I am an adoptive mom of two children who are now 11 and 13. We have a relatively stress free household, and I give the credit to Bette for helping us achieve this level of family life.
Alex had so much residual trauma from spending his first 26 months in an orphanage. He had sequencing issues and couldn’t recite the alphabet at seven years of age. He had word retrieval challenges and couldn’t find the words that he knew he wanted. It was often hard to communicate with him and we found that we were finishing most of his sentences. He also started stuttering. We started having behavior issues with Alex at around age seven; relentless teasing of his sister, defiance, and refusal to do simple tasks such as brushing his teeth. School became increasingly difficult, especially math and reading. Noises in the classroom distracted Alex and left him unable to complete his work.
It wasn’t until I heard Bette Lamont’s lecture that our lives started changing in the right direction. I was amazed at how she described my son’s behavior and gave the reasons why he was reacting this way. Alex’s brain was “underdeveloped” and needed “reorganization”. He was in a state of “flight or fight” most of the time, which contributed to his behavioral issues.
We had evaluations with Bette for three years. Each evaluation was a wealth of information, as we saw progress with Alex. His stuttering was gone. He was more controlled in his behavior, and his outbursts were less frequent. Word retrieval issues went away completely. He was able to focus in the classroom and his math and reading progressed with small group classes. Today, Alex is reading at an 8th grade level and is excelling in most of his classes.
I will be honest with you and tell you that the daily exercises were often grueling to get through. Alex was not always cooperative and I spent my days thinking about ways to make the “exercises” more fun. There were tears, frustrations, shouting, and a whole laundry list of emotions that went along with the program. Toward the end of our program when Alex was most able to focus, reading a good book to him while he was creeping or belly crawling proved to be very bonding, and he actually looked forward to doing his exercises.
The NeuroDevelopmental Movement® program was the hardest, yet most rewarding program that I have ever completed. We now have a smart, sensitive, polite young man as our son, and I know that this would never have happened without Bette’s knowledge, dedication, and encouragement.