Tag Archives: future

Dream It and Do It

dreamsLast night I turned on the TV and there appeared a familiar face.

A couple of decades ago I worked with two families who had daughters. Jen and Stephanie had some pieces to work on, but both had high hopes and ambitions. Stephanie from the get-go had only one target—acting. Her friend, Jen, was interested in a variety of things both academic and musical, performing and excelling in voice and violin. The girls created a competition in the one thing that they could go at head-to-head, which was processing. The friendly competition resulted in fantastic auditory processing ability, and both girls were able to develop digit spans into the upper teens and, at times, a notch above.

Long story short, Jen went to college at 14, and two masters’ degrees later has a fantastic job in the tech world, is a concert violinist and a singer in a professional opera company, living her dreams. And Stephanie? Well, there she was on my TV.

Dream it and do it.

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.

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

Happy New Year!

I would like to wish you all a very happy New Year.

The new year offers us the opportunity to reset, to get our priorities in order, to rededicate ourselves, and to take a deep breath. Part of taking that deep breath should involve looking at our children and our lives without the baggage of last year. Start the year enjoying each day, enjoying your children and your lives. There is work to do–welcome it, don’t fear it. I look at every child that we impact through NACD as an opportunity to help build a life. You can work to help your children become all that they can be and enjoy them as well. I carry around thousands of snap shots in my mind, snapshots of your children. Most are smiling, some are inquisitive, some have a look of wonder. Others include snapshots of those precious moments where we can see in and begin to discover who they are.

My snapshots are all of moments I have shared with your children where I can see them, see who they are, and see their potential and their future as truly unique people.

Let’s hit 2013 running, working together, and smiling because we are together sharing the opportunity to help put more smiles on more faces and help our kids.

Please watch the video on the link below. A very dear friend and NACD mom, Gloria Lindsay, sent this message to me.

Bob