Research Article VERY Interesting, or is it?

Wow, 2 posts in one day!

Experiment sheds new light on Down syndrome www.med.ubc.ca

This research article tested several adults with T21 and several without. Simply put, they had each person press a button with their right index finder while a functional scan of their brain was being done. In all of the non T21 world, we press a button with our Right index finger and the corresponding control center in the left side of the brain lights up. In people with T21, all different parts of their brains lit up representing disorganized brain communication.

First of all I have theories as to why this is, first as those of us who refuse to believe the convention treatment methods have long contended, an extra chromosome means the brain needs more antioxidants, more stimulation, more opportunity, more everything to...wait for it....ORGANIZE! Secondly, the brain is magnificently efficient, so if brain A needs to move the finger but there is damage in the way, it will find a different route. Brain B will find it's own path around the damage, etc.  This results in ten different brains lighting up ten different pathways to move the Right index finger.

The biggest thing I've learned from the Institutes is that all traditional methods of treating fine motor problems with handwriting practice, poor balance with practicing balance (poorly), speech apraxia with an hours worth of "say "duck," "d,d,d - uck," say "duck" (No offense to my many speech therapy friends but, seriously you wonder why the kid has behavior problems in sessions?) is useless. You will have very poor outcomes (as is sadly well documented in our kids) by focusing on symptoms. Whether it be a car accident, drowning, or chromosomal abnormality the damage in in the brain. This contention we have that we can change the brain by having a child do something over and over again is insane. They will just do it over and over again poorly, and guess what organization gets reinforced?

Increasing hemispheric communication through A LOT of complex visual stimulation (reading very, very young), A LOT of fact storage and retrieval, through A LOT of auditory stimulation (Tomatis therapy, high violin content music, contrast silence and noise, etc), through A LOT of vestibular stimulation (swinging, hanging, PASSIVE patterning), Through A LOT of metabolic support such as increased mitochondrial health and proportionately increased antioxidants in converted form (see earlier note about inefficient mitochondrial conversion of things like folic acid, CoQ10, etc) that directly impact the brain's ability to form dendrites and communicate - you are treating the brain. When your 5 year old is doing gymnastics and speaking several languages, do you really care what pathways in his brain is lighting up? This reasearch, although positive from the standpoint of medical interest, is - as a brilliant friend of mine says - "Nero fiddling while Rome Burns."