The Australian Institute teaches parents how to enhance their child's development through home-based programs. After an initial assessment, parents are given a program to be carried out at home, with the assistance of family, friends and volunteers.
The program involves working with the child for anywhere from one to four hours per day (depending on the family's ability to do so). The specialised techniques that parents practice target physical, spatial, tactile, auditory, visual and intellectual development.
Therapy through Neurological Stimulation
To many parents, the terms Cerebral Palsy, Down's Syndrome, autistic, mentally retarded, coma-accident, stroke victims, hyperactive, dislexic, epileptic, ADD, ADHD, poorly coordinated and traumatically brain injured, along with a host of others, are simply terms that have little meaning, except as labels, marking their child as being 'different'. The real problem behind the many confusing labels is that the child has a brain-injury. Although the child may look forward to a reasonable life span, the parents are usually told not to expect any real improvement and to accept them the way they are.
The Institute, having spent 30 years working with brain-injured children, believes that it is possible to improve a child's performance, despite his or her often severe brain injury. As the brain itself, that most complex of all human organs, is never fully utilised in any human being, it is often possible to stimulate dormant cells to create or re-create function. Based on the Doman-Delacato theories and with some new inclusions, the Australian Institute has created a therapy to encourage brain development, increasing the frequency, the intensity and duration of stimuli through the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. No child is ever refused help because of the severity of his or her problem, unless the child has an ongoing pathological condition.
Every child who follows the program is carefully assessed on his or her ability to see, hear, feel, move, communicate and use his or her hands, compared with a normal child of the same age. Wherever an absence of function is discovered, or the child has not reached the level of skills of his or her peer group, special techniques are included in the program to create or strengthen this ability. As every child is different, every program has to be tailored individually, and the vaious techniques differ from one child to another.
There is often concern from parents about the amount of time required to carry out therapy programs based on the Doan-Delacato methods. The Institute has developed ways to incorporate the therapy inot a family's life to whatever level they wish. This allows families to tailor the program around their lives and needs. This could be as little as one hour per day spent doing therapy, or up to four or five hours per day, if the parents wish and the child permits.
The programs developed by the Institute and by Keith Pennock's staff at the Brain-Net Institute (Britain) are designed to be carried out by the parents of the children and supported by volunteer helpers and friends.
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