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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 07/19/2005 : 07:00:07
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Hi, folks!
My 4-year-old recently went through a developmental evaluation, and was found to be behind in terms of his coordination and balance. Basically, he's like his mother and father, and lives more in his head than in his body, so while he's fine intellectually, he's lacking in both fine and gross motor skills compared to other kids his age.
I just found out that the evaluator suggested something called "Brain Gym" to catch him up to where he should be, and we've got an appointment to go visit one of these establishments on Friday. My wife and I are concerned, however, that this is just over-priced calesthenics or something along those lines, especially since we've never heard of "Brain Gym" before. Also, since the evaluator told us that simply making sure the boy gets more physical play time (yanking him away from the computer games), will "Brain Gym" be worth whatever money we're asked to put into it (I think it's around $70 per session, once a week, but they'll give us stuff to do at home, too)?
So, by Friday afternoon, I need to figure out what questions to ask of a "Brain Gym" staff member, in order to get a grasp on whether or not we should invest in this. I haven't even begun to look around the Web for independent reviews of the program(s). Anything anyone can find (or knows from personal experience), good or bad, would be appreciated.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 08:52:54 [Permalink]
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| Zachary was not much interested in sports or physical activity for that matter. But there is a program here called The Broadway Gym that is a gymnastics program for young children and up. I do believe that he did benefit from the program, though he still hates PE… |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 09:57:06 [Permalink]
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I know hes too young yet for these activities but they may work better than the standards in a few years...
I suggest looking into non-traditional activities which might interest him, perhaps the physics and geometry of pool, bowling, curling, shuffleboard etc. will help keep his interest. Maybe you better start with Jenga.
Make sure you carefully teach him to watch other people and to emulate their movements, this is very important. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 07/19/2005 10:01:26 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:06:07 [Permalink]
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| Well, I was only able to find three study abstracts in PubMed, and two of them were for learning disabled kids, which my son isn't. The third study was done on college students, which my son isn't. Not one of them had "Dennison" as an author, and the latest one is from 1994. All of that is a pretty bad sign... |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:13:38 [Permalink]
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How do you measure the coordination and balance of a 4y/o and meaningfully compare it to the coordination and balance of other 4y/o's? What criteria do they use for a "normal" level? Was is your pediatrician who did this eval, or some other source?
Unless he is in some danger of injuring himself, I am not sure I'd be concerned with such an evaluation of a 4y/o. People, as I'm sure you are well aware, are not equal in all areas. Children grow and develope at different rates. Some walk and talk before they are a year old, some don't speak coherently until they are around 2.
If you haven't spoken to your boy's doctor about this, thats the first phone call you should make.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:45:47 [Permalink]
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Okay, at my son's 4-year checkup, my wife brought up the possibility that his hearing and/or speech was falling behind where it should be, mostly due to the fact that other kids his age seem much more articulate. His pediatrician suggested getting him evaluated by our public school system's "child find" services, which look at kids to try to identify potential "special needs" in preschoolers.
The evaluator said my son's speech and hearing are just fine (in fact he hears better than most people), and he is intellectually "off the charts," but he has problems with his motor skills. The ones I recall (I wasn't at the evaluation) are that he can't balance on one foot for very long, and he can't wiggle his fingers independently very well.
That's when the evaluator suggested this Brain Gym stuff, which - the more I look at it - seems "off" in various ways. I'll make sure my wife calls the doctor, and talks to him about this, too. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:48:45 [Permalink]
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This is way beyond my expertise, but I might suggest take him fishing, catching your own bait for it; or maybe just walking around in the woods turning stones and logs to see who's living there (watch your fingers). Excellent exercize, and you can get a head start on reading from field guides, notably Audubon's
I too hated PE, a hatred that lasts to this day. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:58:37 [Permalink]
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Well, to my knowledge, a little physical activity has many beneficial effects and very few negative ones.
But I'm thinking that maybe enrollment in some karate would be cheaper, and more fun :)
I've been looking around for some info in the "Brain Gym", and can't seem to find to much. Some of their claims seem a little far fetched (improving memory by excercise?), but I'll have to say that this is pretty far outside my usual area of knowledge.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 12:42:52 [Permalink]
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Of course, we've already been tearing him away from his games, as a start on "fixing" his problems. The question here is whether the "Brain Gym" stuff is going to "fix" him better than kicking/throwing a ball, running around on a jungle gym, or any other sort of physical activity.
Of course, the "energy" stuff in woolytoad's first link is scary enough. The stuff in the second link is even worse, though:Without question, if their research was truly useful and of quality, they would either be submitting it to peer-reviewed journals so that the masses could obtain copies and read about the efficacy of such interventions (and critique their research designs fairly before putting faith in the findings), or publishing it on their website for all to read. Why wouldn't Brain Gym want to do this? It would only further promote their cause and enable their business to grow! The fact they hide their self-conducted “research” in a self-published “journal” available only for purchase, thereby limiting public access, is deserving of our deepest concern and skepticism. I printed out Brain Gym's "A Chronology of Annotated Research Study Summaries in the Field of Educational Kinesiology," and the writer of the above is absolutely correct. Only 5 are self-described as "True Experimental Research Designs," and only 3 of those 5 are available through PubMed (the three I mentioned, earlier). There are lots of "Quasi-Experimental Research Design" (remember, that's their description) studies, and most published in "Brain Gym Journal" where an average guy like me can't get to them without paying through the nose.
Further, the latest articles - regardless of source - are from 2002 (the "Chronology" is from June of 2003) with the majority of papers from the early 1990s. It's pretty pathetic that the main Brain Gym web site can only cite 3- to 15-year-old "research" in support of "therapy" for learning-disabled children. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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trishran
Skeptic Friend
USA
196 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 13:05:40 [Permalink]
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Dave W., you are to be commended for taking your child's development so seriously.
I, personally, would try to get another opinion before I started shelling out $70 a week for a therapy that has so little data published to support it.
Also, as someone who, in childhood, was thought to be deficient in different ways by different educators [while real problems, like my GI tract birth defects were put down to "not wanting to go to school"], I'd say that we can't all be in the center [or on the "good side"] of the bell curve for every activity.
I had lousy coordination as a kid, and now I'm selling paintings [this does require some coordination, I think].
I'm also willing to bet that poor physical skills are becoming more common, not only because of TV and video games, but also because of people keeping their kids indoors out of fear of stranger danger, and as school districts, starved for funds, cut phys ed. |
trish |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 14:12:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
There are lots of "Quasi-Experimental Research Design" (remember, that's their description) studies, and most published in "Brain Gym Journal" where an average guy like me can't get to them without paying through the nose.
You'd think, if there was any validity to the work, and they were really using it to validate the business they are running... that the research would be freely available.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 16:12:43 [Permalink]
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I couldn't find anything unbiased. Most pages I came across read like advertisements for brain gym.
This page is little better, but at least it gives a few details.
I also did a search on Google Scholar and found some studies that might be relevant.
I tend to think that, even if brain gym were an effective therapy, it doesn't seem well suited to your son's situation.
I wish you all the best in this.  |
| Edited by - dv82matt on 07/19/2005 16:14:24 |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 16:55:01 [Permalink]
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What about martial arts? Discipline to the mind and body at once. Don't know if it's available for such a young child, though.
I know little about physical education, though... being unable to walk since I started learning it, I am of no help.  |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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