NeuroDevelopmental Movement® Consultants is based in Seattle, Washington, and has provided in-person services not only in Western Washington since 1987, but has also, since 2009, provided services in California, Chicago, SE Michigan, Indiana, and Charlotte, NC. We have brilliant colleagues who work in other areas of the country and you can feel free to contact us for a referral.
Since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic we have also made many more assessments available online, and have found it to be a meaningful, personalized, and very effective approach. Please do not hesitate to ask about online assessment.
NeuroDevelopmental Movement® will not direct our work to your child’s symptoms, nor to their diagnosis. Rather, we will do a full assessment of sensory and motor skills at seven levels of the central nervous system. With the understanding that we get from our assessment, we are able to treat the brain as a whole, rather than treating a symptom or a label.
For instance, a child with Oppositional Defiance Disorder might test out as having a high pain threshold, poor inter-hemispheric communication (leading to impulse control), poor crawling (an activity that helps the pons and amygdala levels of the brain mature), and poor visual convergence (perhaps leading to anxiety when people approach the child quickly).
As the brain matures and the pain threshold normalizes, the child may no longer feel a need to punch and bite because they understand pain.
The two sides of the brain may begin to communicate more efficiently across the midline so the more rational left brain can bring control to the more impulsive right brain, with a resulting diminution of impulsiveness.
The child may develop better crawling that helps them use their strong and connected lower body, sending better signals from the soles of the feet to the brain, thus improving proprioception and vestibular skills, so they no longer feel so anxious.
The eyes might converge more effectively so the child no longer feels anxious about quick movement near them.
As we help the brain mature in these and hundreds of other ways, the previous anxiety or rageful or dysregulated behaviors that have arisen from the immature brain begin to become more regulated.
In this maturation process, the symptoms that may be the basis for labels such as ADD, Dyslexia, or Dyspraxia, begin to disappear.
Parents will see, over time, new and improved behaviors that we discuss at each subsequent assessment. These changes can happen quickly, or so slowly that many assume it is part of a natural maturation process. But by the end of two to three years, many of the children with whom we work no longer meet the criteria for their previous diagnosis.
However, we do not treat symptoms, nor do we treat a diagnosis. NeuroDevelopmental Movement® treats the brain itself. When there is a central source of the problem, we believe that a central solution is the most effective approach.