Many parents I have worked with have mentioned, remorsefully, that they had long had an uneasy feeling about their child’s learning but had not acted on it as they couldn’t pinpoint the problem. Some were mollified by positive reports from teachers, or by medical professionals taking tests and giving them the all-clear. Sometimes they just didn’t know who or what to ask. Likewise, many excellent teachers that I’ve worked with have picked up on difficulties but have not been given adequate tools (or time) to ameliorate these. Learning difficulties are not addressed at most teachers’ colleges. In fact, specific special needs training is only offered following a 3 year teaching degree, as a post-graduate course.
How do you put your finger on exactly what is causing your child difficulty, or is holding them back from reaching their potential? There is no guidebook. There is, however, now an overwhelming wealth of professionals that could help. But do you take your child to a chiropractor, an optometrist, a kinesiologist or a paediatrician? Perhaps they should see a speech therapist, an ENT specialist or a child psychologist. Maybe they would benefit from naturopathy, IQ testing or academic tutoring. A private school could be best for them – or a Montessori or Rudolf Steiner school, or home schooling.
In truth, all of these options could help your child – or they could not. Usually a combination of several works best. It is important, though, to firstly identify what is causing the problems. Some children have several underlying structural, functional or developmental issues; others have many. It is vital to look at the whole picture and decide which issues are the most pressing and which may contribute to problems in other areas. Only then can the overall situation be improved. So, the problem could be any one thing, or a range of issues: retained primitive reflexes, causing the body to work harder than necessary, auditory processing issues, visual processing issues (which are rarely picked up on by standard vision tests), oral language difficulties, sequencing and planning difficulties, movement and integration problems or other biological factors. Many of these problems are linked. For example, developmental delays are often the result of blockages in the functional areas: if we have retained primitive reflexes, for example, we will be unable to break out of certain groups of unnecessary movements required for specific activities. If we have inefficient hearing in our younger years it is very difficult to develop a full capacity for oral language.
Only once it is known which areas need assistance can specialist help be recommended, such as auditory assessments of metabolic investigations. In this type of holistic approach the various interventions work together to enable a person to learn. Including developmental work is also vital in any learning program, in order to ensure that a child (or adult) has reached a point where they are ready to learn. The many different systems in our body must be integrated and working together so that we can learn efficiently. If a person is putting in a great deal of effort in order to overcome a problem such as eye tracking difficulty or inefficient processing of sound, they may still be able to function – but at a cost. It is usually very difficult to learn and retain new information under these circumstances and despite their best efforts the child may fall behind in their work, becoming unhappy and frustrated.
Many children begin school with promise and enjoy the work in their early years, but become disappointed, confused and ashamed as time goes on. They may have the ability to think quickly, to ask astute questions, to be creative, but may also be finding the process of learning to read just too hard. Numbers may be confusing and sequences and symbols problematic. This can have devastating life-long effects on confidence and learning – I have seen the negative ramifications in scores of children, their siblings and parents.
