Category Archives: Looking Ahead

A New Year

2015_calendarAs a holiday, I abhor New Years; but I always embrace the new year.

I’m not a New Year celebration guy. I don’t enjoy parties. I have no interest in watching the ball drop and will hopefully be sound asleep before it even happens.

But the new year is something else entirely. I have always looked forward to the new year as a chance for new beginnings and new chances. I don’t actually make resolutions, as much as I perceive the new year as yet another opportunity to do it all better.

Whether you are actually celebrating New Years or just hanging out at home, pause a moment, reflect, and realize that come January 1, we have yet another chance to do it all better, with renewed energy, hope, and effort.

There is Some Hope for the World

liaBetween hearing horror stories about what is happening in education from our families, as well as reports and studies and seeing the results first hand day in and day out from our families, there are some glimmers of hope that we might survive in spite of our governments and institutions.

As much as I care about all of our kids with developmental problems, I am on a larger scale really concerned about our future as a society. We have wars going on all over the planet, people seem to find new reasons for killing and harming each other, and technology keeps giving them faster and easier ways to do it. We have people starving, people who lack even the basics needed to sustain life. One would think that in 2014 we would have some clue as to how to live together and help and support each other on this tiny planet; but evidently we don’t.

There are obviously a lot of things that need to be done; but we certainly do need to make everyone smarter, and we really need to help some people become really smart. We can help more of the people get it and some of the people really wrap their heads around the problems and start really fixing them.

Today I saw a glimmer of what can be. I saw a beautiful young lady who gave me hope. At her last evaluation I encouraged her family to buy her her very own set of encyclopedias. She likes to read—a lot. On good days her digit spans are hitting 12, and today her math was testing at high fourth grade, word recognition at college level, and reading comprehension at tenth grade level. She carries around medical books for casual reading, and today she needed to tell me about what she thought were the three most interesting spinal diseases. Cute, sweet, great sense of humor. (With an impish grin of her face today—just to mess with me—she said she thought that TLP was causing her tinnitus. Then she laughed.) She’s doing wonderfully physically and starting to get into doing chores. Great kid. And, by the way, she’s five! Five! Meet Lia.

There is hope for the world.

Gearing Up for the New Beginning

The registration for the Simply Smarter System Beta is coming to a close in a few days and many of us are getting anxious to start using it. I know I have lost some horsepower over the last few years and am ready to get it back. As I hope we all know, specific input with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration is what produces change. We have a great proven tool that builds all of the processing pieces: short-term memory, working memory, executive function, visualization, and conceptualization. This is done in a totally targeted, individualized program that provides each individual with the specific input and delivers it with the required frequency, intensity, and duration for anyone who is motivated to improve.

I have all of our staff signed up and am excited to see them push forward. I plan to see everyone get better at virtually everything, improving globally. Everyone may not have the time to devote to reach a 10 or 12 or higher, but as many of our families know, even an incremental change can make a measurable difference in function. We have families that can see their child change significantly as they move from a 3.0 to 3.1 to a 3.2, on their way to a 4. One of the things I love to see is children who take the summer off from their academic programs (not something I recommend), but who work on their processing; and unlike the other children who attend school and take a summer vacation and lose about three months academically over the summer, these children often gain three to six months, and at times over a year, in their reading and math skills- way cool!

I’m also very excited to see the changes in how well programs are being implemented and how well the parents of our kids are able to organize their lives, think through the issues, and improve the overall quality of their lives as they build their processing skills.

Once everyone gets started on the SS System, early next month I would love to see people start sharing stories about their progress. “I came up a full digit in my auditory progression in just weeks!” “I moved out of the red and yellow zones into all greens across the board.” You can share your advancement on NACD’s Facebook page without revealing where you actually are, or if you want to brag, tell the world where you have gone.

I would hope that our enlightened NACD families would perceive the value of the Simply Smarter System and my vision with our foundation’s Simply Smarter Project. We can all be smarter and we all need to get smarter fast. There is nothing on the news that makes me believe that the world is moving in any great directions. We need everyone to simply be smarter soon or I’m really worried about later.

Dateline 2025: ADHD

Today in a joint announcement, the President, in conjunction with the US Department of Education, the AMA (American Medical Association), the NEA (National Education Association), and the PMDC (Parents for More Drugs Consortium, which is sponsored by the IDP – International Drug Producers Consortium-and BLP-Better Lives Through Pharmacology) were proud to announce that they have reached their joint goal to help every child in the nation receive an appropriate diagnosis and, through federal legislation and mandated funding, to provide every child with a minimum of two mind/brain-altering drugs. This project, which was begun in 2015, was an effort to have all children with ADHD “appropriately” identified and treated with amphetamines. It should be stated that the government wanted strict guidelines for the diagnosis: children needed to meet the criteria of not liking school and preferring screen time to reading. As part of the initial project, it was also realized that legislation would need to be passed to mandate drug administration over parental objections. The projected number at the time this was initiated was a conservative 65% of the school population. Consistent with what has now been proven through “research,” this number is now close to 85%, with the majority of these students also fitting into the WAS, Work Avoidance Spectrum, which was discovered through the ground breaking work of YAGI, You’ve All Got IT Laboratories. WAS has reached and surpassed all projections and has now reached epidemic proportions, touching nine out of ten of our children. 

In today’s New York Times (read the article here and watch the video below) there was an alarming article about the rise in ADHD diagnoses and the number of children being medicated for it. The article states that one in five high school age boys have been given the “medical” diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 6.4 million children between 4 and 17 have been “diagnosed.” This is for an imaginary disease that was only created in the 1980s. This is not only shocking but also ridiculous and horrifying.

You can’t get a blood test to identify ADHD; they can’t do a chromosome test; they can’t do a biopsy to make this “medical diagnosis.” They might run through a checklist that includes questions about attention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. To see the actual “test,” go to http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html. Often the reality is that a teacher might suggest that you ask your doctor about ADHD, and then you tell your doctor that the teacher told you to ask, and he takes out his prescription pad.

The issue of using a medical model for developmental problems is of huge concern. We have seen thousands of children who have come to us with such diagnoses, all of whom are “NORMAL,” disease-free kids who, like everyone else, have some developmental issues. Put together a few common issues like poor auditory processing and a bad diet, just to mention a couple of many such issues, and—BANG!— you have a disease. No, you do not—you have an auditory processing issue and eat pancakes for breakfast. Giving you a label of a disease and drugs is not going to address your auditory processing or dietary issues. Ah, but most kids pay better attention when given the drugs, they say. Guess what? Most everyone pays better attention when using the drugs. Perhaps we all should take more drugs? But, then again, they have side effects; and gee, I wonder what they are going to find out about what long-term effects use of these drugs produce? Could there be effects on future generations? If you buy these drugs on the street, they are called all kinds of things, like “speed” and “uppers.” These drugs are psycho-motor stimulants, which can produce wakefulness, decrease appetite, and have a whole slew of side effects. But they do not fix what is broken or undeveloped. I just took a couple of minutes and put together a preliminary list of different correctable factors that could lead to this wonderful disease label if you would like to review it, scroll to the bottom of this article. To be fair, there are some kids who are bouncing off the walls who need medication while the broken pieces are being addressed; but that is a very, very tiny percentage. This trend to create symptomatic labels and medicate our children is truly horrifying. Doctors do not have methodologies to address developmental problems; doctors do not treat developmental problems; schools and teachers do not address and treat developmental problems. Schools complain and doctors write prescriptions. I wish I could get more people to listen and to understand what great potential we all have. We all have the potential to do better, we all have the ability to do better, we just need the opportunity to do better. And at NACD we so enjoy helping to do it!

I will have a lot more to say about this subject shortly.

Issues That Can Lead to a “Diagnosis” of ADD or ADHD

by Bob Doman

 Vision

  • Acuity/sight problems
  • Convergence issues
  • Tracking issues
  • Astigmatism
  • Underdeveloped central vision
  • Hyperperipheral vision
  • Excessive visualizing negatively impacting visual attention
  • Poor visualization
  • Low visual sequential processing
  • Reduced visual short-term memory
  • Reduced visual working memory
  • Reduced visual long-term memory
  • Excessive screen time

Hearing and auditory function

  • Hearing loss
  • Issues with processing specific frequencies
  • Otitis media/middle ear fluid
  • Ear infections
  • Figure-ground issues
  • Low auditory sequential processing
  • Reduced auditory short-term memory
  • Reduced auditory working memory
  • Reduced auditory long-term memory
  • Inadequate conceptual thought
  • Visualization/conceptualization imbalance
  • Visual vs. auditory processing imbalance

Physiological issues

  • Blood sugar issues
  • Food allergies
  • Food sensitivities
  • Excessive carbohydrates
  • Excessive sugar
  • Excessive food colorings and artificial sweeteners
  • Inadequate protein
  • Bowel/gut disorders
  • Sleep disturbance
  • Respiratory issues
  • Toxins
  • Environmental allergies
  • Cardiac issues

Motor issues

  • Poor fine motor development
  • Poor manual dexterity
  • Poor pencil grasp
  • Inadequate writing instruction

Behavioral issues

  • Lack of interest
  • Lack of intensity
  • Lack of proper intention
  • Global immaturity
  • Developmental delays
  • Avoidance behaviors
  • Excessive social focus
  • Lack of social awareness
  • Not present
  • Subdominant/emotional
  • Negative attention-getting behaviors
  • Poor feedback
  • Improper behavioral training

Educational structure issues

  • Poor instructional environment
  • Lack of intensity
  • Curriculum heavy
  • Educational content not engaging
  • Not directed to individual’s processing level
  • Negative environment
  • Low expectations
  • Excessively high expectations
  • Personality conflict
  • Excessive duration
  • Inadequate review
  • Lack of individual attention
  • Teacher’s speech or accent
  • Extraneous classroom sound/noise
  • Extraneous/distracting visual environment
  • Proximity of other students
  • Bullying
  • Cliques
  • Social pressure to perform
  • Social pressure not to perform
  • Social pressure to act out
  • Lack of parental involvement
  • Excessive parental involvement
  • Reading, math, etc. levels below class
  • Reading, math, etc. levels above class
  • Difficulties understanding English or language used in classroom

Living the Dream

I had heard about a young restaurateur who happened to have Down syndrome a few months ago, but today I was sent a link to a youtube video about this young man. Take a look:

I have imagined a “Tim’s Place” for years. A business owned by one of my grown NACD kids, a place that can take advantage of their talents, a place where they can contribute, make a difference, make a living, and spend their days doing something they can be passionate about. For a number of years I have been encouraging the parents of children with developmental issues to look toward their children’s futures and start thinking about creating a business to help take advantage of those talents, abilities, and passions. Tim is a good example. Like so many of our kids Tim obviously really likes people and defines a “people person.” I suspect that Tim also remembers people’s names very well, as so many of our kids do, and I suspect that once he has met you that you get added to his list of friends. Tim is ideally suited to be the upfront, greeting-the-customers small business owner.

I have been frustrated along with many of our families with the lack of opportunities for our young adults. I have seen families work hard to help their children develop their cognitive function, the academic abilities, social skills, and to become highly capable and then fail to find meaningful work as adults. I have even had individuals with Down syndrome get regular high school diplomas and even college degrees and still not find decent jobs, let alone jobs that they could be passionate about.

The job world is not kind to our kids. If you look at the reality of employment, you start off with the real unemployment rate, which could be pushing 20%. So what is the unemployment rate for people who are really short, have a speech impediment, have any physical problem, or who just look a bit different? If it were possible to gather these numbers they would be ugly; and add on any type of mental challenge and the reality is truly frightening. Enter the NACD Foundation “Exceptional Entrepreneurs” Project: http://www.nacdfoundation.org/entrepreneurs.php

Through the NACD Foundation I would like to bring together a volunteer team of parents, business and legal folks to help us create some templates to help our families help get businesses going for their kids. I have also wanted to build some models such as coffee shops and perhaps have the Foundation assist in raising funds to help build some of these businesses for the kids.

I’ve had a dream, and Tim’s Place: Where breakfast, lunch and HUGS are served is the realization of that dream for one deserving, lucky young man. We need to help more of our kids live this dream.