Tag Archives: sequential processing

May I Have Your Undivided Attention? Fidget Spinners

 

Let’s just install ceiling fans in every classroom.

Ban Fidget Spinners with Bob Doman of NACDFidget spinners—what a wonderful invention—as though our children need something else to distract them. Let’s give children mini ceiling fans to carry around to help them pay attention—what a great idea! If spinning things help children concentrate, let’s just install ceiling fans in every classroom.

I have been arguing against giving kids on the Autism Spectrum fidgets for years. Do some kids on the spectrum like and want fidgets? Absolutely—they’re addicted to them. A fidget feeds their sensory addictions and helps keep them seated in their classroom chair when what is being presented quite possibly doesn’t fit them and goes on way past their auditory attention span. You attend to what you can process and if the input doesn’t fit your ability to process the information or what is being presented doesn’t match your knowledge/educational base, then you don’t pay attention to it (sadly this describes most children in most classrooms). Unfortunately, the operational definition of educational inclusion for children with developmental problems has really just come down to the kids sitting in desks and not making a fuss while surrounded by typical children. The special needs children then leave the classroom for a resource room where the instruction is hopefully more targeted and appropriate for the child. So, enter the fidget. The theory is that the fidgets help the children on the spectrum pay attention and avoid being distracted. As far as I know, there has been no good research to substantiate this, but I would suspect that if the research were directed at whether a fidget would keep a child sitting for longer periods the results would quite likely be positive. If, however, the study was testing whether the children learned more or if it helped their sensory issues, I believe the answer would be no. There has, however, been extensive research on the effects of any and all distractions while driving (paying attention) and the conclusion is that they are all bad. Try driving and watching your fidget spinner spin. You can give it another twirl if it stops and tell me if it makes you a safer driver.

One of the first things we recommend parents who have children on the spectrum do for their children who engage in visual DSAs (Debilitating Sensory Addictive behaviors), is to remove or a least not turn on any ceiling fans. As most parents with children on the spectrum with visual issues know, the kids will stare at ceiling fans endlessly if given the opportunity. None of these parents will tell you that their child is paying better attention or is more present while staring at the fan. The fan takes them away—it doesn’t help them focus or concentrate. Most visual stims or DSAs involve the child playing with and stimming with their peripheral vision. Your peripheral vision picks up movement and edges, both of which are stimulated in a negative fashion by ceiling fans, fidgets, waving fingers, staring at edges, etc. Fidget spinners not only distract with the visual aspect, but also with an audio and a tactile component—they hum and vibrate while they spin. So let’s have the child’s brain distracted with extraneous visual, auditory and tactile garbage and simultaneously help build a new addiction.

I’m sure to hear from “professionals” out there, particularly occupational therapists who just discovered that children have sensory issues, but having worked with Autistic children for fifty years and having learned how to help normalize their sensory issues, I am confident that feeding their addictions is not in their best interest in the long term. If the motivation and goal is to keep them content, in their seats and quiet at the cost of their development, then. . .

Now, enter the logic that begins with the erroneous premise that if fidgets help kids on the Spectrum pay attention, then perhaps they will help typical kids pay attention. Sadly many, if not most, children have successfully learned not to pay attention already and the last thing they need is another distraction. Parents and teachers often mistake the child looking in your general direction and apparently listening as attending. At best, we often mistake listening for paying attention. Listening is something you do when you’re watching your favorite sporting event and the game is tied with seconds to go and someone talks to you about the weather. Listening is something you do when you’re talking to someone on the phone while you’re checking your email. Ask the child who appears to be “listening” to repeat the last sentence of something you just said or read to them. When we talk about learning we are talking about changing the brain and to change the brain we need to put in specific appropriate input with sufficient frequency, intensity and duration. Of the three components, intensity is the most important. Intensity means focus and focus means that I have your undivided attention. We need to help teach children to focus and give undivided attention, otherwise parents and teachers are largely talking to themselves.

If we want to be proactive and improve focus and attention, we need to do a better job of targeting the input to fit the child. Teaching algebra to a child who still is struggling with basic math isn’t going to work. Speaking in paragraphs to a child who has difficulty following a two- or three-step direction doesn’t work. Making many children sit in a chair and attend for more than ten minutes without letting them get up and move around a bit generally doesn’t work either. We need to pay attention to the individual and teach to their knowledge level so they have some context within which to associate the information. We need to be aware of the child’s processing ability (short –term and working memory) and target the structure of the input to fit them. We need to provide educational environments as free of extraneous distractions as possible—not contribute to them—and we need to focus upon the neurodevelopmental foundation and help build the child’s ability to learn, communicate and function.

Many children across the county are learning not to attend, not be present and sadly are learning that learning itself isn’t fun, isn’t exciting and that it doesn’t work for them.

Ban Fidget Spinners!

—Bob

NACD Dad Power

Dad Power!

I just heard from another Dad letting me know how great he feels about Simply Smarter. Many Dads feel lousy about their lack of participation in their kids’ educations and development. They tend not to get too involved (beyond screaming about poor grades) for a variety of reasons—lack of time, they’re too busy or can’t commit to being consistent—they don’t feel they have the temperament and often because they’re out of their comfort zones and don’t feel like they really know what they’re doing.

NACD’s online program Simply Smarter has been a game changer for many Dads and has taught them how to use their “Dad Power.”

I have worked my entire career to help people understand that potential is something you work to achieve and that it is not a reflection of what you were born with. The entire educational system is built around curriculum, not students. Educators should perceive every student as having a brain that needs to be developed as opposed to a brain that needs to be stuffed. You don’t develop brains and cognition by trying to stuff more into them; you develop brains by building their foundations. What is the foundation? The base of the foundation is auditory and visual short-term memory, upon which we build working memory and executive function. What does the foundation do?

The foundation, starting with short-term memory, determines how many pieces of information you can process. This includes how much of what is being said actually reaches your brain, how much of what you see or read actually reaches your brain and is partially reflected in what you actually can and do pay attention to. Your short-term memory is the basis of your working memory, which determines how many pieces of information you can manipulate in your mind, which translates into how well you can think. Working memory is the foundation of executive function which is responsible for things like problem solving, focus, attention, prioritization, inhibition, impulse control, cognitive flexibility and the ability to organize and act on thoughts, just to name a few. It doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to see how improving all of these functions would and could change virtually everything you do—including making learning, thinking, communicating and functioning easier. Working memory is now being called the new “IQ” and as it should. It doesn’t matter a hoot what your innate intelligence is if you can’t access it. Smarter is better and we can all be smarter. Would you be shocked to hear that smarter students and people in general do better? I hope not.

Back to Dad and where Simply Smarter comes in. When we were designing the activities in Simple Smarter to address and build the foundation, I realized that a couple of key ingredients needed to be included in addition to really individually targeted activities and progressions, such as easy and independent use—something that could be done without direct supervision. Most anyone functioning at the level of an eight-year-old or better can do Simply Smarter from beginning to end all by himself or herself. But, I needed a way for there to be oversight as well as acknowledgement of effort and success, reinforcement and oversight of compliance—meaning that it is being done as often as required. What we have built into Simply Smarter (Dads pay attention here), are a variety of internal badges, rewards and scores, as well as a customizable email notification system. This email system is set up so that anyone who is designated such as Mom, Grandma, Coach Smith, or DAD will receive emails every time the child receives a new high score, which happens often, as long as they are trying their best. It also sends compliance emails so you know if you child or children are using the program as often as you would like them to. So Dad, you can be sitting at your office or checking email on your phone and find out, low and behold Johnny got a new high score! Imagine coming home and yelling “Where’s Johnny?” Johnny comes running in from his X-Box or PlayStation wondering what he did now and you scoop him up and say “Johnny you’re the best—congratulations on your new Simply Smarter high score, I’m really proud of you!” You might have just changed his life—how cool is that! You don’t even need to be in town—a special call from Dad can be really powerful too.

Dad, you’ve got the power! Use it well, use it wisely and use it often.

Dad Power!

– Bob

For more information about how to set up email notifications in Simply Smarter, please visit: http://mysimplysmarter.com/faq/faq-how-do-i-set-up-email-notifications/

 

Mila and Avery

Here are two videos of some extremely smart, happy, and very cute little girls. Two-year-old Mila is demonstrating her super auditory digit span of 5; and Avery (aka Shirley Temple), who just turned six, is showing us how much fun math can be.

Mila’s maturity and language, which are a reflection of her super processing skills, would blow your socks off! She’s really smart, really happy, and great fun. With her high processing, her world is much larger and richer than that of her peers, and the quality and quantity of information her brain processes every day is going to continue to keep moving her higher and higher. Just to put things in perspective, a lot of 5-year-olds can’t process a 5!

 

Miss Personality, Avery just gushes exuberance. To put her video in perspective, a note from Avery’s mom accompanied her video: “I just showed Avery the concept of borrowing (using Modular Math) and this is her second problem.“ The significance of this isn’t really that she has grasped borrowing, it’s that she loves it! How many parents can say their kids LOVE math? Step one in teaching any child anything—teach them to love it!

Every day I deal with children and parents struggling with school—kids who are learning to hate learning and often themselves in the process. Learning can and needs to be fun.

The foundation of development is neuroplasticity. Specific input delivered with the appropriate frequency, intensity, and duration is the key to success.

Guess what? If we can target our input, teach specifically to the child, create great processing skills, and make it fun, we produce great outcomes.

A big part of what excites me about these exceptional little ones is the fact that they are demonstrating the power of neuroplasticity and potential—the power and potential that lies in every child’s brain. They are a reflection of the opportunities they are receiving. Our children with developmental issues are often viewed as their labels with all the accompanying baggage. The baggage is being judged by the historical limitations of others with the same label that have preceded them over the past decades. The perception of limitations results in limited opportunities, and limited opportunities result in self-fulfilling prophecies. Every child, regardless of their issues and labels, needs to be perceived as a totally unique individual with unlimited potential and needs to be provided with real opportunities and the reality is the more issues they have, the more they need. We love seeing children exceed others’ expectations.

The power and potential of the human brain is literally unfathomable.

—Bob

No More One Liners

Yes, I hear you but…senate_photo

I just read a New York Times article about the trauma over passing the spending bill and the “Demise of Compromise.” One of the more telling pieces of the article was the following paragraph:

“With both parties increasingly playing to their base constituencies and their sometimes absolutist positions, many lawmakers are apt to oppose legislation that does not meet their demands in an all-or-nothing approach, making bipartisan measures like the $1.1 trillion spending bill extraordinarily difficult to achieve.”

I see so much of what is happening, be it in politics or the streets, to be a reflection of so many peoples’ inability to really understand and process information. We have reached a point where we have enough people only processing the “one liners” that they are driving what is happening to us socially and politically as a nation. If you cannot or are unwilling to process that incredibly important word “but” we are in big trouble. Very few issues are simple or just black and white; and chances are if you can put it on a bumper sticker or on a placard that it is a gross oversimplification of what is. We cannot build and direct our society or our nation based on gross oversimplification of important and complex issues.

Do our people in office represent us? Sadly, they possibly do; but they don’t represent me very often. They are trying to keep their jobs and represent all the folks that believe the “one liners” that have been created by the advertising folks who come up with them for the political parties in the first place. Unless those running our country are free to process and communicate a “but” and really represent the complexity of issues, there will be very little compromise, progress, or representation of what is.

Perhaps we should pass a new law outlawing “one liners” and create bumper stickers and placards with: “No More One Liners.”

Oh, but what about, “Don’t cross the street without looking both ways”? “Brush your teeth after every meal.” “No taxation without representation.” There are some good ones. Ain’t nothing simple.

We simply need to be smarter.

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.