Bridging Into Education and Healthcare
THE AWARENESS OF EMBODIED DEVELOPMENT
Catherine Rosasco Mitchell, Cathy Kerr, and Carolyn Palmer
The Sensory Body, Learning, and Healing
Brown University professor, Cathy Kerr and Catherine Rosasco Mitchell’s got together after finding cognitive behavior improve with the Sensory Body. The main interest is to introduce the Sensory Body into healthcare and education. The intention was to bridge the findings of research {with the Sensory Body} into medicine and education. If we didn’t figure out how experience the Sensory Body and improve self care it would be some time before research could benefit communities.
Talks and programs developed since working with Catherine Kerr and Rosasco-Mitchell
Six-Body-to-Brain-Strategies Presentation, 2018
Get Sensational Attention (GSA): elementary school program that gives step-by-step lessons introducing the Sensory Body.
Reference: James P. Curley, Rahia Mashoodh, Cate Jensen, Emily Jordan, Zoe Donaldson, Marija Kundakovic, and Kathryn Gudsnuk from Columbia University are looking at stress response, social behavior, learning and memory; Carla Calvin and Karen Bierman from Pennsylvania State University are looking at interpersonal coping skills; George F. Michel from University of North Carolina at Greensboro is looking at motor development and psychological development; and Melissa Clearfield and her team from Whitman College are studying behavior, posture and communication to cognitive development. And the most impressive research was Nina Leezenbaum and her team from University of Pittsburgh who are looking at physical posture and movement to detect early signs of autism.
Developmental Science Teaching Institute, SRCD
Presenters Catherine Rosasco-Mitchell and Carolyn Palmer
Carolyn Palmer, Vassar College researcher and Catherine Rosasco Mitchell, Feldenkrais Practitioner did a poster presentation for the Society for Research for Child Development (SRCD) Teaching Institute.
Poster_Embodied Development shows differences in lesson plans with and without the Sensory Body, sequence of how to learn about the Sensory Body, and references.
After looking at the poster “Do you want to feel the Sensory Body?” What is it that senses the subtle changes within the internal space of the body to thinking, feeling, and acting? What senses the body influence to ambition, confidence, inhibition, and attention? The answer to all these questions is movement. Movement and the sensory body are foundational to development and cognitive functioning.
The Sensory Body is learned through movement and attention for the young and old. However, what is going on inside people’s body is illusive. (See Body Ownership research and the Rubber Hand Illusion). Movement of the body is what develops perception of the self and the outer world. Movement forms behavior, and behavior forms perception. Sensory Body is the embodiment that creates inclinations and finds identity of the self.
BACKGROUND: Wellness Through Movement ran for a pilot program for eight years as a physical education program based on developmental movements, psychology, and the Feldenkrais® Method. The movement taught awareness of kinesthesia. Kinesthesia is a bodily sense of space involving movement and organization of body parts. The strategies taught participants how to find the uniqueness in each individual’s perception through kinesthesia (and the Feldenkrais Method).
Procedures were tested and revised over the eight years between 2006-2014, three years in private and five years in public elementary schools. The 500 children from the island of Hawaii who applied these lessons came from multicultural backgrounds, and 57% of them were below poverty levels. Class sizes were in groups of six to twenty participants, ages five to ten.
The interest of SRCD was sparked by the results of this program and children with attention disorders. When neuromuscular motor patterning was reeducated in these children, attention and character changed .Improved behavior sustained for six years after the program was over. (See Testimony, Principal Danny Garcia)
The studies with ADHD children and movement would benefit the most from the strategies. Strategies were tested and proven effective for children with behavioral challenges, attention deficits, and general well-being.)
About Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
These were the studies presented at the SRCD conference, with over 10,000 attendee and 300 pages devoted to presentations. Only three research studies explored the depths of how embodiment influences the brain and perception.
(Note: People interested in this link were also interested in the presentation, Six Body-to-Brain Strategies 2018, at the Movementis Movement and Cognition conference.)
Closing Thoughts
If you haven’t heard, the NEW Video animation lesson is now available for elementary schools in on YouTube. It’s called Get Sensational Attention.