Early Intervention: Child Autism,
Sensory Integration Disorder and other Pervasive Developmental Disorders
If you are a parent, grandparent or caretaker of a child who has been diagnosed with Child Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD), Sensory Integration Disorder, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder(PDD), you most likely have gone through the initial disturbing uncertainty and then the gradual realization that your child is not developing as he / she should.
Are you seeking additional help for your child beyond the traditional and alternative therapies your child is going through?
With the Anat Baniel Method (ABM) many children diagnosed with Child Autism, sensory integration disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorders have improved in remarkable ways, well beyond what they accomplished prior to working with us. And when we begin working with the child prior to age two and even three, often times the child stops demonstrating the initial symptoms and “loses” their initial diagnosis.
You can read about one example of these dramatic results as published in the January, 2007 issue of Massage and BodyWork Magazine, New Possibilities: A revolutionary approach to helping children with special needs.
"The theory underlying Anat’s work is scientifically based, as well as it is a new paradigm. As a medical doctor I am trained to observe and make sense out of what I see. What Anat does makes complete sense. How she does it is inspiring and often ingenious."
-Cheryl Cooper, M.D., O.D., Member of the Board Rosalind Franklin U. of Health Services Chicago
CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE:
Isaac's Story
David's Story
How Does the Anat Baniel Method Work?
Steps to Take For Concerned Parents
What Does Success with the special needs child Look Like?
How We Work With Your Child to Overcome Developmental Disorders and Challenges
Issac’s Story:
"Isaac is our second child and was very different from our first from the start. When Isaac went to the first grade he was diagnosed as having Aspergers Syndrome, Sensory Integration Disorder, and a Visual Disability. He began receiving daily therapies and one on one teaching in school. During this entire time we did private OT, private tutoring in the Slingerland method, went to a reading specialist, a psychiatrist, a visual therapist, tried homeopathic remedies, tried programs for dyslexia like Brighstar, and turned our home into a therapeutic play space with balls of all sizes, textures, and weights, a large outdoor and a smaller indoor trampoline, swings, body sox, etc.
We had tried so many things without success when a friend recommended Anat and her work to us. At first, I was skeptical and concerned about logistics and cost. I went to a weekend workshop with Anat and came away with the clear feeling that she could either help Isaac (my hope) or that she would be honest in her evaluation if she could not help him and would not waste our time.
The changes in Isaac in the last 6 months since he has been working with Anat are miraculous. He is so much happier in himself! His reading went from 20 words a minute with very poor accuracy on 2cd grade text to 27 words a minute with more than 90% accuracy on 3rd grade text. He has been able to have a sleepover at a friends, we went to the dentist for a check up and made it all the way through the exam and cleaning in one visit, he is making more friends at school, we went to a play and did not have to leave, he is trying things that he never tried before, he picked up a pencil and drew me a picture without being told to, he can use more than one color on a page now, he laughs, he smiles, he learns with ease. Isaac is now spiraling up instead of spiraling down. We are so, so, deeply grateful to Anat for all of her work. Isaac is a very different little boy today than he was 6 months ago and I know that the work that he did with Anat was the real turning point for him."
Michelle Bensky, mother to a child diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, Sensory Integration Disorder, and a Visual Disability.
The Anat Baniel Method for Children (ABM) is scientifically based. The practitioner of this method uses innovative, gentle movement, language and touch techniques to communicate with the brain of the Autistic Child or the child suffering from Pervasive Developmental Disorders or Sensory Integration Disorder quickly form new neural connections and patterns that take the child beyond their current limitations. The child begins to spontaneously make sense of their world and what goes on around them. Speech, emotional and social functioning, thinking and coordination – all improve. While it is a process, the changes begin happening right away and are often quite dramatic.
David’s story
David just turned three years old when I met him for the first time in my waiting room. A beautiful boy with immense blue eyes, David willingly followed his mother into my office. Observing him walk I saw that he wasn’t using his lower back fully and that he oriented himself only forward, never twisting around himself. He tried to tell me something. His diction was very poor, he was drooling and most importantly, he was unable to construct sentences that represented a coherent thought. David’s diagnosis floated between child autism to sensory integration disorder. His mother told me that his hand coordination is very poor and that his hands are weak. She told me that David seemed to develop normally until he got his immunization shots. She was convinced that it was the shots that caused his current condition.
No matter what the cause, it was apparent to me that David’s brain was stopped from forming some of the very basic patterns of movement and perception that are at the basis of all later, more complex functioning. The world was a blur for him with lots of sounds and sights and people attempting to connect with him, but it wasn’t making much sense to him. I picked him up and put him lying on his back on my work table. When I lifted his right arm I was amazed. The fingers of his right hand were very tight, held like a claw, but the rest of his arm was completely flabby. It was the same with his left hand and arm. I have never seen anything like this. I rolled him over to lie on his belly and began slowly working along his spine to get him to feel his back. First, even though weak, the back was stiff and “dead” – there was no movement. David was paying attention very intently to what I was doing and what he was feeling. Within minutes his back started coming to life. I was then able to take his right arm, move it above his head and lift it up in the air. I was thrilled to see that as I was lifting his arm, his lower back muscles began contracting. That is how I knew that his brain was beginning to participate in David’s movements in a coherent and effective way.
By the end of the first lesson the fingers in both of David’s hands were almost completely relaxed. His posture was more upright and his breathing was greatly improved.
David loved his lessons. He waited anxiously for me to come pick him up from the waiting room every day. David and his mom came from out of town and were able to be there for only 5 lessons on their first trip. By the end of that week the transformation in David was astounding. He was constructing full sentences that represented clear and intelligent thoughts. His hands were completely free and the mother reported that he was able to use his hands beautifully, as if there was never a problem. His diction improved, he was more aware and much happier. After their return to their home town, everyone agreed that David should no longer be diagnosed an autistic child. David continued getting lessons from an ABM practitioner in his home town. By the end of his next visit with me in California, after he received 5 more lessons, David has caught up to his age. The only obvious issue he still had was a tendency to drool and his breathing tended to get laborious at times. David continues getting lessons from time to time from an ABM practitioner at his home town to insure that he continues progressing and preventing him from regressing.
Does the Anat Baniel Method for Children
Work with Child Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Sensory Integration Disorder.
The miraculous process of development we see any healthy child go through is a result of a complex process of differentiation in the brain that allows it to form connections and new patterns. All the experiences the child has of her own initial random movements and her kinesthetic experiences coupled with all that is done with her by those caring for her, is used by the brain as information with which it develops and grows. While the baby and young child are completely dependent on his or her caretakers for their survival and well being, those caretakers have very little to do with the actual process of growth and development of the child. That process is done by the child, within the child, on the child’s own timing.
“Dear Marcy, driving home from seeing you today, Kevin asked me his first ever "why" question. You are making such a difference in our lives.”
-Bev Beck, mother of child diagnosed with Autism.
When a child suffers from Autism spectrum disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, or sensory integration disorder, this spontaneous process of differentiation and formation of new patterns in the brain is interfered with. Most therapy approaches attempt to make the child do what it should be doing according to his or her age and expected developmental stage. However, as many frustrated parents and hard working therapists have experienced first hand, trying to make a child speak, relate emotionally, understand what is going on, or perform motor skills when they cannot do it, normally produces little of the desired outcomes and often upsets the child and leaves her/him feeling bad and wrong about themselves and even more separate from the people around them. That happens because the brain of the child is unable to transform the stimulation it is receiving into information that it can use to organize itself and create new patterns and solutions.
With the ABM the focus is very different. Rather than try to fix the problem directly by focusing on the limitations, the focus is shifted to where the solutions actually lie – with the brain. The ABM focuses on helping the brain of the child suffering from Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Sensory Integration Disorder do its job better. It helps the brain right itself and regain its ability to powerfully and consistently create new neural patterns that bring about successful solutions. We apply gentle techniques that directly communicate with the nervous system of the child through, primarily, movement, enhanced awareness, verbal and non-verbal kinesthetic experiences.
With the ABM the brain of the Autistic child regains its ability to function in a healthy way. That is when the child can begin doing what all other healthy children do. Click here to read What Parents Say About How the ABM Worked For Their Child.
It is very important to understand that it is only when we create the conditions for the child’s brain to function in a healthy, high quality way that that child can overcome limitations in ways that can be astounding and inspiring. Watch Anat Baniel working with 3 children in our Free Video Library.
Steps to Take For Concerned Parents
If you have been told by your child’s physician that your child has a developmental disorder, or if your parental instincts are telling you something is not quite right (often parents know “something is not quite right” long before a medical diagnosis is given), it is of utmost importance that your child gets help as soon as possible. Early intervention can make a big difference.
Here are some steps you can take to explore whether the ABM is something you want for your child:
What Does Success with the special needs child Look Like?
- The child shows some progress/change within the first few ABM lessons or therapy sessions. Otherwise it means that the child is not learning.
- The child should feel safe, comfortable and happy in their sessions. Crying and resistance should be the exception. True learning is a pleasurable and satisfying experience. Acquiring a better organization of movement, thinking and feeling is an empowering and wonderful experience for the child.
- On-going learning, improvement and maturation. In any growth process, there will be fluctuations in the rate of change. However, over a period of any few weeks, certainly months, as the child is receiving therapy, or ABM lessons, there should be clear learning, change and improvement.
- At home the child begins to spontaneously do on their own, without encouragement, what she/he was doing in the session. It may take a few sessions for that to happen with any newly acquired skill. If not, most likely the child is not learning and needs to be placed where they will be learning and improving.
- In between sessions, you should be able to see some additional spontaneous improvements beyond what was accomplished in the ABM lessons or therapy sessions.
How We Work With Your Child to Overcome Developmental Disorders and Challenges
We will not be asking your child to do what he or she cannot do because our assumption is that if the child could do it, they would. We instead discover what patterns the child’s brain has not been able to form and create the conditions that allow the child’s brain to do its job better and better. If he perseveres we will not try to force him to stop. Instead we will engage the child in a process he needs in order to begin learning. Through that process your child’s brain will form new neural patterns that were missing due to their illness or injury. Once enough of these missing elements are in place, your child will spontaneously begin doing what he or she couldn’t do before.
In the beginning we like to work with your child in a concentrated manner. That gives your child the opportunity to benefit from the ABM as fully as possible, and for you to be able to assess the usefulness of the method for your child. Initially we like to give the lessons in clusters of between 5-10 lessons in one week. The frequency of the clusters is every two – eight weeks, depending on your child’s situation. Occasionally a child might get two lessons in one day, in the morning and afternoon. Ms Baniel has discovered that in this concentrated process children can very quickly transform into effective learners and experience important changes in their ability to move, perceive, understand, initiate, think, relate to their surroundings, and make sense of what is happening to them.
Within 3-5 lessons it is usually clear whether the child is benefiting from the lessons. If both the parents and the Anat Baniel Method for Children practitioner feel it is worthwhile to continue, than a lesson plan for the child is created. The first session is scheduled for one hour. Consecutive sessions are scheduled for 45 minutes.
As your child progresses, we adjust your child’s program. Usually the frequency and number of lessons go down. You will be asked to temporarily stop other treatment modalities unless they are medically required. We will also ask that you do not place the child in positions that he/she cannot get into or out of on their own. Very often we request halting the use of orthotics, standers etc, at least initially.
We have a team of ABM practitioners that can work with your child. When you bring your child to the Anat Baniel Center, you can choose to work with any of the teachers, or we can help place you with a teacher. When Anat Baniel works with a child often times she gives the child some of the lessons in the lesson-cluster and one of her team teachers gives the rest of the lessons in that cluster. If you bring your child to Anat from out of town, she will try to help you find a local practitioner for your child to work with in between visits to her center.
To discuss your child's situation, or to make an appointment,
please Contact Us.
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