Donny was six years old and in month three of first grade when his mother brought him to see me. She was very worried after receiving a letter from Donny’s teacher exclaiming alarm over Donny falling behind other children in class who were learning to read and spell. Donny’s intake tests revealed that she was wise to worry.

SEG 9/63

BLND 0/15

PM 0/10

CODE 8/50

WORD READING 2/30 (1)

NONSENSE WORD READING 0/30 (1)

SPELLING 0/30 (!)

PASSAGE READING 0/30 (!)

I noticed two things within the first few minutes of working with Donny. He sat facing the side wall of my office at nearly a right angle to the table, with his right arm across the front of his trunk when he worked and wrote. Listening to him speak was hard work. I noted this, feeling guilty about it as I typically enjoy the sounds of children, and quickly determined that it was a combination of mumbled sounds and low volume making it difficult to hear and understand Donny that was rubbing my ears the wrong way. Once I made this mental note I began to redirect him to speak up and pronounce words more clearly.

(1) Pertains to new tests devised for Read America’s Associates Program

My first lesson with Donny was disappointing compared to what I’d become accustomed to in many years of teaching Phono-Graphix. Donny’s mother, who was sitting-in on the session, was thrilled when within the first half hour he demonstrated memory of many of the Fat Cat Sat sound pictures. I was not so encouraged however, because although Donny was able to segment sounds with the use of our Phono-Graphix Word Construction techniques, I was unable to get him to blend a single word by the end of the session, and suspected that on his return next week he would have forgotten all of the sound pictures. I ended the session five minutes early to chat with Mom about Donny’s development while Donny was sent to play with blocks.

During our talk I was able to learn that Donny was born at full term and was of a normal weight. He was slept on his back per his pediatrician’s instructions which his mother said was fine because he didn’t like to be on his tummy anyway. Yes, she did recall the doctor giving her a page of information about how to give Donny some time on his tummy, but when she told the doctor that Donny didn’t like being on his tummy the doctor commented that it might have to do with the colic Donny was having and to just keep trying from time to time to see if he got used to it. My suspicion is that Donny had practically no experience in the prone position until he could roll over, which was not until he was seven months old, some three months later than his peers. His mother attributed this to the fact that Donny as always so happy just laying around and never gave her a moments problem other than a bit of colic. At about the time Donny learned to roll over, the family began a several month long project remodeling and during which Donny was confined to a playpen for safety purposes. It was also during that time that he learned to creep but never learned to crawl. He learned to come to a sit on his own and pull himself to a stand at about twelve months (four months later than his peers) and then walked at about fourteen months, and began using single words with some consistency a few months later.

Since Donny was also quite small for his age I wondered if the colic might indicate food allergies. I questioned Donny’s mother about his colic and she said it lasted only two or three months from about two to five months of age. Her recollection was that it occurred during the hours that she was making dinner. This is consistent with normal colic and not consistent with food allergies or other more serious problems, so I did not persist in this line of investigation. On closing the session I offered Donny a pencil with Pokemon on it. In giving him the pencil I walked up behind him and to his left positioning myself in such a way that the easiest way Donny could retrieve the pencil was to reach across his midline and take it from me. Instead he turned to his right in almost a 180 half turn in the opposite direction of my approach, in order to take the pencil. In other words, Donny was not crossing the midline. I pondered this a lot because in our session he had sat in such a position as to have his arm across the midline during the entire session, and I’d never noted that before when working with a child who had this problem. To this day that mystery remains unsolved. I was easily able to redirect Donny’s seating so that his torso and face both faced me during our time together and by session four Donny stopped trying to sit sideways.

In the normal course of growth and development, from fetus to teenager, there are various important stages or milestones through which children must progress in order to gain sensory input for optimal processing and integration for future learning. If they miss or skip a milestone, the integration facility of sensory input is inconsistent and the child may experience learning difficulties. Donny was delayed in the milestones of rolling over, sitting, creeping, and walking; and missed the milestone of crawling entirely. I was concerned that Donny might have developmental dyspraxia. After several attempts it became clear that Donny’s mother was not going to accept my advice to see an Occupational Therapist for testing. She was pleased with the way our sessions were progressing. Donny’s blending improved considerable after six full sessions of directed reading drills where I said, “Let’s read this word. It’s sit,” and Donny repeated along with me, “ ‘s’ ‘i’ ‘t’ ... sit.” Still concerned because of relatively slow progress compared to my standard, and unable to persuade his mother to seek the help of a therapist, began integrating some activities into Donny’s sessions that I felt would help.

It seemed likely that Donny’s problems began with limited time on his tummy. Donny never had the tactile sensations on his hands and prone pressure on his torso needed to begin a chain of development that is critical to normal learning outcome six years on, and indeed throughout life. Without tactile sensation on his palms Donny’s tactile sense never ‘woke up’. And without time on his tummy he did not gain the upper body strength to push himself over. Without turning over he failed to inhibit the tonal neck reflex, a primary infant reflex that gentle guides the infant through the birth canal in a position that allows for sufficient intake of oxygen, giving way to age appropriate postural reflexes. As a result of these early events, or shall we say in the lack of appropriate early events, all subsequent development was delayed. Donny crept, but lacked the strength to crawl, and with the late onset of lifting to his elbows and rolling over Donny never had the early vestibular basic training that head lifting and rolling over provide through the utterly miraculous mechanism of the inner ear and its associated apparatus. In the absence of rolling over Donny’s Tonic Neck Reflex was left intact making it impossible for him to cross the midline of his body, a necessary prerequisite to crawling. Inhibited mobility from not crawling and a delay walking, coupled with poor neural activity which we see with an undertrained vestibular system sharing the same pathways, led to delayed onset of speech and continuing delays in tactile dependent activities, like writing. That pretty much describes the Donny who started kindergarten a year and three months before finding his way to me.

With this theory in mind, and with the knowledge that if I was wrong it would do Donny no harm and probably be fun for him, I began a five-part set of activities with him during each session. it should be noted that the total time expenditure was about five minutes twice during each session; time we would have ‘wasted’ in short breaks anyway.

Mark Making

Rolling, Crawling, Rocking & Bouncing

Stretching

Rubbing & Patting

Classical Music Off & On

Protocol for these activities are too extensive for this article, but are discussed further in my Essential Educator Core Course number two: Child Development & the Essential Educator, and the full protocol is taught in the Essential Educator Centered Child course launching this October. Those interested in Centered Child should be aware that the three core courses are prerequisite to all others in the series.

The Essential Educator core courses are:

Learning Theory & the Essential Educator

The Human Construct - Child Development & Management

Environmental Design and Lesson Development

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Fisher, A., et al, 1991, Sensory Integration Theory and Practice, S. A. Davis Company, Philadelphia, PA.

Hanaford, C., 1995, Smart Moves - Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head, Great Ocean Publishers, Alington, Virginia.

Cohen, B.A., 1961, Role of eye, and neck proprioception mechanism in body orientation and motor coordination. Journal of Neurophysiology, 24:1-11.

Portwood, M., 1988, Developmental Dyspraxia, David Fulton Publishers, London.

Goddard, S, 1996, Reflexes, Learning and Behavior, A Teacher's window Into A Child's Mind, Thompson-Shore Inc., Dexter, MI.

Upledger, J., 1996, A Brain Is Born, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, CA.

Sternberg R.J., In Search of The Human Mind, 1995, Harcourty Brtaqce & Co., Orlando, FL.

Dennison, P & G., 1986, Brain Gym - Simple activities for whole brain learning, Edu-Kinesthetic, Inc., Ventura, CA.

Wills, P., 1988, Reflexology, Healing Arts Press, London.

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