Children unprepared for school
Figures reported on the 27th August 2010 showing that one in five children failed to reach writing standards expected for their age, one in six failed to attain expected reading level, one in ten were behind in maths and boys trailed behind girls in every subject tested despite record investments in the early education and the recently implemented early years foundation stage (EYFS), suggest that there is more involved to acquiring literacy and numeracy than simply the teaching of basic skills.
“Readiness” for reading requires that all systems involved have received sufficient stimulation in the early years. This includes development of balance, coordination, postural control and fine motor skills to facilitate writing; control of eye movements and the ability to hear and say all of the sounds required for reading and spelling. These basic skills are nurtured not through direct teaching of reading and writing in the pre-school years, but through physical and imaginative play, singing, conversation, being told stories and being read to on a regular basis. Increasingly, the lacking ingredients in a child’s early years are physical interaction with the environment and social engagement with adults and other children. Children growing up in areas of social deprivation are particularly at risk, as are boys who are naturally later at developing the fine motor and language skills needed to support reading, writing and spelling.
Only last weekend, when I was running a training day for teachers in The Netherlands in how to recognise signs of neuro-motor immaturity in the classroom and how to administer a developmental intervention programme, one of the attendees remarked that these problems are now reaching “epidemic” proportions, not only in the United Kingdom but in other parts of Europe and the rest of the developed world. As technology proceeds apace, and children are increasingly exposed to visual stimulation without motor integration we are in danger of creating a state of evolutionary regression rather then progression in the motor and language skills needed to support reading, writing, spelling, maths and social integration. The foundations for these skills are laid down in the early years as a child’s brain and body learn to work together through activity.
Until successive governments focus attention on developing the whole child instead of trying to treat the symptom, we will continue to see similar depressing statistics.
Information on the INPP one day course for teachers in identifying neuro-motor immaturity and implementing a developmental movement programme may be be found at: www.inpp.org.uk/training
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This article in Mensa Magazine discusses the causes of syndromes like dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. It highlights the fact that common symptoms of these conditions can be identified as involuntary neonatal reactions retained in childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood.
Written by Chrissy Thirlaway who has been trained in how to use the INPP programme for schools, the article provides insight into the links between retained neonatal reflexes and learning difficulties. As well as offering explanation from a neuro-physiological perspective, the article also provides more information about The INPP and what we do.
Chrissy Thirlaway is a qualified teacher, and has worked in primary, secondary, and adult education.
The article can be read in these two PDF files:
Mensa Magazine Article Page One & Mensa Magazine Article Page Two
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Sally Goddard Blythe will be providing a one day course on the use of The INPP Programme in Schools for teachers in Chester on the following dates in2010. Full details of the course and final applicatons to attend the course may be made by contacting mail@inpp.org.uk; 01244 311414.
March 26th 2010; June 4th 2010; September 2010; 5th November 2010.
Publications recording details of results from the use of the programme taught in this course may be found at: www.inpp.org.uk/publications.
“Releasing educational potential through movement”. Child Care in Practice 11/4:415-432. 2005.
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Child Development
Analysis: Motor skills - Put to the test
Sally Goddard Blythe, 03 March 2010, 00:00am
Developmental testing should be reintroduced for children before and after school entry to improve learning skills, says Sally Goddard Blythe.
Assessing reflexes would help to identify delay in motor skills
Babies with poor motor skills at nine months are also likely to be behind in their cognitive development at this age and less well behaved at age five, the Millenium Cohort Study - involving 15,000 children - has found.(1)
These findings mirror the results of an earlier study, which found a link between immature balance and co-ordination skills at age five and poor reading and writing in primary school.(2)
Physical development is the foundation for learning. Without balance and co-ordination, we could not sit nor stand, have free use of our hands to carry out fine motor tasks, or control the eye movements needed for reading, writing, copying and maths.
Learning success begins with physical development and it is in the first nine months of life that a baby develops the postural abilities that will support gross and fine motor co-ordination for life.
No two children develop at exactly the same rate. But the development of head control, for example, is crucial for learning to sit, stand, walk and provide a stable platform for control of eye movements. Children who are later at developing head control tend to be later at developing other skills. This is where the assessment of primitive and postural reflexes at key stages in development can help identify children whose motor skills are likely to be delayed.
REFLEXES
Primitive reflexes emerge during life in the womb, are developed at birth in the full-term baby and are slowly controlled and transformed into more mature postural patterns in the first six months of life. Postural reflexes start to emerge after birth and continue to develop up to three and a half years of age.
Primitive reflexes are tested as a matter of routine at the post-natal assessment and at developmental check-ups in the first six months of life, but are not assessed as part of standard practice thereafter.
It tends to be assumed that if they were sufficiently integrated at six months then no further assessment is required. However, studies carried out on primary school children have shown that traces of primitive reflexes can and do persist into later childhood and that they are linked to under-achievement(3) and behavioural problems(4).
When my eldest son, now 28, was due to start school, every child underwent a developmental assessment by a school doctor, who checked gross and fine motor skills in addition to basic tests for vision and hearing. These tests were phased out a couple of years later, so children with underdeveloped physical skills at school entry simply slipped through the net.
By the time a child enters school, responsibility for the welfare of the child moves from the domain of medicine to education, meaning that subtle problems of a physical nature are not addressed. Neither do health visitors, trained to pick up signs of delay in the early years, follow a child on when they enter school to observe the long-term effects of early delays in motor development.
Reinstating developmental testing of all children, not only in the first year of life but also at later key stages in development, could help to identify children at risk.
This was evident in a study comparing the early developmental history of 72 children who had specific learning difficulties with children of the same age who were performing well at school. The study found that those who were struggling at school had almost twice the incidence of problems occurring in the first 18 months of life (from medical problems during pregnancy and the birth process to being later walkers and talkers).(5)
With regular assessments, suitable physical programmes could then be implemented to improve the motor skills of ‘at risk’ children before and in their first years at school.
Studies carried out in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK between 2001 and 2005 have indicated that in many cases, developmental delay responds to specific training programmes.(6)
Daily developmental movement exercises were introduced into schools. Children in the experimental groups showed statistically significant improvements in measures of balance, co-ordination and infant reflexes compared with control and comparison groups, and greater gains in measures of reading and spelling. Teachers also reported improvements in concentration, behaviour and social skills.
These findings suggest that if we paid more attention to children’s physical development, teaching outcomes could be improved.
REFERENCES
1. Hansen K, Joshi H, Dex S, eds (2010) ‘Children of the 21st Century: The first five years’. Policy Press
2. North Eastern Education and Library Board (NEELB) 2004. ‘An evaluation of the pilot INPP movement programme in primary schools in Northern Ireland. Final report’. Prepared by Brainbox Research Ltd for the NEELB. http://www.neeelb.org.uk/
3. Goddard Blythe 2005. ‘Releasing educational potential through movement: A summary of individual studies carried out using the INPP Test Battery and Developmental Exercise Programme for use in schools with children with special needs’. Child Care in Practice.11/4:415-432
McPhillips M, Sheehy N, ‘Prevalence of persistent primary reflexes and motor problems in children with reading difficulties’ Dyslexia 2004; 10/4: 316-338
4. Marlee R, 2008. ‘Neurological developmental delay research programme, first report’. Report prepared for the Behaviour Support Service, School and Family Support Division, Northumberland County Council
5. Goddard Blythe SA, Hyland D, 1998. ‘Screening for neurological dysfunction in the specific learning difficulty child’. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, October 1998
6. See reference 2
Sally Goddard Blythe is the director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester and author of books on child development including Attention, Balance and Co-ordination: The A,B,C of learning success (WileyBlackwell) and The Well Balanced Child: Movement and early learning (Hawthorn Press)
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Article ‘Movement Milestone’ featuring Sally Goddard Blythe in Mother and Baby Magazine March 2010 edition; pages 75-80.
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“Uniting Science and Education to Identify and Remediate Learning and Emotional Difficulties Associated with Developmental Delay”
Featured Speakers
Sally Goddard- Blythe
Session Title:
Primitive and Postural Reflexes in Perspective: An Overview of the INPP Method – A Clinical and Educational Method of Assessment, Remediation and Evaluation
Session Description:
Primitive and postural reflexes provide diagnostic signposts of maturity in the functioning of the central nervous system at key stages in development. Although these reflexes are tested at birth and in the first weeks of post natal life by medical practitioners, they are not re-assessed at later stages in development as a matter of routine. When the responsibility for evaluating a child’s development passes from the domain of Medicine to Education at the time of school entry (in the UK), the focus of assessment shifts from assessment of physical development to the attainment of educational targets. Teachers do not have sufficient training to assess physical development, while doctors are primarily concerned with detection and treatment of medical conditions, not of the impact of dysfunction or immaturity on learning outcomes. This has meant that children who are not developmentally “ready” for aspects of formal education simply “slip through the net” of professional services which should be in place to identify and remediate the underlying physical causes of educational under-achievement or behavioral difficulties.
The INPP Programme provides a method of identifying and assessing signs of developmental immaturity together with effective remedial intervention programmes. This presentation will examine the history of the development of The INPP Method, the use of tests for primitive and postural reflexes as tools for the identification, assessment and remediation of developmental immaturity and will discuss the use of The INPP Programmes in educational and clinical settings.
Biographical Information:
Sally Goddard Blythe, MSc. FRSA, is a Consultant in Neuro-developmental Education and Director of The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) in Chester. INPP was established as a private research, clinical and training organization in 1975, dedicated to the development of assessment procedures to identify underlying physical factors in specific learning disabilities and adults suffering from anxiety and panic disorder and to the development of effective remediation programmes.
Sally is the author of several books and published papers on child development and neuro-developmental factors in specific learning disabilities including Reflexes, Learning and Behavior, The Well Balanced Child, and What Babies and Children Really Need. Her newest book, Attention, Balance, and Coordination – the A, B, C of Learning Success was published by Wiley-Blackwell in April 2009.
Sally is the author of The INPP Test Battery and Developmental Exercise Programme for Use in Schools - a programme of daily exercises designed to be used in schools with a whole class of children over one academic year – this programme has been the subject of published research involving 810 children across schools in the UK. The aim of the programme has been to provide teachers with a method to help them identify physical readiness for learning and a programme of exercises designed to encourage physical readiness in children with problems.
Sally has lectured on the role of infant reflexes in development and later learning problems to many different groups throughout Europe and in different parts of the United States. She is a member of the International Alliance for Childhood and the “Open EYE” campaign – a pressure group dedicated to ensuring that children’s developmental needs remain at the top of the agenda for government recommendations for early years’ education in England. She is also a patron of Toddler Kindy Gymbaroo, a programme developed in Australia to optimize children’s development in the early years.
The Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology is honoured that Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo has agreed to make a presentation at the 2010 INPP Conference; he is known throughout the world for his work on the Primitive and Postural Reflexes and the effect that they have on children. Dr. Accardo worked very closely with the medical ‘Grandfather’ of the role of Reflexes in development, the late Professor Arnold Capute.
“In view of Dr. Accardo’s background and knowledge we are sure that his presentation will be vital for all Pediatricians, Occupational Therapists, Physio-Therapists, Educators and everyone involved in the future well-being of children.” Peter Blythe, INPP - Chester
Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo, M.D.
Session Title:
A BRIEF MEDICAL HISTORY OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES: Being notes on the curious and surprising, if not shocking, histories of childhood, pediatrics, medicine, society, and civilization by a bemused observer and sometime participant.
Session Description:
Some key milestones in the history of childhood and their developmental significance will be reviewed. The various threads in the histories of medicine, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and education will be used to explain the surprisingly recent discovery of neuro-developmental disorders and then place in perspective the many current unanswered questions about diagnosis and treatment. Cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, learning and attention disorders, and autism will be highlighted.
Biographical Information:
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Pasquale Accardo, MD, received his M.D. from SUNY Downstate, and completed his pediatric residency at Riley Children’s Hospital, Indianapolis, and his developmental pediatrics fellowship at the Kennedy Institute, Baltimore. He has subspecialty certification in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and in Neuro-developmental Disabilities through the American Board of Pediatrics. He previously served as the medical director of the Knights of Columbus Developmental Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the LEND director at the Westchester Institute for Human Development, New York. He is currently James H. Franklin Professor of Developmental Research in Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University where he directs the VCU Child Development Clinic. Dr. Accardo has authored, edited, and co-edited over three dozen books as well as numerous chapters and papers in the field of neuro-developmental disabilities. In 2005 Dr. Accardo received the Arnold J. Capute Award from the Council on Children with Disabilities of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D
Title:
The Evolving Reading Brain: Implications for Reading Development, Dyslexia, and Intervention
Session Description:
An overview of how the human brain learned to read will be used as a new framework for understanding how each child learns to read and why many children have difficulties. Principles of the brain’s design that allow the learning of new skills will be described in terms of their implications for intervention. Results of efficacy studies will be described. Finally, implications of this view of an evolving reading brain will be the basis for discussing societal challenges and individual children’s challenges in the current transitions to a digital reading brain.
Biographical Information:
Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She received her doctorate from Harvard University, where she began her work on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. Among her awards for teaching and research are the Distinguished Professor of the Year award from the Massachusetts Psychological Association, the Teaching Excellence Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Researcher Award from Tufts University, a Fulbright Research Fellowship award for research on dyslexia in Germany, the Norman Geschwind Lecture Award from the International Dyslexia Association for neuroscience research in dyslexia, and the Alice Ansara Award for work in dyslexia. Along with colleagues Dr. Robin Morris, and Dr. Maureen Lovett, Prof. Wolf was awarded the NICHD Shannon Award for Innovative Research and several multi-year NICHD grants to investigate new approaches to reading intervention, including the RAVE-O reading intervention program, created by Prof. Wolf and members of the Center.
The author of numerous scientific publications, Wolf recently completed a book for the general public, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, published by Harper-Collins in the United States, by Icon Books in England, and now translated into ten languages and audio version. Described as one of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and an Acclaimed Book of the Year by US News and World Report, Proust and the Squid received the Marek Award from the New York International Dyslexia Association for the best book of the year on reading.
Dr. Wolf’s recent research interests include reading intervention, early prediction, fluency and naming speed, cross-linguistic studies of reading, the relationship between entrepreneurial talents and dyslexia, and the uses of brain imaging in understanding dyslexia and treatment changes.
Anna R. Buck
Session Title:
The INPP Program: What Happens When the Primitive Reflexes Become Inhibited? Documented Stories from the Perspective of Parents and Professionals
Session Description:
Anna will share real – life stories of children she has treated: previous diagnoses, findings from INPP assessments, progression through the INPP programme, observed behavioural and academic changes, and responses from parents and professionals.
Biographical Information:
Anna Buck has been in the educational field for more than 20 years. She is a certified Neuro-Developmental Delay therapist, trained by INPP in Chester, England. She is a certified Listening Fitness Instructor, trained at the Listening Centre, Toronto, Canada. Anna has also received advanced training in Bilateral Integration by Shelia Dobie Associates (Training) Limited in Bo’ness, Scotland. Currently, Anna is completing program studies as a Naturopath. She established Anna’s House, LLC, in 2005 in Denver, Colorado.
Miracle Children was published in 2008. This book tells the story of Anna’s pursuit to find the root of her own daughter’s difficulties, which she eventually found through INPP. The book describes, in Layman’s terms, how dysfunction in the brain stem can affect children and how an INPP program targets these difficulties at the root level. It includes stories of children as they progressed through an INPP program and a Listening Fitness program and describes how their lives were transformed.
Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 1 was published in 2009. This is a CD curriculum for teaching reading, writing and spelling through sound and is adaptable for classroom or home-school use. Additional materials are available to support the curriculum. Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 2 will be available in 2010.
Paul Madaule
Title:
Listening and the Ear-Voice Connection
Session Description:
The ear is the first sensory modality to develop well before birth starting with the vestibular system at about ten weeks of pre-natal life, soon followed by the auditory system. The listening function, the ability to use the ear and body to pick-up the information we need and leave others, has pre-natal roots as well. This developmental precedence gives a head start in the acquisition of language.
Being the first listeners of what we say, listening is key to the monitoring of our own voice. This ear-voice loop provides the control system necessary to speak, read and write. It also influences self-regulatory functions such as attention span, focus, being ‘in sync’ and ‘well-balanced’. It also plays a role in social-emotional maturation, self-image and self-awareness.
Listening and the ear-voice connection can be developed and improved through sound stimulation training and voice exercises. Listening training and work on the primitive reflexes complement each other in many ways because they both access deeply rooted issues through different sensory-motor pathways.
Biographical Information:
Paul Madaule is the Director of The Listening Centre in Toronto that he founded with Dr. Tomatis in 1978. The Listening Centre was the first clinical facility using listening training in North America. Paul also helped develop this work throughout the US, Mexico and South America.
Paul authored When Listening Comes Alive (1993), available in ten languages. He also authored numerous articles on the importance of music, listening and the voice in education and therapy. His primary focus is children with developmental and learning problems, specifically auditory processing disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, and Autism. His work has garnered widespread media attention through television and radio, and the written press.
Drawing from 35 years of clinical experience, Paul has developed a portable audio device called the LiFT® (Listening Fitness Trainer) to support international clientele and a course for professionals on how to incorporate listening training within their own practices and classrooms.
Dr. Harry Schneider, Ph.D, M.D. P.C.
Title:
Neurobiological and Neuroimaging Evidence for Abnormal Findings of Brain and Connectivity Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Session Description: Awaiting details
Biographical Information:
Maureen Swanson – awaiting details of this session.
For further information or to download a registration form contact ajanoura@bellsouth.net
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Report of INPP research in North Tyneside has been submitted to C4EO ( Centre for Excellence and Outcomes ). It has been validated and can be found at: http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/general/localpracticeexamples.aspx?themeid=10 under ’ Narrowing the Gap’.
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Letter published in Times Education Supplement 23 October 2009
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode+6025758
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CD’s of individual presentations or papers from this conference are now available for the majority of speakers. For further information about speakers and titles of presenations please visit the conference page. CD’s of individual presentations are made to order.
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In my view: Published in “Nursery World” 18.6.09. http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/913607/Opinion-view—Reading-shared/
By Sally Goddard Blythe, freelance consultant in neuro-developmental education and director of the pioneering Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester
The recent poll commissioned to mark National Family Week showing that just under half of all children are missing out on a traditional bedtime story is a travesty of our times.
Reading to your child involves more than simply telling a story. Long before children learn to read they learn to love the music of language, the tonal, rhythmic and dynamic aspects of speech, which are exaggerated when read out loud. Listening to stories, often repeated many times, helps develop memory, including a memory for the phonological components of the written word. As children listen to stories, they also learn to match sounds to pictures and word shapes. This prepares the brain for the formal aspects of learning to read.
Desire to read begins with a love of stories – the colour and familiarity of characters, excited anticipation, the shape of the story line, and the pictures that the story creates in the mind’s eye - the stirrings of imagination. Story time is also important because it involves one-to-one time between parent and child when both share in the same activity. Sharing the same experiences have been shown to increase the level of a powerful hormone involved in securing attachment and strengthening close social bonds. Being read to also increases a child’s vocabulary and reading comprehension, which has benefits in childhood through to old age.
In my practice and in schools around the country I regularly come across parents who have never read to their child. Although we live in difficult times, it is important to remember that some of the most essential ingredients for a happy childhood are free – fresh air, space, friends, family, reliability and time spent together. Just 10 minutes a day spent reading to your child will help them not only at school in the years to come but may also give them a long, happy and active life. Surely, this is what we all want for our children.
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