2010 Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology Conference
April 10 and 11, 2010
Grove Isle Hotel, Miami, Florida
“Uniting Science and Education to Identify and Remediate Learning and Emotional Difficulties Associated with Developmental Delay”
Featured Speakers
Sally Goddard- Blythe
Session Title:
Primitive and Postural Reflexes in Perspective: An Overview of the INPP Method – A Clinical and Educational Method of Assessment, Remediation, and Evaluation
Session Description:
Primitive and postural reflexes provide diagnostic signposts of maturity in the functioning of the central nervous system at key stages in development. Although these reflexes are tested at birth and in the first weeks of post natal life by medical practitioners, they are not re-assessed at later stages in development as a matter of routine. When the responsibility for evaluating a child’s development passes from the domain of Medicine to Education at the time of school entry (in the UK), the focus of assessment shifts from assessment of physical development to the attainment of educational targets. Teachers do not have sufficient training to assess physical development, while doctors are primarily concerned with detection and treatment of medical conditions, not of the impact of dysfunction or immaturity on learning outcomes. This has meant that children who are not developmentally “ready” for aspects of formal education simply “slip through the net” of professional services which should be in place to identify and remediate the underlying physical causes of educational under-achievement or behavioral difficulties.
The INPP Programme provides a method of identifying and assessing signs of developmental immaturity together with effective remedial intervention programmes. This presentation will examine the history of the development of The INPP Method, the use of tests for primitive and postural reflexes as tools for the identification, assessment and remediation of developmental immaturity and will discuss the use of The INPP Programmes in educational and clinical settings.
Biographical Information:
Sally Goddard Blythe, MSc.FRSA, is a Consultant in Neurodevelopmental Education and Director of The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) in Chester. INPP was established as a private research, clinical and training organization in 1975, dedicated to the development of assessment procedures to identify underlying physical factors in specific learning disabilities and adults suffering from anxiety and panic disorder and to the development of effective remediation programmes.
Sally is the author of several books and published papers on child development and neuro-developmental factors in specific learning disabilities including Reflexes, Learning and Behavior, The Well Balanced Child, and What Babies and Children Really Need. Her newest book, Attention, Balance, and Coordination – the A,B,C of Learning Success was published by Wiley-Blackwell in April 2009.
Sally is the author of The INPP Test Battery and Developmental Exercise Programme for Use in Schools – a programme of daily exercises designed to be used in schools with a whole class of children over one academic year – this programme has been the subject of published research involving 810 children across schools in the UK. The aim of the programme has been to provide teachers with a method to help them identify physical readiness for learning and a programme of exercises designed to encourage physical readiness in children with problems.
Sally has lectured on the role of infant reflexes in development and later learning problems to many different groups throughout Europe and in different parts of the United States. She is a member of the International Alliance for Childhood and the “Open EYE” campaign – a pressure group dedicated to ensuring that children’s developmental needs remain at the top of the agenda for government recommendations for early years’ education in England. She is also a patron of Toddler Kindy Gymbaroo, a programme developed in Australia to optimize children’s development in the early years.
The Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology is honoured that Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo has agreed to make a presentation at the 2010 INPP Conference; he is known throughout the world for his work on the Primitive and Postural Reflexes and the effect that they have on children. Dr. Accardo worked very closely with the medical ‘Grandfather’ of the role of Reflexes in development, the late Professor Arnold Capute.
“In view of Dr. Accardo’s background and knowledge we are sure that his presentation will be vital for all Pediatricians, Occupational Therapists, Physio-Therapists, Educators and everyone involved in the future well-being of children.” Peter Blythe, INPP-Chester
Dr. Pasquale J. Accardo, M.D.
Session Title:
A BRIEF MEDICAL HISTORY OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES: Being notes on the curious and surprising, if not shocking, histories of childhood, pediatrics, medicine, society, and civilization by a bemused observer and sometime participant.
Session Description:
Some key milestones in the history of childhood and their developmental significance will be reviewed. The various threads in the histories of medicine, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and education will be used to explain the surprisingly recent discovery of neuro-developmental disorders and then place in perspective the many current unanswered questions about diagnosis and treatment. Cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, learning and attention disorders, and autism will be highlighted.
Biographical Information:
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Pasquale Accardo, MD, received his M.D. from SUNY Downstate, and completed his pediatric residency at Riley Children’s Hospital, Indianapolis, and his developmental pediatrics fellowship at the Kennedy Institute, Baltimore. He has subspecialty certification in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and in Neuro-developmental Disabilities through the American Board of Pediatrics. He previously served as the medical director of the Knights of Columbus Developmental Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the LEND director at the Westchester Institute for Human Development, New York. He is currently James H. Franklin Professor of Developmental Research in Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University where he directs the VCU Child Development Clinic. Dr. Accardo has authored, edited, co-edited over three dozen books as well as numerous chapters and papers in the field of neuro-developmental disabilities. In 2005 Dr. Accardo received the Arnold J. Capute Award from the Council on Children with Disabilities of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D
Title:
The Evolving Reading Brain: Implications for Reading Development, Dyslexia, and Intervention
Session Description:
An overview of how the human brain learned to read will be used as a new framework for understanding how each child learns to read and why many children have difficulties. Principles of the brain’s design that allow the learning of new skills will be described in terms of their implications for intervention. Results of efficacy studies will be described. Finally, implications of this view of an evolving reading brain will be the basis for discussing societal challenges and individual children’s challenges in the current transitions to a digital reading brain.
Biographical Information:
Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She received her doctorate from Harvard University, where she began her work on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. Among her awards for teaching and research are the Distinguished Professor of the Year award from the Massachusetts Psychological Association, the Teaching Excellence Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Researcher Award from Tufts University, a Fulbright Research Fellowship award for research on dyslexia in Germany, the Norman Geschwind Lecture Award from the International Dyslexia Association for neuroscience research in dyslexia, and the Alice Ansara Award for work in dyslexia. Along with colleagues Dr. Robin Morris, and Dr. Maureen Lovett, Prof. Wolf was awarded the NICHD Shannon Award for Innovative Research and several multi-year NICHD grants to investigate new approaches to reading intervention, including the RAVE-O reading intervention program, created by Prof. Wolf and members of the Center.
The author of numerous scientific publications, Wolf recently completed a book for the general public, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, published by Harper-Collins in the United States, by Icon Books in England, and now translated into ten languages and audio version. Described as one of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and an Acclaimed Book of the Year by US News and World Report, Proust and the Squid received the Marek Award from the New York International Dyslexia Association for the best book of the year on reading.
Dr. Wolf’s recent research interests include reading intervention, early prediction, fluency and naming speed, cross-linguistic studies of reading, the relationship between entrepreneurial talents and dyslexia, and the uses of brain imaging in understanding dyslexia and treatment changes.
Anna R. Buck
Session Title:
The INPP Program: What Happens When the Primitive Reflexes Become Inhibited‐
Documented Stories from the Perspective of Parents and Professionals
Session Description:
Anna will share real‐life stories of children she has treated: previous diagnoses, findings
fromINPPassessments, progression through the INPP program, observed behavioral and academic changes, and responses from parents and professionals.
Biographical Information:
Anna Buck has been in the educational field for more than 20 years. She is a certified
Neuro‐Developmental Delay therapist, trained by INPP in Chester, England. She is a
certified Listening Fitness Instructor, trained at the Listening Centre, Toronto, Canada.
Anna has also received advanced training in Bilateral Integration by Sheila Dobie
Associates (Training) Limited in Bo’ness, Scotland. Currently, Anna is completing
program studies for certification as a Naturopath. She established Anna’s House, LLC, in2005 in Denver, Colorado.
Miracle Children was published in 2008. This book tells the story of Anna’s pursuit to
find theroot of her own daughter’s difficulties, which she eventually found through INPP.The book describes, in layman’s terms, how dysfunction in the brain stem can affect
children and how an INPP program targets these difficulties at the root level. It includes
stories of children as they progressed through an INPP program and a Listening Fitness
program and describes how their lives were transformed.
Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 1 was published in 2009. This is a CD curriculum for
teaching reading,writing and spelling through sound and is adaptable for classroom or
home‐school use. Additional materials are available to support the curriculum.
Anna’s Sound Bits, Volume 2 will be available in 2010.
Paul Madaule
Title:
Listening and the Ear-Voice Connection
Session Description:
The ear is the first sensory modality to develop well before birth starting with the vestibular system at about ten weeks of pre-natal life, soon followed by the auditory system. The listening function, the ability to use the ear and body to pick-up the information we need and leave others, has pre-natal roots as well. This developmental precedence gives a head start in the acquisition of language.
Being the first listeners of what we say, listening is key to the monitoring of our own voice. This ear-voice loop provides the control system necessary to speak, read and write. It also influences self-regulatory functions such as attention span, focus, being ‘in sync’ and ‘well-balanced’. It also plays a role in social-emotional maturation, self-image and self-awareness.
Listening and the ear-voice connection can be developed and improved through sound stimulation training and voice exercises. Listening training and work on the primitive reflexes complement each other in many ways because they both access deeply rooted issues through different sensory-motor pathways.
Biographical Information:
Paul Madaule is the Director of The Listening Centre in Toronto that he founded with Dr. Tomatis in 1978. The Listening Centre was the first clinical facility using listening training in North America. Paul also helped develop this work throughout the US, Mexico and South America.
Paul authored When Listening Comes Alive (1993), available in ten languages. He also authored numerous articles on the importance of music, listening and the voice in education and therapy. His primary focus is children with developmental and learning problems, specifically auditory processing disorders, ADHD, learning disabilities, and Autism. His work has garnered widespread media attention through television and radio, and the written press.
Drawing from 35 years of clinical experience, Paul has developed a portable audio device called the LiFT® (Listening Fitness Trainer) to support international clientele and a course for professionals on how to incorporate listening training within their own practices and classrooms.
Dr. Harry Schneider, Ph.D, M.D. P.C.
Title:
Neurobiological and Neuroimaging Evidence for Abnormal Findings of Brain and Connectivity Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Session Description: Awaiting details
Biographical Information:
Maureen Swanson –awaiting details of this session.
For further information or to download a registration form contact ajanoura@bellsouth.net
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