Balance Your Life

Balance Your Life INTEGRATED LEARNING THERAPY (ILT) & CAREER GUIDANCE SERVICES After her recovery, she started her own Private Practice, Balance Your Life.

"I am an Artist by gift, and Industrial Psychologist, Educator & Therapist by Education and Experience, a Wife and a Mother by Miracle, a Home-keeper, Taxi Driver, Organiser, Chef, Healer, Advisor, Gardener and Companion by choice. My Career is a "Way of Life", rather than a job" ...

Marguerite has a Masters degree in Industrial Psychology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Higher Education and Train

ing from Rhodes University, and is a member of SIOPSA. Marguerite spent several years employed in corporate environments, as well as working as a lecturer / trainer / coach in Industrial Psychology and Human Resource Management. After narrowly cheating death in a major car accident, she decided she needed to re-prioritize her life and get it back in balance. In addition to embarked on further study and is now also a certified Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) Practitioner. She currently lives in Cape Town with her husband and young son and is passionate about assisting others (especially the youth) to make the most of their lives. Balance Your Life is your go to for Education, Career and Lifestyle Guidance which will allow you to DISCOVER YOUR PASSION - REACH YOUR TRUE POTENTIAL - OBTAIN YOUR DREAM JOB - and MASTER A WORK / LIFE BALANCE

Operating from Cape Town, South Africa, Balance Your Life's clients are offered the benefit of face-to-face consultations, or technology-assisted distance-consultations from anywhere in the world.

19/03/2025

For Parents and Teachers
Learning difficulties: How we can rewire the brain
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

(Acknowledgments to Svea Gold and Sally Goddard)

The brain has gazillions (is that a word?) of neurons – that we call ‘wires’ – and these neurons need to communicate with each other so that we can function. This means that there are trigazillion (my new word) connections in the brain. It is rather remarkable that most of us manage to form these neurons and their connections without faults but we need to remember that there are many things that can go wrong.

Thanks to research, we’ve had confirmation that things suspected through observation and experience are facts. We now know that by carefully watching how a child moves and what a child needs to do to meet an expectation from school or his home, we can get an idea of where in the brain the problem lies. Then, by giving the child’s brain a chance to repair itself, we can bring about positive changes.

This isn’t up-to-date news. Way back in 1996, a writer in an edition of Newsweek focusing on Your Child’s Brain wrote “…. There is new evidence that certain kinds of intervention can reach even the older brain and like a microscopic screwdriver rewire broken circuits.” This was about the time that I was researching ways of helping children – giving rise to ILT in the year 2000. You can imagine my excitement!

So today let’s have a look at an example of how we apply neurodevelopmental insights to solve a child’s learning problem.

An important reflex movement

It’s significant that many children with learning difficulties have no Headrighting Reflex (HRR). This reflex shows when the angle of the body in relation to the ground shifts – in other words, the body tilts to either side, backwards or forwards. The reflex automatically adjusts the head to remain in a nearly vertical position. In a less well coordinated child, the head does not remain or immediately return to the vertical position but stays in line with the body. In other words, the child’s head moves in line with his spine.

If the head rights itself, there is very little shift in the background compared to when the head tilts in line with the spine. (Try this yourself by swaying to each side, alternately keeping your head still in a vertical position and allowing it to align with the spine.) Such a child will find himself in a constant state of visual strain because one of the reasons for this reflex is to stablise visual images on the retina of the eye. There is little wonder that children who don’t have this reflex may have reading problems.

Giving a child the HRR

This is where a knowledge of neurodevelopment can help. We need to give children a HRR if they haven’t developed one themselves. How do we do this?

Different parts of our bodies are controlled by different nerves but it is wise to remember that nothing stands alone. No function of the brain operates in isolation. For example, when your vestibular system (in your inner ear) is stressed (perhaps by movement), you get seasick. You feel this in your tummy and it happens because of the intimate interconnectedness of different nerves. The vagus, one of the ten cranial nerves, is responsible for causing your stomach to revolt against the movement registered by an overwhelmed vestibular system.

The HRR is influenced by another cranial nerve that controls the trapezoid muscle. This muscle controls the movements of the head and neck. If a child hasn’t developed the HRR, it is likely that there is a poor connection between the trapezoid muscle and the cranial nerve that controls it. Our job would be to connect this muscle and we use a seemingly simple movement activity to do so.

The original movement came from Carl Delacato, who worked for many years with learning disabled children. He found that having children lie on the floor and moving their arms, legs and head in a way that resembled the movement of a ghecko or lizard, caused significant and positive changes in the brain.

The Flip Flop movement

The benefits of the Flip Flops are many. Information goes into both sides of the brain as the muscles move equally on both sides. At the same time the brain gets sensory information from the weight of the body moving across the surface on which the child is lying. This is very important because during later development the brain is constantly having to coordinate information received from the two brain hemispheres to allow for stereophonic hearing, posture and vision. So with our Flip Flops, we are not only stimulating the cranial nerve to connect to the trapezoid muscle but also influencing vision, hearing and balance. Through this, information is communicated to many other brain areas, especially to the cerebellum, the midbrain and the thalamus. The thalamus is an area of the brain that acts as a gate-keeper – either allowing sensory information to pass through to higher brain (cortical) areas or not. If it fails to allow certain information through, the important messages will not arrive at the proper destination.

So in short, by giving a child a (seemingly) simple activity, we are effecting profound changes in brain function. We can’t control what comes out of the brain but we certainly can control what goes in. This helps the brain receive the information it needs to correct faulty wiring.

Other reflex movements are significant too

Giving the child a head-righting reflex is good but we need to test for later developing movements as well. Once we’ve made connections in the lower brain regions, we have to persevere to encourage connections needed for more sophisticated functions.

When you bring about better neurological organization, you are addressing basic problems in the various areas of the brain. This enables the child to function independently and with improved abilities in many different spheres of life. Such children seem to ‘get it together’ and with this, their self-esteem and confidence soars.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) strives to uncover the root causes of puzzling behaviours and learning difficulties in children. Visit the website www.ilt.co.za to learn more about this approach.

We list practitioners near you to help as well as the accredited courses we offer parents, teachers and other helping professionals to become more knowledgeable about brain development and what might go wrong.

Teachers earn 15 TCPD points for successful completion of the course as well as credits from ETDP-SETA for further studies in Special Needs Education. Parents are also credited with ETDP-SETA and so ILT can be a pathway to further academic study.

ILT 1 courses are available as attendance or by correspondence. Details are on the website but you are welcome to contact us at ilt.icon.co.za.

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19/02/2025

For Parents and Teachers
Is your pre-schooler being labelled as ‘ADHD’?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

It’s come to my attention that quite a few very young boys are being described as ‘ADHD’ or hyperactive. They seem to be regarded as being overly ‘busy’, mainly by their preschool teachers. Are we forgetting that most young children are highly active, energetic and generally spend much time ‘on the move’? My long years of experience have shown that highly active young boys generally settle down as they grow, perform well at school and fail to develop any attention or other learning related problems.

So why are teachers sometimes labelling youngsters incorrectly? Perhaps we need to consider how they come to this decision and consider what other aspects may be contributing to the children’s inattentive behaviours.

A child who fails to concentrate in one situation is in danger of being seen as a child who can’t concentrate in any situation. If a child doesn’t sit still he is in danger of being called hyperactive. His parents might be panicked into believing hyperactivity and poor concentration are permanent conditions which will need specialist treatment, including medication.

Highly mobile youngsters may show a disinclination to sit down and engage in table tasks. Their preference will be for outdoor play, usually very physical. Or others may seem to dislike concentrating on teaching materials, rejecting colouring-in, crafts, puzzles and so on. They prefer any number of other games or activities that are enjoyed at home. Boys in particular need to be physically engaged and take much longer to adapt to more sedentary tasks. They may not want to concentrate on the teaching events, listen to stories sitting quietly in a circle, or follow the teacher’s instructions.

Check his concentration

You can check whether your child can concentrate by giving him something to do which he enjoys doing, and which takes concentration. If your child can pay attention to the activity for at least five minutes you will know he can concentrate (and sit still). It’s important to emphasise that if someone can concentrate in one situation, then the problem is not an inability to concentrate. If your child’s attention wanders before the five minutes have passed, maybe he does need your help. The nature of the help will depend on your assessment of the situation so let’s consider some relevant points.

1. Have realistic expectations. Some children seem to be able to concentrate better than others. If you compare one child to others, you may be unrealistic in terms of what he can and can’t do. Instead, compare what your child is doing this week with what he was doing last week; how he behaved when he went to bed last night; how he played with other children at school compared with how he plays with them at home. When you focus on your individual child and notice changes in his behaviour, it helps avoid becoming trapped into thinking that your child has a problem simply because he’s different from others.

2. Avoid using checklists. Checklists can convince you that your child has a serious problem because they can be so all inclusive that parents or teachers will find something on the list that applies to that child. They make you feel they are describing unusual behavior but often they are only describing things that every child will do sometimes. Checklists for ADHD can include the following questions:

• Does your child forget instructions?
• Does your child have a short temper?
• Does your child fidget?
• Does your child constantly ask questions?
• Does your child leave his bedroom untidy?
• Does your child produce messy work?
• Etc.

Doesn’t this look like a list of the stages that all children go through and outgrow?

3. Does your child know how to pay attention? Some children will seem to pay attention automatically. However, every child learns differently and for some, the ability to attend doesn’t come naturally. They need help in learning to concentrate and the good news is that concentration can be taught. For children to learn concentration, they must be given responsibility, must feel that their contribution to family life matters and must have the chance gradually to develop the skills everyone needs in order to be able to function successfully.

4. Does your child only pay attention when it suits him? The reason for this may be because what he should be doing is: too difficult, too boring, too tedious or not clearly understood. The child will simply try to get out of something he doesn’t want to do or feels incapable of doing. This avoidance behavior needs investigating and a good place to start is to find out whether or not he understands how to learn or how to approach the task given. If children are not expected to learn to do things at home, they may struggle to learn at school. Setting the dining table is a good example of an age-appropriate task that can be used to teach a young child to learn. It’s a simple everyday activity but it needs a system. While busy, your child will have to keep thinking until the job is done. Having chores to do at home are good learning opportunities that have unexpected spin-offs!

What to do?

If reports from school concern you, don’t ignore them but don’t overreact either. First do your own assessment of the situation and then, if need be, find a helping professional that will look holistically at the situation. While most of the younger boys suspected of having ‘ADHD’ will not need intervention, some might well benefit from help. Unusual behaviours can have many different causes – which is why ILT practitioners are taught to consider all possibilities. The website www.ilt.co.za contains more information and sources of help.

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I had such an interesting morning doing the work I love and was ‘called’ to do. I did back-to-back Integrated Learning T...
18/07/2024

I had such an interesting morning doing the work I love and was ‘called’ to do.

I did back-to-back Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) Assessments on 5 very different students. A Grade 9 female, a Grade 8 male, a Grade 1 female, a Grade 4 female and a Grade 6 male.

The exact same assessment was conducted on all 5 student irrespective of their age, gender etc.

What was so interesting to observe was how in some cases the Grade 1 did a task better / more easily than the Grade 9 for example, and at other times tasks I assumed a Grade 8 would find easy was hard but easier for a Grade 4. Then the Grade 6 would find a task easy that the Grade 4 found impossible.

It just goes to show how we all develop at our own pace, and nobody should dictate that pace.

I love that I get to be part of so many students’ journeys to getting where THEY need to be!

27/06/2024

For Parents and Teachers
Adolescents with learning problems: Are they too old to help?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

Some teachers believe that older children or learners in High School who struggle with academics and the demands of school are too old for therapeutic interventions. They stop looking for signs that could indicate the underlying cause of the problem and instead revert to other ways of helping. Ways of organising their daily routine, courses in study skills and other remedial aids are offered instead. But is this the best way of helping? If the cause of the learning difficulties was not correctly identified and addressed during Primary School years, why is the older learner denied help or even further help once he reaches higher grades?

Older learners and even adults carry with them unresolved neurodevelopmental issues that can make life more difficult for them. As an example, I remember clearly how, during one training session, a mature adult was found to have a retained primary reflex. Anyone who has studied Integrated Learning Therapy will be aware that we teach how the reflexes play a significant role in the development and subsequent functioning of the brain. This is the reason why we include reflex testing in our assessment of learners – no matter how old. The adult in question showed a strongly present ATNR (Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex) – which means that movement of her head initiated overflow movement of her arms. On hearing this, she exclaimed that it explained why she had such trouble driving her car. She was forced to look straight ahead at the road because if she turned her head to look sideways, her arms would involuntarily turn the steering wheel in the same direction. A dangerous thing to do when driving! A few months of daily repetition of an activity helped her to resolve this problem.

The fact is that we’re never too old to restore more efficient functioning of the brain. For hundreds of years this idea was inconceivable because mainstream medicine and associated fields of study believed that brain anatomy was fixed after a certain age. It was commonly believed that after childhood, the brain only changed when it began to age and decline in functioning. If brain cells failed to develop properly in the first place, or were destroyed due to illness or injury, they could not be replaced. Today we know differently. We all accept that after severe brain trauma, such as a stroke, the patient has a chance of recovering part or even full functioning. This is because the brain finds a new way to function if part is damaged; often it builds new neural pathways around the site of injury.

So the brain is capable of changing – and it can do so across the lifespan. This is due to what is called ‘neuroplasticity’. Neuro stands for ‘neuron’, the nerve cells making up the brain and nervous system, and plastic for ‘changeable, modifiable, malleable.’ Even eighty-year olds can use neuroplasticity to sharpen their memories and regain earlier mental abilities.

With this knowledge, it is clear that we might be neglecting our older students if we fail to consider what might be interfering with their brain’s ability to cope with schoolwork. By evaluating the way their brains developed, assessing vital brain systems that support learning and considering all other factors that could have negatively affected brain structure and function (and perhaps still are), learners of all ages can be helped.

For more information about Integrated Learning Therapy and our neurodevelopmental approach, visit our website www.ilt.co.za. We offer training courses to parents, teachers and helping professionals and details of those are on the website. In addition, you can contact us at [email protected].

If you would like to receive more articles of this nature, please Like our page and share with all your friends.

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27/03/2024

For Parents and Teachers
Our active brains
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

Another post on the value of movement? Yes. There are so many compelling reasons to keep reminding educators of the need to encourage children to move. At home, they have to have time for energetic play away from screens and sedentary toys like Lego. At school, they need frequent breaks to enable the body to best support the learning brain.

By this time, you should be realising that the brain does not benefit more from sitting at a desk busy with reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic than running, playing and learning while moving. Instead, the evidence increasingly supports the view that working the muscles of the body benefits the brain. In fact physical activities can alter the structure of the brain in very precise ways.

One important brain area that benefits from aerobic exercise is the hippocampus. This is at the core of the brain’s learning and memory systems and research has shown that it grows as people get fitter. In addition to improving memory in general, there are studies to show that exercise accompanying learning can improve memory formation. A German study showed that walking or cycling during (but not before) learning helped memorise vocabulary of a new foreign language. So walking around while revising study material may be more helpful than sitting at a table.

Exercise has been touted for helping focus and the ability to stay on task. We keep pleading for more schools to take cognisance of the value of interspersing lessons with bouts of aerobics-style exercise because there are studies to show how this improves the attention spans of learners. And even more significantly, a study in the USA showed that daily extra-mural sports classes improved the executive functioning in children. This was shown by their becoming more able to ignore distractions, to multitask and to show improvement in working memory, being able to hold and manipulate information in their minds.

An exercise programme doesn’t need a great deal of planning or space. Many homes and schools lack outdoor space but there are beneficial games that can be introduced needing very little. A large group of German teenagers improved their attention span by merely boucing two balls at the same time for 10 playful minutes.

Apart from the mental benefits, we know that movement also has powerful effects on mood and can be used to lift depression. It also seems to be able to boost creativity and divergent thought.

Our brains don’t operate alone; we have to forget the very old and outdated belief that the body is there merely to carry the brain around. There is so much evidence about the value of movement and it should be translating into school policy and home habits.

Content of this post is partly based on the writing of Ben Martynoga. He is a neuroscientist and science writer. He tweets at .
Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) looks for and addresses the underlying causes of children’s learning difficulties. Visit our website at www.ilt.co.za to read more about our approach. We also offer accredited courses for teachers and parents to better understand brain development and function and what interferes with children’s ability to succeed at school without too great an effort. Practitioners are also listed to help families in need.

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Calling all Matrics … varsity applications open soon … have you got a plan for next year?
11/03/2024

Calling all Matrics … varsity applications open soon … have you got a plan for next year?

18/01/2024

For Parents and Teachers
My clumsy child – how can I help?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

You’ll find at least one child in every classroom who seems to find fluent movements difficult. They might appear clumsy, have bad handwriting, are poor at ball games, can’t ride a bicycle or swim and seem to struggle to coordinate their arm and leg movements. Typically they are more tired than other children at the end of the day.

These are the symptoms of developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as developmental dyspraxia.

DCD is a common childhood disorder. Children with DCD often also have one or more other developmental disorders, such as ADHD, autism and developmental language and learning disorders. But because children with DCD often avoid the tasks they struggle with, their issues may become invisible.

What can you do?

Seeking a referral to a health professional who is versed in developmental disorders can be a positive first step to help a child deal with DCD. They need help in discovering why movements are difficult for them and learn ways of improving their motor skills. At the same time, their personal hopes and preferences should be taken into account so that they can build their confidence and meet their academic, social and life goals.

DCD is not always recognised in the school setting, nor is it well-understood by many. Parents should be on the lookout for any symptoms that tell of a difficulty with bodily movements. It may be that a ‘clumsy’ child is struggling with a very real but treatable developmental disorder.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) strives to uncover the root causes of puzzling behaviours and learning difficulties in children. Visit the website www.ilt.co.za to learn more about this approach.

We list practitioners near you to help as well as the accredited courses we offer parents, teachers and other helping professionals to become more knowledgeable about brain development and what might go wrong.

Teachers earn 15 TCPD points for successful completion of the course as well as credits from ETDP-SETA for further studies in Special Needs Education. Parents are also credited with ETDP-SETA and so ILT can be a pathway to further academic study.

ILT 1 courses are available as attendance or by correspondence. Details are on the website but you are welcome to contact us at [email protected].

Remember to Like and Share this post to receive more.

Provided by The Conversation
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Is you child ready to tackle the 2024 school year that starts next week? The best way to prepare them is to "face facts"...
11/01/2024

Is you child ready to tackle the 2024 school year that starts next week?

The best way to prepare them is to "face facts" and know what they will find manageable and what they won't. This knowledge allows you to make informed decisions as to the support systems they may require and to implement them from early in the year.

Give your child a head start to the year, by conducting an "Academic Audit" which includes reflection on the 2023 academic year, Executive Functioning Assessment, Learning Style Assessment and Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) Pre-Assessment. This Assessment can all be done online, meaning it doesn't matter where you are based.

Based on this Assessment, advice will be provided as the the best way forward, including a plan of action and a quotation of costs going forward where applicable.

I am offering this Assessment until the end of February at the 2023 price of R550.00

Should you be interested in this offer, please email me on [email protected] or WhatsApp me on 083 238 4146.

13/12/2023

For Parents and Teachers
When is a child’s brain ready to learn?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

Our brains are complex and in spite of ongoing research, we are still very ignorant about the way they work. What we do know is that typical school-related tasks need multiple areas of the brain to work together.

For example, activities related to language skills (listening, reading, thinking up words, answering a question) involve many separate parts of the brain. These different parts will be linked by networks of brain cells (neurons) that enable them to work together to produce a desired outcome.

If a child’s brain has not developed enough to function in this complex way, learning may be difficult. Such a child may not be learning ready.

Learning readiness shouldn’t be confused with school readiness. School readiness may be achieved by many children because they have learned many of the skills required to cope with school. These include having a measure of emotional independence, the ability to get along with same-aged peers, being able to sit still, manipulate pencils, listen to instructions, and so on. It doesn’t mean that these children will all thrive at school. Somewhere along the way, be it in Grade 1 or 2 or 3, children who showed school readiness but were not learning ready will begin to find school more and more challenging.

The brain’s readiness to learn anything quickly, efficiently and joyfully depends on two things, both partially reliant on input from the environment. The first is the growth of the neurons and the second is the formation of connections between the neurons.

A brain cell’s development can be thought of as a young tree. Remember when you planted the tree it had a thin, fragile stem with just a few roots and branches. As it grew, the stem thickened, the root system spread out and the branches sprouted to form a thick overhead canopy.

The thickening of the stem of the neural ‘tree’ happens through a process known as ‘myelination’. Myelin is a fatty substance that insulates the ‘stem’ of the neuron so that electrical messages can be conveyed efficiently from one neuron to the next. Before a neural network is myelinated, messages can easily get lost or scrambled. A diet rich in omega-3 will supply the raw materials needed for good myelin but the regular use of a certain neural network is needed to supply the stimulus to begin the myelination.

Myelin develops from the lower brain areas and gradually moves up to higher levels, reflecting the child’s growing ability. For example, at birth the child is capable of very little. Areas needed for walking, talking and learning are still not myelinated.

The cycles of myelin formation will coincide with a child’s mastery of increasingly complex learning throughout the school years and early adulthood. Sometimes, a child appears to be having a hard time in school then suddenly seems to blossom. Such ‘late bloomers’ show that different brains have a different schedule and not all will be ready to learn at the same age.

The connections between the neurons (which happen at the synapses between the brain cells) are formed at the same time as myelination and depend on the experiences of the child. These are mainly experiences offered through body movements and stimulation through the senses. They give rise to the trillions of cells in various brain areas that are linked in neural networks and which are needed for learning and task completion.

If something has occurred along the child’s development pathway to prevent either myelination or enough connections, he or she may not be learning ready.

At this stage, you have to be careful not to try and force the readiness by the wrong kind of stimulation. Intensive, remedial work can certainly help stimulate development of the networks but may not always be helpful because some aspects of development can’t be forced. Skills that are forced may cause a child to use immature, inappropriate neural networks that will not be able to support later, even more complex tasks. Forcing learning can also cause emotional problems.

A better approach is to revisit the child’s developmental history to find out what brain areas may be underdeveloped and to help the brain ‘catch up’ by using the movements responsible for brain development in the first place. We know how the brain is structured through movement and also what movements are responsible for the development of neural networks. This makes it possible to help the child achieve a state of ‘readiness to learn’ rather than focusing on the weaknesses he or she shows at school.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) looks at the underlying causes for learning and behavioural challenges. Visit our website (www.ilt.co.za) for more information and to find a practitioner near you to help.

You may also be interested in our courses that we offer to parents, teachers and helping professionals. Find those on the website or write to us at [email protected] for more information.

If you would like to receive more posts like this, please Like our page and Share.

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Receiving emails like this one from parents of my clients make my work so rewarding. The combination of Integrated Learn...
11/12/2023

Receiving emails like this one from parents of my clients make my work so rewarding.

The combination of Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT), improving studying methods and finding the right school can completely transform a child’s life!

29/11/2023

For Parents and Teachers
Can your child’s ears be causing learning difficulties?
Written by Dr Shirley K***t

You have a child in your classroom or at home. He seems to be bright: speaks well, has good general knowledge, can be quite cheeky and shows a keen sense of humour. His school performance, however, is below average. He struggles with schoolwork and in spite of his obvious intelligence, is unable to read, write, do maths or spell at required grade level. You refer him to the Learning Support Teacher and she begins to give him individual instruction in weak areas. After a while, she reports that he is not responding well and he continues to fall behind. No wonder because trying to solve learning problems with academic work seldom succeeds. What is needed is an understanding of what may be underlying the academic difficulties.

Obviously there could be many reasons for his school underperformance but one that may be interesting to discuss here is a bilateral vestibular problem.

The vestibular system is located in the inner ear and those of you that follow posts put out by Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) will have read about this tiny system before. It may be very small but it is strongly implicated in our ability to cope with just about everything we have to do in the world! Certainly ILT practitioners will tell you that the majority of learners referred for help show signs of irregular vestibular function.

There are two types of vestibular problems that influence learning and behaviour. As a result of vestibular irregularities, the brain either over- or underreacts to vestibular input. This can be compared to a TV that is not properly adjusted. The vestibular acts as the tuning control and should adjust the incoming signal so that the picture and sound are clear and neither too bright or dull, too loud or soft. When the brain’s powers of functioning are not balanced as a result of efficient vestibular activities, the information sent to the brain from the various sensory organs cannot be easily interpreted. If not correctly interpreted, responses to such information are usually inappropriate. Think of yourself trying to view a programme that is not properly tuned to the signal but instead leaves the screen with a confusing mess of zigzag lines with a shrill, ear-shattering soundtrack.

The symptoms of a bilateral vestibular problem are difficult to pinpoint. Learners with this problem are often considered by their families as completely normal until they go to school. Then the puzzling signs appear and they fail to keep up with their learning peers. Often their problems are diagnosed as dyslexia or alexia. Others may offer the opinion that the problem is of an emotional nature.

Signs that may point to the actual underlying problems include:

• Faulty eye movements resulting in difficulties following a moving object or to move attention from one thing to another
• Poor posture; the child has difficulty keeping her head upright while sitting or will tire easily when playing
• Difficulty learning to ride a two-wheeled bicycle
• Are not good at sports and lack the self-confidence to take part
• Although they show normal coordination, they may be clumsy
• He seeks out movement – enjoying merry-go-rounds, spinning or rolling endlessly
• The two sides of her body are not well integrated – she has trouble coordinating the right and left hands with each other, showing poor bilateral coordination
• Is easily confused by direction, especially if not given much time to think; confuses right with left side
• She becomes confused when trying to clap, walk or beat a drum to a rhythm
• May show midline problems
• An underactive vestibular system interferes with specialization of movements. This results in the child developing individual skills with each individual hand and brain hemisphere instead of using one hand for fine motor movements, like writing and using equipment. She will, for example, try to use her right hand for tasks on the right side of the body and her left hand for tasks on the left side. This may result in her seeming to be ambidextrous but she is not skillful with both hands as is a truly ambidextrous individual.
• When lying on her stomach with her arms stretched out forwards, she is unable to lift her trunk, head, arms and legs and hold them for 30 seconds.
• She tends to reverse letters, for example, ‘d’ and ‘b’ and also tends to read words in the incorrect order.
• She cannot handle stress well and becomes easily frustrated.

The bottom line is to try and gather clues that can help you identify what may be underlying a child’s learning challenges. Teachers often are the first to refer parents for help. Parents become frustrated and disheartened when they find themselves following through with advice but then seeing little improvement.

Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) offers teachers training courses to equip them with the knowledge to recognise the real reason for learning problems. This doesn’t mean that teachers have to become practitioners but it does mean that they are in a position to refer to the helping professional best able to offer effective help. We also offer courses to parents to equip them with the knowledge of how best to help their own children.

Visit our website www.ilt.co.za to learn more about our approach and to find practitioners around the country to help. The website also outlines the attendance and distance (correspondence) course we offer teachers. If you need more information, contact us at [email protected].

If you would like to receive more articles like this, remember to Share and Like our page.

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