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Center for Brain Can Help!
By Mike Cohen, Director
Center for Brain
Thirteen year old Aaron sat quietly at the kitchen table finishing his homework while his mother Alicia read her favorite magazine. “All done, Mom,” Aaron said, as he bounded out of his chair and headed to his bedroom with a big smile.
Alicia was smiling, too, because just six months ago that ordinary scenario didn’t exist in their household. Both were soldiers in a war called “processing problems” that made school a trial for them both, and no one knew if it would end well.
Alicia worked in an office all day, then came home to a struggling and discouraged son who needed one-on-one attention every day to complete his homework. “This situation turned my life upside down,” Alicia said. “It was almost like having to home school him after he had been in school all day.”
Everything changed when Alicia brought Aaron to the Center for Brain in Jupiter, where he took part in a special three-tiered learning disabilities/processing program and saw his grades – and his confidence – soar.
Center for Brain sees a lot bright children like Aaron who have to try harder than other children just to keep up. Many of those children experience drastically-improved lives after working with us.
You may have been told that the root of your child’s school difficulties is attention deficit. However, if your child struggles with reading, with comprehension, with math or has difficulty getting words onto paper (for example taking notes) – it could actually be a learning or processing issue.
Many academic problems are brain issues, not a lack of desire in the child to do well.
Though stimulants may temporarily improve attention, they don’t correct processing issues, which can often look like ADHD. They don’t help the frustration, the behaviors and the anxiety that often come with learning challenges when the medication wears off. They do not fix anything.
The root cause of a child’s academic struggles may be that areas of the brain that are supposed to talk to each other aren’t doing it very well. Without those key connections, school becomes an enormous frustration for the child.
Malfunctioning connections can result in dyslexia and other reading problems, dyscalculia (difficulty with math) and/or processing problems.
No Need to Despair
Center for Brain Offers an Innovative 3-Step Program to Help Your Child Overcome Learning Challenges
Being able to save kids from a lifetime of struggle is at the heart of our mission at Center for Brain.
Step 1: Conduct a Connectivity Map to identify the problem
We record a special, painless EEG of your child’s brain. The raw data is processed in the laboratory of neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Coben.* The lab creates a report, and the findings are reviewed in depth with the parents.
The Connectivity Map identifies areas of the brain that are poorly connected or poorly organized and are likely impacting your child’s ability to process information.
(Parents of our clients frequently remark that this information describes their child’s struggles remarkably well: “This is exactly what Brittney tells me happens every night when she’s doing math homework!” “You are describing Ricky when he tries to write his language arts essays!” They often marvel, too, at the fact that tests for which they have laid out thousands of dollars didn’t turn up what was really going on the way the Connectivity Map did).
Step 2 – Train the brain with MCT neurofeedback (biofeedback for the brain)
MCT neurofeedback, a new type of neurofeedback, helps promote changes in how neurons in the brain fire. MCT stands for “multivariate coherence training.” It hyper-targets and gently encourages improvement in the brain’s functioning – often surprisingly quickly. Aaron’s mother reported he was doing homework independently and more calmly after just two sessions!
Step 2 involves 15 sessions of MCT neurofeedback training, typically two or three sessions per week, targeted to the specific brain connectivity issues identified by the Connectivity Map.
Step 3 – Re-evaluate changes, assess progress
After 15 neurofeedback sessions, we conduct a second Connectivity Map to see the percentage of changes that have occurred in connectivity, to determine if additional training is needed and to summarize parent feedback.
Help in a matter of weeks
Here are the stories of two more children we treated:
A 12-year-old girl with diagnosed learning disabilities found math and note taking in class nearly impossible. She also had chronic headaches not helped with medication. She was frequently exhausted. After five MCT sessions she told her mother she was more easily thinking up topics and ideas for writing. Two sessions later she reported math seemed simpler, and her first-ever high math scores proved it. Her headaches also significantly subsided and she had more energy.
The mother of one 8-year-old girl was told by a neuropsychologist that her daughter had such severe learning disabilities that she would need significant help for the rest of her academic career. She hated reading and didn’t read well. She despised math and struggled to add even single digit numbers. Following seven MCT sessions she asked her parents to give her math problems for fun. After 10 sessions she began to voluntarily read. Her mother even discovered her in bed one night with a flashlight reading under the covers!
Call us today.
If what you’ve read in this article resonates with you, it’s time to contact Center for Brain to find out more.
I know you have a lot of questions. That’s why I offer a free, no-obligation consultation.
Once I meet you and understand your situation better, we can discuss if this new technology is a good option for your child – or even for yourself.
Call us at: (561) 744-7616 or visit our website at: www.centerforbrain.com. We look forward to meeting you and speaking with you.
