48 News Segment on Brain Aerobics -

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brain-aerobics/

BRAIN AEROBICS

Two children with disabilities try a European method to overcome their difficulties with learning

• 2002 Jun 11
• CORRESPONDENT Emily Cartwright

Almost a year ago, Ethan Jones, a 6th grader from Fort Worth, Texas, was having a tough time in school.

"I couldn't concentrate when other things were going on around me," he says. "I compared myself to everybody else and it was a lot hard for me for some reason."

Ethan's parents, Shari and Leon Jones, couldn't understand why their son was falling behind. "He was having to work so long, so hard, just to get his homework done. Things that should take an hour were taking hours, multiple nights instead of one night," says Leon.

Eventually, Ethan was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder, a condition that makes verbal instructions hard to understand. This problem led Ethan to become frustrated, making him lash out at his parents from time to time.

Ethan needed help fast, and a school counselor suggested William Nicholsen, of the Institute for Learning Abilities. Nicholsen is an enthusiastic proponent of a therapy developed in France called Bellefonds, which he believes can help children overcome many learning disabilities, including dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

Peter Van Sant reports.

Dr. Nicholsen met with Ethan's parents and explained the problem with his brain. "The way they explained it was, the right and left sides of his brain were not communicating," says Shari. "The example they gave was, where we have a pipeline flowing information between back and forth between the left and right sides of our brain, he has a slow drip."

The Bellefonds method uses visual and audio exercises to increase the flow of information between the two sides of the brain.

One of these exercises consists of placing Ethan's nose to a blackboard while drawing circles and loops. By placing his nose so close to the blackboard, Ethan's left eye is unable to see what his right eye is doing, forcing both sides of his brain to work together.

Some call it 'aerobics for the brain.' After three months, the Joneses call it miraculous.

It didn't take long for Ethan and his family to recognize the method was working. "The first time Ethan noticed, when he said 'It's Bellefonds, it's working, is when he brought home his first report card for this year, and almost all were very high A's, " says Shari.

7 year-old Hanna Stonecypher is just beginning the Bellefonds program. She has dyslexia.

Hanna's mother, Maggie Stonecypher, recognized that she was having trouble reading. "I just kept saying, she's not reading, she can't figure it out, what's going on," she says.

Les Stonecypher, Hanna's father, hopes the method will offer a new approach to learning for Hanna. "We're not looking for any miracles or anything like that because I don't think we really need one here," he says. "I just think we need a little retraining just to make her life a little bit better."

Dyslexia used to be considered a visual disorder. But research now shows it involves hearing problems, too. Therefore, some of Hanna's exercises include recognizing words from distorted sounds she hears on a tape. The goal is to teach her brain how to concentrate. This allows Hanna to accurately associate a sound with the correct letter.

For Hanna to succeed, she and her parents must be diligent. Bellefonds workouts must be performed 30 minutes a day, 5-7 days per week. The total cost is about $5,000.

Right now the Bellefonds method is available only through Nicholsen's non-profit learning centers in Pittsburgh and Ft. Worth, though it's used all over Europe. One day, Nicholsen hopes to offer the program in all American schools, free of charge.

But skeptics say there's no scientific evidence to support the Bellefonds claim that 8 out of 10 kids will show improvement. It could be the placebo effect, the result of children trying harder to learn.

Nicholsen wants to do clinical research, but Ethan's parents have all the proof they need. "Sometimes I'll watch him while he's in there doing his homework and I'll see this precious, precious little child and I'm so thankful that we have found a way that can make learning an easier adventure for him," says Shari. "So he can enjoy it."

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/north/2005/02/23/Holy-Family-Learning-gets-100-000-federal-grant/stories/200502230359

Holy Family Learning gets $100,000 federal grant

KATHLEEN GANSTER

FEB 22, 2005

Valentine's Day was particularly sweet for Holy Family Learning, an affiliate of Holy Family Institute in Emsworth that provides alternative education programming.

U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Bradford Woods, and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., on Feb. 14 presented $100,000 to Holy Family Learning to expand its services and improve follow-up research.

"We offer educational programs for students who have greater needs than can be met in their school districts," said Diana Fryer, executive director of Holy Family Foundation. "We serve approximately 80 school districts."

Holy Family Learning teaches more than 400 day students at four locations -- Emsworth, Munhall, McKeesport and Washington, Pa.

William Nicholsen, executive director of the center, said the money will be used to expand a learning program called the Bellefonds Method, a technique developed by European neuroscientists that targets weak cognitive abilities and retrains them to function as normally as possible.

"This is a remarkably dynamic therapy program that can have a transformative process on the child and family," Nicholsen said. "Anything that can help us help our students is very exciting for us. We are thrilled with this award."

He said the program currently serves about 200 students with the method.

The funding came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to Lee Cohen, Hart's press secretary.

Holy Family Learning invited Hart to the center to see its educational programming in the hope that she could assist with obtaining funding. The invitation paid off.

"I visited with them a couple of times. I was very impressed with the innovative methods that Dr. Nicholsen is using to assist special education students," Hart said.

Holy Family Institute is a nonprofit organization that assists families and children in need.

http://amarillo.com/stories/102004/fri_tolearn.shtml#.WixwaUuGP94

Program helps students learn to learn

Posted: Wednesday, October 20, 2004

JIM CRAWFORD jim.crawford@amarillo.com

Cheri Patterson, principal at Lakeview Elementary School, has found a way she is convinced will help children at her school and anyone who has low self-esteem because of a learning impairment.It's called retraining the brain, a program developed in France and first brought to Pittsburgh eight years ago and then to Fort Worth and now to Lakeview. The program has generated enough interest to be featured on the CBS television show, "48 Hours."

"My husband was watching it and he said I needed to come in there and see this," Patterson said. "I saw it on '48 Hours' and immediately called Fort Worth."Arrangements were made, and Patterson and one of her teachers, Carla Click, spent an information-packed weekend in Grand Prairie to receive training from representatives of the Institute for Learning Abilities of Pittsburgh, an affiliate of Holy Family Institute.

Because the concept is new in the Canyon Independent School District, Patterson said, she only had enough funds to train one teacher, and only five students will receive treatment."I can think of 26 students who could use help (learning)," Patterson said. "I only have room for five. I wish all of my teachers could receive the training."

Patterson said she could already see progress in one of her youngsters, fourth-grader Josh Klause, one of the Lakeview students in the program."The reward for us is knowing the kids are going to be successful down the road," Patterson said. "By the time they're in therapy they're usually frustrated, which can cause the low self-esteem and they're ready to try anything. Josh's parents just trusted me." Reading and spelling were always a hassle to get Josh to do, said Stormy Klause, Josh's mother. "Ever since he started this program, I can get him to sit down and read with me," she said. "I'm really glad they could get someone up here to start the program." Reading and spelling used to be a struggle for Josh. He lost interest. Then Mrs. Patterson told me about this. My husband and I both work with him. You can see how much his confidence has built. He's not afraid to try anymore. It's wonderful. It's really made a difference (in his schoolwork)."

Most parents have been told their child will not progress past a certain level, said Scott Flurry, a program administrator for ILA. "This (program) gives the parents hope," he said. "It's a very rewarding job." The program is based on effort and progress, Flurry said. "There are no grades or right or wrong answers," Flurry said. "We find that a lot of kids with learning disabilities suffer from low self-esteem. Not a kid leaves a session feeling bad about what they did that day. There is no bad day.

"A large part of the kids we see who are learning-disabled have auditory problems," he said. "They listen to treated CDs, which are filtered. They listen to sounds over and over and spell the words they hear phonetically. The sessions get harder as the child progresses." The ILA was created to help adults and children recognize and overcome serious learning disorders, according to ILA information. ILA said its goal is to help children return to the general school population and adults lead healthy, productive lives. The idea is to help people think, write and listen, with many reaching normal functioning levels. Called the Bellefonds Method, after the French institute where the program was developed, treatment consists of brain aerobics, Flurry said Flurry and associate James Schuyler were at Lakeview recently from Pittsburgh to monitor progress in the new program at the school.

It is important that the training is consistent and often, the men said. Typical treatment consists of five 30-minute sessions per week, preferably with two sessions in the home."We train parents from all over the country to use the therapy at home," Schuyler said. "Treatment usually takes between one and two years. The program is very flexible and individualized. We've treated people 6 to 45 years old. Is not set up by age."Schuyler said ILA became interested in the Bellefonds therapy while treating kids at Holy Family Institute. "We have more than 100 abused and neglected kids," Schuyler said. "We call it therapeutic intervention. We try to stimulate impaired neural sensors. The goal is to get them to process properly."

Brief History of the Bellfonds Method

Throughout the 1970's Guy Adli, David Feldman, Wally Van Grunsven and their

colleagues were independently active In research and clinical work in the field of

neuropsychiatric and functional sequel of vascular or

traumatic brain damage and severe developmental disorders. They became

progressively aware of the similarities between certain persistent cognitive

symptoms in their populations and those found in many learning-disabled

children, even when these children were without any demonstrable neurological

condition. Through their publications, they discovered the many common

professional and research interests they shared and met each other personally at

various international conferences and symposia where they were invited

As speakers.

In 1980, they were brought together In more formal association as a team under

the aegis of the International Institute for Specialized Education (IIES) in Geneva

with infrastructure provided by the Bellefonds Medical-Psychological Institute in

Bordeaux. Their mission was to establish a new clinical classification of learning

disorders and to begin elaborating appropriate diagnostic and rehabilitation

techniques in accordance with that classification and on the basis of their own

now decade-long experience.

The team's classification of learning disorders naturally took into account the

long-recognized disorders secondary to sensorimotor handicaps and

psychopathological states. However, it also revealed a large category of learning

disorders characterized by the inability to sort out new information, associate It

correctly and rapidly with existing models, memorize it efficiently and respond to

it in an adapted manner. It was to this type of learning disorders that they

agreed to devote their attention. Throughout the 1980's, the collaboration of

several university and clinical centers permitted them to experiment, perfect and

validate their new work with larger populations representIng the major sub-types

of this kind of learning disorders and a wide variety of cultural differences.

Up to thiS time, most diagnostic and rehabilitative material for learning

disorders was of the material-specific and task-specific types. The team was

able to demonstrate that even the best of these isolated material-specific and

task-specific diagnostic and rehabilitative techniques cannot be maximally

efficient unless they are synthesized in 21 single, unified methodology where,

first, all the diagnostic data are correlated and, second, where the correlated

diagnostic results lead directly to an equally unified set of interrelated

rehabilitative protocols. Because the learning-disabled child so often rejects

other existing tests, it was necessary to build into this new methodology

sufficient motivational factors to sustain the child's active participation.

By 1990, the team was ready to produce the first edition of their methodology