Learning Abled Kids - Enhanced Learning through Brain Gym

Brain Gym is a type of exercise program specifically designed to enhance learning. The exercises can be done one-at-a-time or in an exercise routine. These brain-based learning exercises can help your child with attention deficits, coordination issues, memory deficits, stamina, and many other difficulties that affect learning.

The Brain Gym Teacher's Manual allows you to create a physical-therapy type of routine specifically targeted to your child's deficit areas. It explanations about what you are able to accomplish through Brain Gym (the whys and how it works). Then the book has each type of exercise, tells what specific areas of functioning the exercise targets, has drawings of how to do the exercise and recommended number of daily repetitions. The specific information categories for the book lists for each exercise are:

"Teaching Tips" - Specific ways to maximize the effectiveness of the exercise.

"Variations" - portions of the exercise that can be modified to enhance interest and reduce boredom with the same old thing every day.

"Activates the brain for" (crossing the midline, eye movements, spatial awareness, eye-hand coordination, short or long-term memory, saccadic eye movements, expressive speech, organization, attention/focus, etc.).

"Academic Skills" addressed by this exercise (spelling, writing, listening, reading, comprehension, following directions, memory, etc.).

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Also included in the listings for each exercise is information about:

"Behavior and Postural Correlates" (coordination, breathing, stamina, increased energy, spatial awareness, hearing, vision, left/right awareness, body awareness, movement skills, etc.).

"Related Movements" - Other exercises that go well with this one, (which saves you time in putting together a specific routine to target a specific area).

and "History of the Movement" - tells about how this exercise was determined to help develop the specific skills targeted, usually gives information about origin of the exercise, and provides information on how it was initially used.

When I set up my children's programs, I used the book to determine which exercises would best target deficits. Then I set up a routine using the specific exercises for that child. In our household, the Brain Gym was used primarily as a tool for overcoming physical "awkwardness" and to aid an ADHD mind in focusing on learning tasks long enough to complete them.

As with any physical therapy program, progress is slow. However, these days my ADHD child has NO problem focusing on a lesson long enough to get it done, and my physically awkward, tripping over his own feet child no longer does. How much of it is maturation vs. Brain Gym, I cannot say, but I do know that having an exercise break between each lesson and doing one of the exercises does make the schoolwork more fun. At a minimum it gets the oxygen flowing to the brain again--making for better brain ability. ;-)

For us, each child would have a list of exercises and would do one exercise on the list, work a lesson, do the next exercise on the list, work a lesson, and so on. Just getting up between lessons helps, I think! In any case, you get a lot of bang for your buck in the one little book - The Brain Gym Teacher's Manual.

For anyone who decides to use Brain Gym, here's my own "Teaching Tip" - For each exercise you put in your child's routine, copy that page of the book, cut out the drawing of the exercise, and paste it on your list of exercises. It is a great visual queue to remind the visually-oriented child what the exercise is, rather than just having the name of an exercise on the list. I made a poster with columns for each child, the name of each exercise with it's picture. That worked well. ;-)

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We used the Brain Gym Teacher's Manual to enhance our at-home, brain-based learning program. You can get other Brain Gym books also, but I found the book directly from Edu-Kinesthetics, Inc., the Brain Gym people, to be complete in every way. Other Cognitive Development Programs Recommended for Home Use are:

Lexia Learning's CrossTrainer - "The Lexia Cross-Trainer Suite is designed to improve cognitive development in learners ages 7 to adult. The software helps learning disabled, special needs, and mainstream students strengthen their thinking, memory, and problem-solving abilities, improving performance across subjects as varied as reading, math, science, and social studies." Click here to learn more.

Audiblox - Program which is administered by the parent/provider, requires a commitment to consistent use, and helps with many issues.

Earobics - Computer-based program that is easily used on a daily basis; game play format that children enjoy, increases cognitive skills, but is geared more towards children with auditory processing difficulties or dyslexia.

PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement) - Tutoring model; requires commitment to tutoring sessions and home exercises.

Enhancing Learning through Brain Gym