ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
ADD has multiple symptoms and these include inattention, impulsivity, poor focus and concentration. ADD is a developmental disability, which has been estimated to affect between 3-5% of the school age population.
ADHD (Attention Deficit disorder with Hyperactivity)
ADHD is a term now widely used to label children who have difficulty sustaining attention, and whose behavior is also characterized by excessive activity. Children with ADHD can have difficulty with one or all parts of the attention process and are very distractible, which interferes with learning activities, and impacts behavior.
Developmental Delays
Developmental delays are when a child does not reach their developmental milestones at the expected times. It is an ongoing, major delay in the process of development. Delay can occur in one or many areas—for example, motor, language, social, or thinking skills.
Learning Difficulties
A learning disability is not a problem with intelligence because often the individual's IQ falls within the normal range. The source of the difficulty is in the brain, and can be present in both children and adults. People with a learning disorder have trouble processing sensory information, which interferes in their daily activities at school and work.
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is the selective impairment of reading skills despite normal intelligence, sensory acuity and instruction. It is a learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Some dyslexics also have difficulty learning to write, speak or to work with numbers.
Autism
According to the National Dissemination Center for children with disabilities, autism is a neurological disorder that affects a child’s ability to communicate, understand language, play and relate to others. Autism is associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviors.
Aspergers Disorder or Syndrome
Aspergers is a developmental disorder characterized by a lack of social skills, difficulty with social relationships, poor concentration and a restricted range of interests, but with normal intelligence and adequate language skills in areas of vocabulary and grammar. A person with Aspergers may have difficulty understanding the subtleties used in conversation such as irony and humor.
ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders)
People with autism can have very different symptoms, and health care providers describe autism as a “spectrum” disorder, which a group of disorders with similar features. Symptoms (as described above) range from mild to serious, and the range has become known as ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder.
There are several related terms, which can include:
Autistic Disorder (often called “classic” autism)
Asperger Disorder or Syndrome
Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS or atypical autism)
Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
Rett Syndrome
Memory Issues
Memory issues occur mainly in the areas of short term memory which has to do with recent events, and can affect learning and reading comprehension. Often people associate this with aging, however, it is not limited to certain age ranges.
Brain Fog
Brain fog revolves around confusion, thinking impairment, word finding and poor judgment. People diagnosed with Candida report experiencing Brain Fog as a coincident symptom.
Fall Prevention
Fall prevention has become increasingly linked to longevity, as alarming statistic becomes more publicized by the CDC. For example every 18 seconds an older adult is treated in an emergency department for a fall. Tragically, every 35 minutes some dies as a result of injuries from a fall. The need to 'train our brain" has become recognized as the most effective solution to a problem affecting our growing senior population.
Mental Capacity
Mental capacity is the term used to describe the cluster of mental skills that people use in their everyday lives. It includes memory, logic, the ability to calculate, and the "flexibility" to turn one's attention from one task to another. People often misunderstand the distinctions between capacity and fatigue, and are unaware of techniques that can improve or expand this range of skills.
Visual Perceptual Problems
There are problems in how both eyes work together and how information is delivered to the brain for comprehension and evaluation of data. Perceptual problems prevent a person from being able to learn, read, study efficiently, and judge distances (including physical distances and effective responses to distance – catching an object, etc.)
Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (recently known as Irlen Syndrome) creates visual distortions in processing color, which has been identified in studies as a source of learning and reading difficulties, and can cause painfully strong sensitivity to light, headaches, and even added stress with those who are coping with ADD/ADHD.
Click to read/download Barbara Schwartz’ Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome article.
Sensory Integration Issues
Sensory integration is the ability to process information from our five senses. Issues or dysfunction occur when a person has problems processing information from the senses. For examples, tactile, (the sense of touch), vestibular, (the sense of balance), and proprioceptive (how the muscles and nerves communicate with the brain.
Metabolic Imbalance
Chronic biochemical imbalance is often a primary factor in the development of many complex diseases but a possible metabolic basis for autism has not been well explored. Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute researchers has reported that children with autism have a severely abnormal metabolic profile indicating increased vulnerability to oxidative stress. Women often experience metabolic imbalances before, during or after Menopause,; likewise for men surrounding andropause.
PMS or Menopause
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) (sometimes referred to as PMT or Premenstrual Tension) is a collection of physical, psychological, and emotional symptoms related to a woman's menstrual cycle. While most women of child-bearing age (about 80 percent) have some Premenstrual symptoms,[women with PMS have symptoms of "sufficient severity to interfere with some aspects of life".
Menopause is the permanent shutting down of the female reproductive system, a considerable length of time before the end of the lifespan. Among the many symptoms women may experience are hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, muscle and joint pain, vaginal problems, fatigue, decreased libido, mood disturbances, memory loss, anxiety, depression and more.
Click to read/download a more detailed description of symptoms
most comonly asscoiated with PMS and/or Menopause.
Allergies
Allergies are a disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions can occur to environmental substances and food allergies. Common allergic reactions include eczema, hives, hay fever, asthma. Hidden allergies can contribute to learning problems, autism, ear infections, digestive problems, mental/emotional disorders, migraines, muscle and joint pain, confusion, mood swings, fatigue, anxiety, epilepsy and many other physical or emotional symptoms
Nutritional Needs
Nutrition is a major aspect of the health component for people of all ages, and a critical consideration for many children with disabilities. Children with disabilities have a range of nutritional needs, from foods causing mild negative reactions to others posing serious threats to their healthy development as well as identifying the foods that support them. Adults also have specific nutritional needs that need to be identified for wellness on all levels of life.
Environmental Toxins
Environmental toxins have become increasingly identified as the source for an array of physical problems for children and adults as well as learning, behavior developmental and autism problems in children. In the last half-century or so, more than 85,000 industrial chemicals have been registered in the United States, and many of them have saturated our food, water, and the air we breathe. Since you can't see, feel, or smell many toxins, people of all ages may not realize their affects until they come down with a chronic disease after years of exposure. Groups such as the Autism Society of America, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, and dozens of others, have teamed up on initiatives to protect children from pollutants that may undermine brain development, cause learning, behavior, and developmental problems
Unresolved Pain
Physical pain and emotional pain are sometimes interconnected. In order to get to the root of the physical pain it can be most effective to identify the situation or feeling that has brought the pain to the surface, to allow brain body repatterning. Releasing this repressed emotional tension buried inside is absolutely essential to restoring wellness and wholeness.
Unrecognized Disconnects
The root causes of symptoms are not always easy to identify. Yet the disharmony, imbalance, and even disconnect become increasingly evident as maladaptive brain body compensations increase, often to the level of physical pain or difficulty. Instead of suppressing symptoms, which can diminish life force, holistic approach that supports healthy brain body patterns can release and retrain and support healthy brain body connections. Real healing comes from restoring balance and harmony to the life force, not in artificially subduing symptoms.