized rather than specific. He knows softness
and warmth. He does not know he is a separate person, nor where it hurts when
he is hungry, nor where it is he is scratching. At two years, he can localize
insect bites.
He has very poor proprioception
- he does not know where his hand is - in fact he does not know he has a hand.
It takes him three months to hind his hands. It takes six moths to find his feet.
If he does scratch himself, he doesn't know that it is his own self who is doing
the scratching.
His sense of gravity is
well developed - he has a number of reflexes that help him establish balance,
e.g. he responds with clinging or flexion movement when lowered suddenly.
His movement is entirely reflex - there is no
voluntary control. these reflexes operate at the spinal cord and lower brain stem
levels, e.g.
•
rooting and sucking reflexes
•
grasp reflex
•
protective flexion
•
asymmetric tonic neck reflex
His
movement is undifferentiated usually with everything going together - both arms,
both legs and trunk all going at once.
He cannot control or separate movement.
In summary, he is a very helpless little being.
The factors that affect the rate and quality of maturation of the central nervous
system and consequently the development of the sensory motor systems are
• pre-natally,
there are genetic and intra-uterine and environmental influences
• birth itself, can be very traumatic for the infant
Post-natally, maturation depends largely on the
amount of stimulation received. The amount of stimulation received will depend
on a number of factors
•
movement
•
nutrition
•
allergy
•
toxins
•
infection
•
trauma
•
metabolic disturbances, etc.
•
poor movement
Poor sensory input
è poor sensory motor integration è poor self-concept è poor
ability to learn.
Nerve cells will not
grow, proliferate, mature or become functional without the stimulation of movement.
All learning demands movement, but of course
not all movement results in learning - otherwise the hyperactive child would be
brilliant!
If we now look at the ten year
old child whose nervous system has mature, we should see on the sensory side -
He has learnt with ever increasing ability to
interpret information, notice differences and differentiate types of
• touch
• sounds
• sights
• gravitational pulls
• movements in
space
• smell
and taste
That is, he has developed the
ability to differentiate to the point of just noticeable differences. As Dr Gerry
Getman would say, "The perception of just noticeable differences is infinitely
important and is developed to varying degrees in all of us."
He has learnt to integrate and organize sensations coming from two or more systems
at once and from the two sides of the body.
In motor development his differentiation has taken a similar path.
He has learnt
• how to move
• why he moves, and
• where moving gets him.
He goes through the stages of finding out
• who am I?
• where am I?
• where is it in relation to me?
He learns all these things about himself and his world through moving.
He has learnt how to move in a
• homo-lateral pattern - using separate sides
of the body
•
symmetrical pattern - bilateral, two hands together.
• hetero-lateral or cross pattern - in creeping
and walking
•
he crosses the midline of his body with his eyes and limbs
As he moves in these different ways he suppresses and integrates the early reflex
patterns of movement that first protected him and then led to the development
of more complex movements.
He has developed
the just noticeable difference in his
• postural movement
• movements of transport
• manipulative movements
The highly developed fine manipulative movements of his hands allow him to write.
It is not often realized that he must also develop
very skillful manipulative movement of his eyes, if he is to read easily.
As Gessell said, "We are born in two halves and
we must put these halves together to make a whole."
When there are immaturities/deviation within the framework of development, the
child is more likely to have difficulties with academic learning. However, there
are some children who adapt well to their developmental problems and are able
to achieve in spite of them.
"The process
of normal development is dependent upon the emergence, inhibition and in certain
instances, transformation of primitive reflexes, so that postural reflexes may
be released in preparing a child for progressive development. {The nervous system
learns by doing} [Gilfoyle, Grady and Moore] and reflexive action aids the continued
opening up of neural pathways. Motor behavior should be the product of a system
in which brain and body work together to form a communicating system of response,
action and expression. Messages should be transmitted with equal efficiency from
brain to body and back again, via the efferent and afferent systems. If this is
disrupted in any way, then subsequent motor and sensory functions may be affected,
altering the transmission of messages from one system in the body to another,
and further distorting perceptions, and their transposition from sensory experience
into thought, language, emotion, and even the ability to deal with that sensory
experience itself." (Sally Goddard 1995.)
The child who fails to interpret and discriminate tactile stimuli correctly may
• resist being
touched or handled
•
clothes may prickle him
•
may cry excessively when hurt on not cry even when significantly hurt
or maybe he
• likes to be cuddled excessively
• is obsessed with cuddly toys
• has to touch everything
The child with proprioceptive, tactile and vestibular problems does not receive
the messages it should from movement of his body.
• he may be frightened of movement or
• he may enjoy extremes
of movement
He has difficulties with his
space world
• poor
body image
• poor
spatial awareness
•
lost, bumps into things, covered with cuts and bruises
• knocks things over, his work is untidy
These children will often have delay in the acquisition
of mathematical skills.
Auditory problems
• he may be slow
to talk - has gobbledygook language, discriminates sound poorly
• can't learn phonics, noise may disturb him
• works poorly
in groups - classroom noises distract
• doesn't pay attention, can't relay messages
The child who processes visual stimuli poorly
does not gain meaning from what he sees. He does not notice things in the world
around him. He cannot see the just noticeable differences in words because his
shape and space perception are poor. He reverses his letters and words and has
poor visual memory recall. To be able to read, the child must be able to match
the visual cues on the pages with the particular sounds of each visual cue stored
in his memory.
The child with motor problems
may be the clumsy child - the 'clumper'. This child may have retained some of
the early postural reflex patterns of movement which interfere with voluntary
movement.
Our culture tends to deprive
children of movement during the early critical years of development, through the
use of
· bouncers, playpens, walkers
· a more sedentary lifestyle - computers/television
These children are likely to write poorly, have
difficulty in moving their eyes together, and be more likely to skip words and
lose their place.
ANSUA believes that
Sensory Motor Developmental programs must be part of the curriculum and be carried
out on a daily basis if children are to develop and function to the potential,
and teachers are to teach effectively.
The experience of teachers who carry out the ANSUA Developmental School Program
is that the children in their classes learn more easily and classes are quieter
and better behaved.
"Use it daily in the
classroom - it really does work." Grade 3 teacher.
As educators, we must be able to identify the problems of the underachiever, in
order to determine how to teach and remediate, through carefully prepared programs.
Maureen
Hawke
The ANSUA Learning Centre
was established in Brisbane in 1976 to help children make the most of their lives
by increasing their potential to learn.
Her approach to learning behaviour and attention problems is said to be different
to that of other professionals. ANSUA treats underlying causes, not symptoms.
When the underlying causes are overcome the child's
ability to process information and to learn is enhanced. The causes may include
developmental delay, poor visual and auditory processing, delays in reflex integration
and undiagnosed food and chemical sensitivities.
High
school students participating in the ANSUA Developmental School Program improved
in dictation/spelling 50% more than a control group.
Maureen
Hawke has worked with children and young people at the ANSUA Learning Centre for
the past 21 years, amassing a wealth of information and expertise in the causes
of learning difficulties and their treatment.
June
1999
References
• ANSUA
• Educational
Kinesiology Foundation - Brain Gym
• NASA
methods may help dyslexic children
• Developmental
Therapy Associates
•
Psychomotor
Therapy based on sensori-motor development