Families turn to chiropractics for
positive changes in children
Mike Maunder, Correspondent
Parents of children
with learning disabilities are increasingly finding themselves on the cutting
edge of new and innovative approaches in alternative medicine.
"I was never a believer
in alternative medicine, but I am now." explained Joseph Server of Richmond
Hill, whose learning disabled son has improved by two grade levels after
treatments by a Stouffville chiropractor.
Chiropractic, diet
and nutrition, and new ways of understanding how the brain processes
information, are among the methods that many families. are now using to
help their children.
The Server family
tried all the conventional approaches - talks with teachers and principals,
doctors, psychologists - but none seemed able to help their eight-year-old
son. He was slow in development, hyperactive and rambunctious, unable to
carry on an extended conversation. Some called him retarded. Many offered
suggestions about how special classes and programs could compensate for
his disabilities, but only chiropractor Allen Turner of Stouffville offered
a treatment that promised to change the disabilities.
In the last six months,
those treatments have given the Server's a new son. "At school, the teachers
say he is a different person," said Joseph. "He used to be very quiet all
the time, too quiet. But now he's talkative, he can explain himself verbaly.
The father watched
in disbelief as Turner first treated his son at his Stouffville clinic
this January.
The change was immediate.
Within three weeks, the principal at school was phoning home to find out
what had happened.
What had happened
was that Turner had determined that the boy had injured the alignment of
his spine in a forgotten fall years before. Since then, only 25 per cent
of nerve messages were getting through correctly. A half-hour adjustment
brought about a change that appeared miraculous.
Cindy King-Gaffney,
of Newmarket, saw a similar immediate change in her son when he was first
treated by Turner three years ago.
He was diagnosed as
A.D.D. - Attention Deficit Disorder -meaning he couldn't concentrate and
would end up as a behavior problem in almost any classroom situation. The
changes after the first chiropractic treatment were so dramatic that Cindy
compares it to voo-doo. "He was a different kid, quiet, able to concentrate.
He made huge changes in school."
They went through
three months of intensive chiropractic treatment and then levelled out
to maintenance visits once a month. That year, Cindy became president of
the Learning Disabilities Association in Newmarket and Aurora. She found
that there were many different alternative treatments that offered hope
to learning disabled families and invited guest speakers to address the
association every few months.
"So
often, all your information is filtered through regular medical channels,
and people don't find out about alternates. We felt that we had a role
to provide parents with knowledge about these alternate approaches, with
or without endorsement.
These approaches include: The Tomatis method,
which treats
many learning problems as a hearing problem in which the ear is not attuned
to hear words pitched in certain frequencies; The approach of an Oakville
opthamologist, who treats visual problems caused by left-right eye patterns; Numerous private schools with
low teacher-pupil ratios and special programs; A diet and nutrition approach.
which sees food additives and sugars responsible for major shifts in mood; Brain integration work - physical
activities to integrate left and right sides of the brain; complex sensory
neurological techniques. Two major practitioners are Toronto's Arrowsmith-Cohen
Institute and the SOMA Centre in Thornhill. Soma is an ancient Greek word
standing for the union of mind, body and spirit, and it's that union that
SOMA's director, Joanne Loughran, strives for. The modern word with the
same meaning is educational kinesiology. Kinesiology uses body movement,
muscle training and meridian points. as in acupuncture. in order to stimulate
neurons in the nerves and in the brain.
"We
forget in our culture that the body is as important as the brain." she
says. "You have to get it into your body before the brain locks it in.'
Working through the
body is what many of these alternative approaches have in common. All of
the approaches have a large body of stories to back up their success. However,
endorsement by the traditional scientific community is rare. The scientific
approach looks at anecdotal evidence that is not backed up by research
and extensive tests done in the conventional fashion.
Turner points to a
growing body of research that supports the results being achieved. Like
any new technique that's different from the established norms, there is
going to be a lot of skepticism. As regards chiropractic techniques, there
is a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge. However, I have medical
doctors I've worked with who have taken the time to study the research,
and they support this approach wholeheartedly.
But for the many parents
of learning disabled youngsters, formal scientific tests are not as important
as the changes these techniques have brought to their children's lives.
Turner estimates he's treated 1,000 youngsters in the last eight years,
and it's their faces that have provided the proof for him.
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