By Carmela D'Amico & Judith Bluestone
A few examples follow that illustrate the philosophy that when children are exhibiting symptoms of "ADD/ADHD" they are actually engaging in self-protective behaviors. These are taken taken directly from "Turning Point: Some Pivotal Insights into Behavior and Learning,"a paper written by Judith Bluestone, the founder of The HANDLE Institute:
One common mistake teachers make is to direct children to 'Sit
still and listen.' Without getting into the technicalities of
nervous system structure and function, let me explain briefly
why, for some children, those are two contradictory statements.
There are actually several explanations, depending on the nature
of the movement the child is exhibiting.
One scenario:
The behaviors you see: The child is stretching, yawning, pushing
off from the table, bouncing her head around, rocking from side
to side in her chair, getting up and jumping from time to time,
or engaging in other fast and sudden movements. She is telling
you something important.
What this might mean: This child is saying that her vestibular
(inner ear) functions are too weak to simultaneously serve awareness
of body in space, looking and listening. She knows that what you
really want and what is important for her to learn is that she
listen. And so she moves and bounces to keep her vestibular system
alert, energized, so she can listen. If she were to heed the first
part of the direction and sit still, then she would tune out,
and miss the learning that is taking place.
This is only one example but it illustrates quite clearly the
link between faulty processing and anomalous behavior. Another
example would be a child who looks away a lot, uses her hands
as a visor or has difficulty copying or reading from books and
whiteboards. These behaviors may be her way of attempting to communicate
that her vestibular system, which supports visual functions, isn't
operating correctly. This has probably made her sensitive to light,
as well, and she may also have an underlying problem of binocular
functions, so that each eye is processing light differently.
Since the inner ear system also regulates muscle tone, another
example of an attempt to communicate a weakness of this system
would be a child who can't seem to sit up for long, and who is
always sliding way down or back in his chair. This child may be
trying to communicate that he does not have a strong enough vestibular
system to support muscle tone and body-in-space and at the same
time look and listen. He feels that in order to look and listen,
he must first tend to the feeling that he cannot hold himself
up. If he doesn't tend to that first, and instead attempts to
skip that step and look and listen first, he will be too distracted
by his physical discomfort to do so.