Attention, Balance and Coordination

The A.B.C. of Learning Success

In Attention, Balance and Coordination, Sally Goddard Blythe explores the physical basis for learning. She explains the importance of early reflexes, their functions in early development, and their effects on learning and behaviour if retained. Goddard Blythe also investigates the possible effects that these early reflexes have on other aspects of development such as posture, balance, motor skills and susceptibility to stress and anxiety in later life.

Attention, Balance and Coordination also includes:

• A review of relevant literature in the field
• A review of the origins of The Vestibular-Cerebellar Theory
• The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) Developmental Screening Questionnaire, together with an explanation on how its use and interpretation
• A chapter by Dr Peter Blythe looking at the development of the INPP Method
• The effects of neuro-developmental delay in adolescents and adults by Lawrence Beuret MD.

Attention, Balance and Coordination is the most up-to-date handbook for professionals involved in education and child development, providing a new understanding of the source of specific behavioural problems.

ISBN: 978-0-470-51623-2 Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-470-74098-9 Hardback

£39.99 per copy (Paperback) (Buy now) (You can order the hardback edition of this book via Amazon, the publisher’s website, from your local bookseller)

What Babies and Children REALLY Need

How Mothers and Fathers can Nurture Children’s Growth for Health and Well-being
New publication 2008

This book represents a milestone in our understanding of child development and what parents can do to provide their children with the best start in life. What Babies and Children Really Need examines the crucial early years from a child’s perspective - and concludes that changes in society over the past 50 years have unleashed a crisis in childhood.

Author Sally Goddard Blythe draws on the latest scientific research and clinical practice to demonstrate how a baby’s relationship with its mother has a lasting and fundamental impact. She argues that trends such as delayed motherhood, limited uptake of breastfeeding, and early return to work - driven by economic, social and political pressures - are undermining the key developmental milestones essential to success and wellbeing in later life. ‘We need a state,’ says Goddard Blythe, ‘that gives children their parents, and most of all, gives babies their mothers back.’

What Babies and Children Really Need concludes with a rallying cry for a new Charter for Childhood founded on the four main pillars of child development: nutrition - the biochemical basis for life; affection, nurture and engagement; stimulating sensory experience and motor skills through physical play; and discipline in its true sense meaning ‘instruction, correction, training in action and control’.

Reflexes, Learning and Behaviour

New and updated edition of ‘A Teacher‘s Window into the Child‘s Mind‘

This unique and brilliant book explores the physical basis of learning difficulties, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), with particular focus on the role of abnormal reflexes and the effect upon subsequent development.

Sally explains how the reflexes of infancy (primitive and postural) can affect the learning ability of the child if they are not inhibited and integrated by the developing brain in the first three years of life. Each reflex is described together with its function in normal development, and its impact upon learning and behaviour, if it remains active beyond the normal period.

Simple tests for the reflexes that are crucial to education are described, together with suggestions for suitable remedial intervention. The effect of abnormal reflexes on balance and sensory processing is also described. A brief history of how current methods of intervention designed to correct abnormal reflexes have evolved and a summary of some of the relevant research in the field are included.

This book is essential reading for parents, teachers, psychologists, optometrists and anyone involved in the assessment, education and management of children and their problems. It explains why certain children are unable to benefit from the same teaching methods as their peers and why they remain immature in other aspects of their lives.

The Well Balanced Child

Movement and Early Learning

The Well-Balanced Child is a passionate manifesto for the importance of movement in early years' education.

Concern about the increasingly sedentary lifestyle of young children is reaching unprecedented levels. Around a third of British children are overweight, reflecting the decline of traditional outdoor pursuits in favour of electronic games and television. A raft of studies shows that the early years are a crucial window of opportunity, during which the brain is primed for learning through exercising the body and the senses. Yet children of today have less movement opportunities in their daily lives than any previous generation.

Sally Goddard Blythe, a leading expert in neuro-physiological development, argues for a ‘whole body’ approach to learning, which integrates the brain, senses, movement, music and play. Using case studies and the latest research, she demonstrates:

• Why movement matters
• How music helps brain development
• The role of nutrition, the brain and child growth
• Practical tips for parents and educators to help children with learning and behavioural problems