"Some have said that the single most common
disorder seen by child psychiatrists, psychologists
and neurologists is the 'attentional deficit syndrome
with learning disorders' or 'minimal cerebral
dysfunction,' as it is also called," said
Michael E. Cohen, M.D.. Associate Professor of
Neurology and Pediatricts at the State University
of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine.
"Typically,
youngsters with this syndrome are boys who are believed to
have a dysfunction in motor activity. coordination, attention,
cognitive function, impulse control, interpersonal relationships,
and responsiveness to social influences." Dr. Cohen clarified.
He agreed that the symptoms may arise from genetic variations,
bio-chemical irregularities, perinatal brain insults or other
illnesses or injuries sustained during the years which are
critical for the development and maturation of the central
nervous system, or from unknown causes.
He
also observed that the various specialists who see the child focus
on the syndrome from the particular point of view of their own specialty,
so that the orthodox child psychiatrist may see it as indicative of
a seriously disturbed child, the orthomolecular psychiatrist may see
it as a nutritional deficiency, and the allergist may suspect that
an environmental toxin or food additive is the basis for the problem.
The pharmacologist, neurophysiologist, and to some extent the neurologist,
Dr. Cohen added, view this as "an organic syndrome resulting
from abnormal balance or neurotransmitter function."
The
result is that there have been many different approaches developed
for treatment of the child who is learning disabled. The treatment
varies with the specialty training of the individual doctor the
parents consult, and if one medical discipline fails to confront
the problem adequately another is tried. This is what causes parents
to shunt their learning disabled children from doctor to doctor,
spending thousands of dollars in the process.
Not
only do the children get experimented on treatment by trial and
error - but many physicians in the business of treating the mind
and emotions don't I want anything to do with hyperactive and learning
disabled patients. For example, R. Glen Green, M.D.. an orthomoleclar
physician in general practice for thirty-one years in Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan, Canada, said at the Second Annual Conference of the
Canadian Association for Children with Learning Disabilities:"When
I went to medical school, hyperactivity was a rare disease. Certainly
teachers feel and know there is an increase; the real question is
why. We do not recognize or accept anything, unless it is within
the realm of our own experience. Many doctors do not want to be
involved with these children. They pass off the child and the parents
by saying, 'Oh, he's just a real boy, he'll grow out of it.'"
Therefore,
while many procedures to correct learning disabilities exist, in
this book we will discuss the one method that involves itself with
coordination correction through exercise - especially the method
of *reboundology.
Alfhild
Akselsen, Ph.D. has developed a series of tests and movement activities
to aid youngsters with coordination problems and learning disabilities.
The tests show a child's lack of rhythm, his problem with timing,
strength or agility, or the more serious difficulties associated
with brain damage. Dr. Akselsen's investigation in the learning
disabled field has allowed her to slowly and painstakingly develop
some muscle control movements to overcome those various coordination
problems. They definitely include the application of re-bounding
aerobics, with special emphasis on the use of a rebound device having
a double suspension system. Rebounding supplies corrective exercises
for slow learners and retarded children, alike.
"Rebounding
should start in nursery school," said Dr. Akselsen. "I
see mind/body improvement occur throughout the growth period of
the human organism.When I work with a child who has all kinds of
coordination problems culminating in learning disabilities it means
he or she has not worked with the gross and fine motor nerve/muscle
coordinates. A child should do this from at least first or second
grade. I have put rebounding devices in schools not only around
the United States but also in schools around the world. The children
have to be given a chance to learn up to their capacities. I don't
say they'll all end up being geniuses, but they will coordinate
their senses up to their own inborn intelligence."Dr. Akselsen
was a school psychologist in Norway more than forty years ago. She
had responsibility for learning disabled children for whom everything
avail-able was done to bring them into normality. In some cases,
she met failure. With one little boy who was absolutely unable to
do what he was supposed to, some-thing pushed the psychologist into
requesting the child to walk backwards. He walked three steps and
fell on the floor. For the first time, she realized that this type
of child does not know left from right or front from back. Such
children only recognize a forward direction.From this point onward.
Dr. Akselsen knew that coordination, balance and rhythm through
exercising, was called for. She has worked with exercises ever since.
"I
came upon the use of rebounding equipment by experimenting with
many different devices made of wood. For a long time I employed
something called the 'trampoline board,' a twelve-foot-long plank,
twelve inches wide and two inches thick, that had to be placed eight
inches from the floor. It was made of a special springy wood. The
children jumped on this plank to get the spring. Other plywood forms
also gave spring. Then I began to use ordinary trampolines.
"One
day, while I was visiting with Victor Green at his Tri-Flex manufacturing
plant and asked that a special type of rebound unit be made. I found
he already had it available. This baby form of trampoline works
best," Dr. Akselsen said.
Now
she is working with mentally retarded infants with IQ's as low as
twenty-five. Using massage, exercises, and rebounding, she is succeeding
with these babies.
Why
does the rebounding device work for improving the body/mind connection?
"Because when you are re-bounding, you are moving and exercising
every brain cell as you are each of the other body cells. Toxic
heavy metals are leached out of these brains cells to free up the
neurons to work more effectively. Better nourishment has a chance
to penetrate the cell walls, too. Furthermore, rebounding has you
work from the outside,from the nerve endings toward the brain,"
said Dr. Akselsen."That's what I think it does. We don't know
for certain, of course, but I can't see the results any other way.
I am trying to build a sense of the truth, at this time."
In
general, Dr. Akselsen is working with children who are ignored by
society - sometimes hidden away in institutions - and turns them
into whatever are their mental capacities. In many cases, these
learning disabled people turn out to be above average and exceptional
human beings. Their primary problem is actually a neuromuscular
dysfunction - not reduced intelligence- that prevents them from
releasing the information stored within. Dr. Akselsen merely trains
the body to respond to the brain. The training involves the eyes,nose,
larynx, tongue, fingers, and other organs so that learning disabled
persons can finally get to read, write,see properly, speak, and
manipulate their muscles in order to put to use the information
they have been gathering in all of their lives.
Witnesses
tell of seeing children previously unable to speak during fifteen
or sixteen years of life - using only three or four words accompanied
by grunts to ex-press themselves - in a month or two opening up
with full sentences, complete paragraphs, and competent expressions
of thoughts, following a program of coordinated exercises, *reboundology,
massage, neuro-muscular training, and testing done by Alfhild Akselsen,
Ph.D.
Her
entire technique is concerned with teaching the body to respond
to the brain's output. When the physical defect is corrected, the
mental defect is also corrected. There are multiple places in the
body where there maybe a neurological short circuit. When it affects
a muscle, the brain's command to the left hand to move may cause
the right hand to move. Or, the left hand may move but also the
left foot comes along with it. Or, the child's eye may twitch, or
nothing may happen.
The
learning disabled person lives in his or her own small, private
Hell!
The
person knows what's happening to him. He knows that others are making
a judgment of his actions so as to believe eventually that the person
doesn't know anything.
Dr.
Akselsen's work is helping these learning disabled people to free
themselves from their physical handicaps, which most of the time
are diagnosed as mentally retarded, brain damaged, or antisocially
be-having. They may show no brain damage on an electro-encephalogram
(EEG) or no lumpy brain area on the computerized axial tomograph
(CAT) scan. thus offering no clinical evidence of brain damage.
A chapter
in a book such as this cannot do justice to the Akselsen techniques,
but we shall endeavor to en-lighten you a little on some of her
procedures. She uses rebound exercise units, giant trampolines,
deep nerve massage, light sensory massage, excellent nutrition,
and a lot more. Rebound International, Inc. of South Houston, Texas,
using the Tri-Flex Manufacturing Company facilities, is a layperson
group of volunteers actively engaged in carrying on Dr. Akselsen's
work.
The
following are some of the testing procedures applied:
A.
With the child lying on his back, legs extended,feet together, arms
at sides, you analyze his ability to stay in a place in a straight
line. Correct any deviation from a straight position.
B. In the same position as A above, the child lifts his head and
turns it to the right and left.
C. The child stands, bent forward at the waist, hands on knees,
legs straight, and rotates the head right and left.
D. Lying on his back, the child raises one arm and while watching
it, rotates this arm in a circular motion in one direction and then
another; repeating with the other arm.
E. The child bounces on the rebound unit while his eyes are affixed
on one spot.
F. Lying on his back, the child watches an object suspended by a
string from the ceiling as it swings in a circle.
G. Lying on his back, the child raises one leg with the knee stiff
and watches his foot while he rotates his leg in one direction and
then the other; alternating legs.
H. While on his back, the child rolls in a straight line.
I. Lying flat on the stomach with head raised, the child crawls
forward using hands, feet, elbows and knees for movement.
J. The child rises to his hands and knees and crawls forward across
the floor. Then he crawls backward.
K. Lying flat on the back, the child lifts one leg slowly with the
knee stiff; repeating with the other leg. Then he lifts both legs
slowly together.
L. The child performs sit-ups with legs extended and feet together,
first with the fingers touching the toes and then with the hands
folded behind the head.
M. The child performs push-ups.
N. The child performs a push-up with the hands turned inward, fingertips
touching.
0. The child does sit-ups and stand-ups while holdings the arms
crossed over the chest.
P. The child walks in a coordinated manner.
Q. The child stands with his back against a wall,eyes affixed to
a spot on the opposite wall, arms held straight out, and walks across
the room by touching the heel to the toe of each foot with each
step. Then he backs up the same way.
R. The above testing procedure is repeated with the arms out to
the side, the hands on the head, or the eyes closed.
S. The child does all of the above walking on a balance beam, two
inches by four inches wide, with the eyes open.
T. With feet together and arms slightly bent at the elbows, the
child stands and hops on a carpeted floor or on a rebounding device.
In a series of short jumps,he hops forward and backward.
U. The child repeats the hops on the rebound unit but on just one
foot and then on the other.
V. The child jumps straight up and down three times,either on the
floor or on the rebound device.
W. The child performs jumping jacks either on the floor or on the
rebound device.
X. The child balances on one leg for one minute,first with eyes
open and then with eyes closed.
Confirmation
of Learning Disability Improvement from Rebounding
A
statement written by Mrs. Florence M. Franet,teacher of aphasic
students, Mount Diablo Unified School District, Concord, California,
says the following
:...
I purchased a rebound unit for my own use and that of my family.
I felt so well as a result of using it, I wanted to share it with
my students, too. Transporting it back on forth from home to school
everyday became a real chore, so I purchased a second one for the
specific use of students in the school's handicap program. This
re-bound unit was used as a source for daily activities and exercise
in my classroom for special education of aphasic students during
the 1976-77 school year. Six students ages eight and nine participated
starting in September1976.The students began using the rebound unit
by just trying to stand and balancing themselves on it. Then they
bounced with two feet together and then jogging easily. Three of
the students were able to bounce by themselves from the start, but
the other three had to be assisted. Gradually all could bounce alone
and begin the exercises, although the most severely involved student
took nine days before she could even stand alone. Let us take time
to follow this student's development.At the beginning of this school
year Frances could not coordinate her small motor development enough
to draw a circle or copy a single letter. She did attempt to write
her first name, but one had to know what Frances was attempting
in order to read it (///-c'/). Her eye/hand coordination was nill.
Her speech was unintelligible.She used only small words and sometimes
short phrases. After one month of using the rebound unit, Frances.
4.
R. Glen Green. "Hyperactivity and the learning disabled child."
J. Onhomolec^lar Psychiatry 9:93-104. Second Quarter 1980.
