Attention Issues and SOI

When Ernest, age 10, came to my SOI classes twenty years ago, he drove everyone crazy.

He banged his pencil on the table, danced in his seat and only looked at his SOI brain exercise module when I asked him each question individually. Our teachers persisted in developing his attention by using an expanded form of SOI that included sensori-integration as well as brain training modules.

As Ernest did each balance board exercise, he would have to bring his attention again and again to the task at hand to be able to master it. He struggled at first, but as each exercise was mastered, he would be given the next level. Before the SOI program, I don’t think Ernest knew he could control his own brain. He just reacted to everything.

After about sixty hours of classes, he would come in, sit quietly at the table and engage in his booklets with interest. At school, he’d become a star pupil. He now knew how to shift into the reflective mode so necessary for success in reading, composition and math.

The process of finding out exactly what a student like Ernest needed and providing the right exercises in the right order plays out again and again in SOI/IPP. Easily 90% of the students we assist have attention issues of some kind. Ernest looked like a full-blown “ADHD” candidate when he first came in. His lack of control around focusing entirely evaporated, however, once his neurological connections were put in place through exercise – both physical and mental.

A Breath of Fresh Air

A few years ago, a doctor friend of mine referred a young student to me for assessment as he was not doing well at school. Nick, as I will call him, had a history of seizures and I was concerned he might have cognitive impairment. He was taking drugs for the seizures that made him drowsy at times, but he was now stable medically and his mental clarity was improving.

Certainly Nick had cognitive abilities that scored below average – particularly those required for reading. Yet it was obvious that he was an intelligent and engaging ten year old with a great vocabulary and basic ability with numbers.

Nick’s IPP assessment results were daunting. We uncovered difficulties with balance, cross-over, spatial development, and most of the vision abilities assessed. The vision issues were linked to the medication and included some very low scores in tracking, focusing, and teaming. Many individuals would have been very discouraged by these results, but not Nick! He had some secret weapons