Cognitive Development
Movement
Behavior

Here’s How WTM Works
How movement becomes consciousness. ..Behavior creates movement. Movement finds patterns. Patterns find functions. Functions influences perception. And perception contributes to consciousness. The WTM method gives awareness to body sensations in motion that sense perception.
Motor “patterns” are different than muscle memory. See below under, “What is the method?”
Give Me Details
OVERVIEW
(√) Can You Give Me a Quick Overview of WTM?
After forty years of researching the human body to consciousness, this program (serendipitously) was created. The Wellness Through Movement (WTM) program was designed and tested in the trenches of five elementary schools (2006-2014) of the Kohala communities. Kohala Elementary, a pilot school, is a public school of below-poverty classes in the rural areas of the Big Island. LINK Research talk on Body Awareness from Brown University, Catherine Kerr.
Catherine Rosasco-Mitchell’s research, before working in an elementary school, involved forty years of treatment with chronic conditions. Muscular-skeletal patterns were analyzed (through the Feldenkrais® Method entitled Functional Integration®) in relationship to behavior and systems. Though speculative, people with chronic conditions improve when motor patterns related to condition was experienced.
The WTM movement lessons, based on methods of the Feldenkrais® work and developmental movements was put into an elementary school level physical education. (United States standards are met.
There are three WTM programs:
- A school-wide program, Get Sensational Attention
- A book, Part I, A New Sensory Self-Awareness
- A physical education program Part II, WTM Physical Education
Results after a 12 week WTM physical education program
(√) Were Lessons Tested & Proven Effective?
Yes. Method implemented in the movement program were tested for eight years in elementary schools. Focus of the programs was to enhance both body ownership and re-educate sensorimotor patterns. Strategies were tested and revised between 2006-2018 in a public elementary school with children from multicultural and below poverty backgrounds. Over 500 children (in groups of 6-22 participants) and ages 5-10 years old experienced these strategies:
- Developing awareness in the organic nature of the body and what it wants to do without interfering
- Developing awareness of the presence of a physicalness in relation to hearing
- Developing awareness of a synergistic attention, sensing your body while attention is outside yourself
- Developing awareness of the details in parts and spaces of bodily organization
- Developing awareness of how physical changes relate to psychological and cognitive changes
- Developing awareness in the relationships between the organization of movements in the body and behavioral patterns
Chronological Order of Research:
(1987-1990 Feldenkrais® Training)
1987-Present Feldenkrais® Practice
2005 Pilot program, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Lower School, with Physical Education Teacher and Co-Creator of WTM, Susie Jones, with special thanks to Hope Soo
2006 First pilot class Hawaii Preparatory (fourteen weeks)
(2007 Schools Attuned Training)
(2007, Brain Gym Training)
(2007, Yoga Ed Training)
2007, April 12 -April 25, and January 15 lessons segment program HPA
2008 – 2014 Kohala Elementary
2008 Hawaii Preparatory Academy
2008, August 15, Intro to Kohala teachers
2008, September 10, Introduction to Parents at Kohala Elementary
(2009, Trained/Teamed with Schools Attuned)
2009 WTM physical education teacher Kohala Elementary
2010, Hawaii Association for Physical Education Recreation and Dance Presentation
2010, Pilot program: Kohala after-school program, one week, 25 students
2010, May 7, Hawaii Association Physical Education Presentation
2010 – 2011, Kohala Elementary School Breaks 30 sessions
2011, Kohala Community School Meeting
2011 Intro at Kohala elementary¬ Festival/Spring
2011, March 14th – 18th, Kohala spring break
2011, September-May Parker School, Donna Rohr
2013-2014, Research team: Feldenkrais In Schools Hui in Schools (FISH)
2013, Waldorf School Kohala November 29
2014, the Last program at Kohala Elementary
2014- 2015, June 2014 – September 2015, video animation program produced– Get Sensational Attention, school-wide program
(√) What is the WTM Method?
Movement Intelligence, Attention, and the Sensory Body (SB)
Introduction
We teach through the body to the brain. Some people must run to think, walk to listen, or move to talk. Movement is not merely a mechanical action – especially for children. Movement is also an intelligence that cultivates perception, attention, and executive functioning. (Clark, Schumann, and Mostofsky, 2015). This “intelligence” I will call the “Sensory Body (SB),” or what scientists may label “body ownership.” (Erhsson, H. H., 2012)
We use movement to explore spatial awareness, internally and externally. Structure has a sense, living presence has a sense, and action has a sense. Together, it senses orchestra development. “Signals from this sensory orchestra are sent by afferent nerves through the spinal cord to the somatosensory, motor, and parietal cortices of the brain, where they continuously feed and update dynamic sensory-motor maps of the body. This major intelligence of the body [this inner teacher] has missed the attention it truly deserves.” (Smetacek & Mechsner, 2004, p. 21). The “maps” of the body ride on motor patterns.
Nature uses movement haphazardly is used to develop an awareness of a SB.Consciousness of this process changes the trajectory of its development. Through movement games children’s attention is pointed towards changes in their bodies to changes in their moods. Movement is not an exercise to achieve an action, but the organization of action to sense the functions trying to establish or established in the nervous system. Movement becomes s a tool for exploration of awareness.
Start with spatial awareness outside of the body. Through movement, the narrow the senses to inside the body and how body parts create movement functions. This is the awareness that senses the connection of the SB. The SB gives birth to one’s “way” of being. In other words, the SB bridges information from the motor, sensory, and memory association areas (of the body) crucial to feeling how one thinks and behave. The experience of this synergy shifts perception. Through motion, brain function improves. More importantly, hearts expand, peace returns, and self-awareness finds a way to use the body to guide life.
Could the awareness of the SB be what stimulated improvements in children’s behavior and cognitive disorders?
Could this process be scientifically proven?
Yes. With every student showing signs of ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) improved after muscular patterns were reeducated. Movement patterns were specifically reeducated if the movement related to developmental movements. Research shows infants missing some developmental movement stages are predicted to get cognitive disorders. (Zuk, 2011)
However, trying to make infants (or children) achieve the type of results from movements, the action had to experience sensations related to awkwardness. Movements must give the sensation (a body awareness) where and how the awkwardness lacks organization. Dr. Feldenkrais’s technique uses the physics of motion to “meet” the brain through sensation. Gravity, weight, and pressure are variables to introduce in motion. The movement was the teacher.
The Wellness Through Movement (WTM) physical education lessons are based on developmental movement and the methods of the Feldenkrais® work. The focus of the lessons is let the children play to sense the language in the motion. Meaning, movement was used to sense parts integrated and not integrated in the actions. We did not explain of demonstrate movement. Everything in a lesson focuses on sensing what the body does with the brain. Sensing movement related to the brain is done through experience, not verbal descriptions. (For example: Get Sensational Attention User Guide.)
With movement and attention, awareness of the Sensory Body is built through experience, and incredibly more effective type of motion for helping attention deficit challenges. Over five hundred Kohala Elementary school children experienced the Wellness Through Movement (WTM) lessons. A foundational lesson in the movement games is called, “No Place Like Home Breath,” or “Home Breath” (Kohala Elementary termed Home Breath, “Pono Breath.” “Pono” means make good.) Here is a talk to learn more about how to apply movement and the program: Scientific overview of WTM physical education program.)
For children, learning from the Sensory Body (or movement intelligence) is easier than if people’s cognition has already developed the sense of self. In addition, more drastic improvements happened with cognitive disorders. For example, the ability to verbalize their thought, follow directions, and develop executive functioning were measurably improved. Principle Garcia (2008-2014) at Kohala Elementary and the parents reported social-emotional behavior and general well-being were also noticeably better. School-wide bullying incidents disappeared according to records of incidences reported to the principal’s office.
Lessons change the common notion of movement as “an exercise” to movement as a sense of being and a language of becoming. In other words, like human nature, movement was the teacher.
Movement as a Teacher:
Lessons do not use words to explain actions or what is needed to be learned.
Movement and attention is bing-bonged between one’s inner world and the changes of how the outer world is perceived.
Most important: learning through motion can only be done through the experience of the lessons. “Experience” in this context refers to a direct and personal encounter with the actions and translations of the directions. (Experience a lesson)
The Sensory Body sense is a type of “perception,” a sixth sense of the three dimensional structure of the body-mind. Some scientists call the sense, “body-ownership.” The SB senses body-form that causes identity of self and perception. For children, this motor sense is not viewed as just a feeling of muscles and bones but a physical conversations of emotional and mental processing.
Learn “how” to introduce movement activity and develop the Sensory Body awareness with this talk: Six Body-to-Brain Strategies.
Further Discussion with Researchers: Stuart Mostofsky at Kennedy Krieger & Cathy Kerr at Brown University
Researchers know movement helps the brain, but how does movement create perception? Answering this question is to ask another question: if movement is recognized as crucial for cognitive development (Boring, 1930), why can’t we feel the relationships of it to cognitive or perceptual development? The science of “Body Ownership” may point to the answer. (Burin, D., Pyasik, M., Salatino A., and Pia, L., 2017) If we can’t feel the body, how can we sense the conversations in the body to actions?
Start a movement lesson by lying on the floor and ask what is touching? To many children the answer was, “Nothing.” Like infants, it is hard to sense the internal structures and function sof the arms, legs, back, or even spines.
Movement in physics means life. Life is nature’s way of teaching wholeness is through action. There is a crucial interdependence of the body to how the mind reacts to its environment. In other words, it is not just movement but what happens between the movement and perception that is the treasure. What lies between movement and perception creates the way children listen, communicate, and perceive.
Scientists explain that movement of the body to the brain happens through afferent nerves. Afferent nerves bring sensory information from the world and through the body to the brain. What is between the self and the outer world negotiates through movement, or somatosensory circuits of sensations. If scientists are saying body’s sensations that are sent to the brain and are foundational to how the brain operate, information from the body and motion are crucial to understanding learning. Like the first movements of life, primal reflexes, WTM movements are designed to stimulate actions to germinate Functional Integrate®, brain and body-mind wholeness (See Feldenkrais® Work).
Motor Patterns of Behavior is Different than Muscle Memory
It is important to clarify the differences between muscle memory and motor patterns. Muscle memory is a movement that knows how to repeat itself. Motor patterns are repeated records of motion related to behavior. In other words, behavioral patterns must be thought of as motor patterns. Changing the motor pattern of a behavior (in children) related to stress, frustration, and anger changed behavior. Changing muscle memory did not change any emotional states of conditioning.
The body is a physical record of historical drives. From desires, circumstances, and activities, motor patterns evolve. Children’s desires crave to be fulfilled, and successful behaviors get established. As strategies succeed, fine-tuning of motion develops and muscular-skeletal action gets programed in to automatic patterns of actions. Actions get enslaved and become integral to perception. Over time, these movement strategies carve out ways of acting and become the carriage of the self and (sensory-motor) identity. In other words, The three-dimensional patterns of action become the physical attire of muscular-skeletal tendencies and persuade how to act, behave, and speak.
We analyzed children’s movements (posture and gait) to analyze their dispositions in character. The organization of movement had to find ways to negotiate between an intention and action. If this bridge between action and intention was not built, behavior problems existed.
It is essential to mention some patterns of movements that need to be disregarded often can’t be just let go. Actions that strive to reach success need to be felt to be changed.
METHODOLOGY
(√) What is the Sensory Body (SB)?
The SB is the sensation of form identified as the self, the “who” inside with the “who” outside. The SB is the form sensation directing ways of perception and making choices. The Sensory Body (SB) is a type of internal guidance system (GPS) to what happens between the mind and body. In other words, the SB is a type of intelligence, a biofeedback one with structure, function, and attention composed through motion. Long before the mind notices, the SB can sense the beginnings of psychological behaviors through actions, biological sensations.
To change behavior, “exercise” or the idea of needing to do specific movements was sacrificed to train awareness of the SB. Fine qualities of sensations bypass perception, yet the SB can sense the differences of what we are doing to what we think we are doing. The SB, unlike the brain knows when the mind and body are working in sync and in opposite behavior.
Benefits of the SB
After researching for thirty years and with tens of thousands of people with chronic conditions, the benefits encompassed improvements in emotional, mental, and physical health. And when taught WTM philosophy became a culture in a school-wide setting, benefits with children’s behavior were sustainable. Eight years after working with the pilot school (2006-2013), Principal Garcia of Kohala Elementary reported this testimony about social-emotional behavior. He continued remarking about a kindergarten student (from 2006) with verbal and physical harassment issues has still showed an improved demeanor not recognizable years after we worked with him. Similar reports came from teachers and parents related to improved attention span and general well-being. T
he most significant benefit with adults and children was when they became aware of what they were doing that was different from what they thought they were doing.
Background of School Program: Principal Garcia used a school-wide lesson called “No Place Like Home” (p. 46, Rosasco, 2013). The lesson used the movement of an exhalation with attention “attached” to the sensation of the sound and movement of the breath to pull children’s attention down inside their bodies. (See No Place Like Home Breath, p. 46, Rosasco Mitchell)
Long-term benefits likely occurred if children’s community (schools and family life) gets involved.
It is important to note that our pilot school was in a Hawaiian community. The indigenous cultures value the relationships among the mind, body, spirit, nature, and being part of a tribe. Because of the indigenous culture, and thanks to the parents and teachers of Kohala Elementary School, the children changed for years later.
What teachers or parents may not understand: Some elementary teachers were surprised to understand how the children’s bodies influenced listening skills. Traditional education needs to pull attention up at the teacher. In WTM, listening is about the SB listening, and children’s unique and personal processes wired into their bodies. Cues from the body can help researchers, parents, and teachers understand what is getting out of the way of listening.
For example, a third-grade girl felt frightened about her reading lessons and didn’t know she held her breath increasing her anxiety and difficulty to listen. After the child learned the SB, she noticed that she stopped breathing whenever the teacher said, “It’s time for our reading lesson.” The anxiety caused her chest to stiffen, making it difficult for her to listen to the teacher. She learned the lesson, No Place Like Home Breath, and could then sense what was happening inside her body and why she couldn’t read. (p. 46, Rosasco, 2013) In other words, the sensation of the SB allowed her to sense what information was not getting processed. She raised her hand and told the teacher. They reviewed the lesson “No Place Like Home Breath.” lesson. (This interview on the Home page will explain how to do the lesson) The teacher asked the student to listen from “Home” and she learned to read for the first time (at the age of eight years old).
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Teach Home Breath through fun first: When first learning about the SB, we taught children the lesson, “Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance.” (round three, p. 42, Rosasco, 2013) The lesson taught children how to keep attention inside in a playful way. Playing is learning from inside (the SB) and is much easier. Once the children play with the sense of the SB, adapting it to the classroom demands is easier. (See Testimonials)
The SB learned through movement improves three functions:
1. Body awareness
2. Dual attention
3. Awareness of Difference in the Physical to Differences in Perception
(√) Can You Give Me an Experience?
You don’t understand? It’s okay, you have to feel it.
Suggestion to Readers: Here is an adult version of the children’s lesson,”Pancake Body.”.“
EXPERIENCE and ADULT LESSON
26 minutes
To get long-term benefits from the lesson, practice for two weeks daily. Remember what you learn in the lesson when you stand and go into your lives.
Compare the two lessons and you will see how easy it is to teach children.
Learning through the flesh is done through experience. During the lesson above: Feel the flesh that is consciousness, and you feel the service the body has to the mind. The body is the grounding wire to the brain. If you can’t feel “walking down” each the vertebrae, imagine pushing each vertebra down towards the ground. The directions are not about the parts of the body; it is about the movement (of attention through the body) and repose. Feel the five lines…live the lesson.
Before you begin drink water, even if you are not thirsty. Lie on the floor, close your eyes, and play with the movement suggestions. Pause the recording and play with movements by repeating the actions a dozen or so times. From your own SB, you will be shown subtle veils bridging the mind and body, especially if you have a child-like mind.
To learn from movement you have to slow down. If your brain is spinning after you read this section, it is a sign that your body wants to explain these concepts, not your brain. Listen to the recording. Go Slow. Take your time. Do less.
Another Lesson
Why is Pancake Body lesson a foundational lesson?
If children are not aware of their bodies, they probably were not aware of how the feeling inside that is taking their attention away from the teacher or parent. As mentioned previously with infants, movement is nature’s way of teaching from the body. When children become aware inside, they sense the outer world more clearly. Why? What happens inside the body develops perception. When we taught children to learn about their bodies, they understood what gets in the way of listening and what they need to share.
There is No Wrong Movement
The most difficult challenge for movement teachers or researchers is remembering there are no wrong movements. Movement, even the most awkward, is used to discovery possibilities.
Like in nature, the movements of infants fumble about until they succeed in the action. There is no judgment in the infant, just an innocence of exploration. WTM movement, like in nature, is always intended to help children learn about themselves. Teaching movement is usually done by “modeling” a movement, so it is done correctly. In contrast, with WTM movement, time and space allow children to explore how their own bodies move in relation to their perceptions. This learning from inside is probably one of the few opportunities young children get in a school day.
Here’s one way we used movement to help the children explore possibilities. We gave a movement and watched if all the children did the movement suggested. If one child was doing something different, we mimicked that action in the next instruction for the whole class. We also watched where this particular participant’s action began and ended. For example, if the original instruction was to move the knee forward, and one of the children lifted her head and looked at her knee to move the knee forward, for the next instruction, we mimicked her action by asking all the participants to lift their heads and look at their knees to move their knees forward.
What’s the point? The point of this WTM technique is to show the participants there is no right or wrong movement. The movement teaches the children it’s okay to do something different; however, it’s not okay if they don’t know they did something different. Movement is also teaching compassion.
The intention is to help children experience new ways of looking at themselves (and each other). Movement is used to develop consciousness and explore the uniqueness of each individual, and their relationship within a group. From a “witness” state of the SB, we want children to have no judgment about what their bodies are doing relative to what their minds intended. And by experiencing the different actions of other participants, children learn from both their internal process of actions and their reactions to others. The experience of the movement intelligence is what teaches compassion. The movement helps children compare the (1) differences in their perceptions to the instructions, (2) others’ perceptions, and (3) the relationship of their body parts.
Dual Attention
Another way we introduced body awareness and taught compassion was with what we called, “Dual Attention.” Dual Attention is the ability to sense importance both inside the body and “out there.” In other words, for the children to learn how to take care of themselves they elicited information from dual attention. The more the dual attention was used, the clearer dual attention guided children to fine-tune a grace that restored balance and wellbeing.
Dual attention helps children feel their body-to-mind relationship from the feel of what we call “Home.” Home is inside the body where an exhalation ends. With dual attention, children turn their attention inward to Home and speak and listen to others from there. If they could not feel Home inside, they were asked to stop sharing and wait for themselves. This method was especially successful when children were conflicted. They were asked to share only if they could feel “Home” inside while talking.
From dual attention there was a sense of harmony, and their assumptions about the external world changed more towards the heart. Like in an animal — and with practice — children’s dual attention generates strategies for what is truly needed — and no more. Their old familiar reactions get an opportunity to pause. After slowing down and pausing, children take an exhalation to turn attention inside their bodies and take a step back from their reactions. With dual attention, they are not overwhelmed by their outer situations and find an honest truth in themselves.
To our surprise, each time children achieved dual attention (especially the five-year-olds) their points of reference came from a deeper place in their hearts. The tendencies of their muscular-skeletal systems returned their attention to their hearts, and from there redefined and classified ways of achieving solutions in kinder, peaceful, and more compassionate ways. Dual attention broadens the lens of consciousness and changes the focus. New ideas from children’s old familiar ways change their opinions of cause and effect. Children learn to use their motor sense to understand an integrity in their behaviors and how they affect others and situations.
(√) Have You Presented WTM to Scientists?
Six Body-to-Brain Strategies
Movement and Cognition Conference 2018
Harvard Medical School
Embodied Development
Society for Research and Child Development Poster Presentation (SRCD) 2015
SRCD Developmental Science Teaching Institute, Philadelphia, PA
RESEARCH
(√) Can You Give Tips for Research?
Tips
For Body-to-Brain Awareness
- Learn how to use WTM Methods see the Movement Teachers webpage.
- Learn to analyze awkward movement tendencies that could stimulate symptoms of cognitive behavior. Some ideas are found in Part II of WTM.
- Learn to reeducate movement patterns through the Feldenkrais Method. One example is to use a movement direction that mirrors the awkward motion back into the nervous system (To clarify what we are talking about see the “Six Body to Brain Strategies lecture, the User Guide to the Get Sensational Attention program. The “Notes and Background” in the book A New SENSORY Self Awareness also gives ideas how we used movement to reeducate motor patterns
- See below for “More Tips on WTM applications for Research.”
Feldenkrais® Movement
Get sustainable benefits by working with the nature of movement as the teacher. Think about what a movement does and doesn’t do that may satisfy or frustrate a child, and you will get a sense of the nature of movement to the mind. Then correlate how movement follows patterns of behavior, and get a sense of these movement patterns as the eye glasses to perception. Refer to Parent or Teachers webpages to learn more.
Wellness Through Movement (WTM) approach to reeducation movement patterns is complex to explain. Contact us for more information.
- Reeducate biological tendencies locked in attention and listening patterns.
- Change behavioral patterns associated with identity by analyzing movement patterns.
- Let attention not change movement but learn from movement, and watch how flexibility, coordination, and behavior improve.
WTM Applications for Research
- Advance the research of cognitive disorders by analyzing movement with character, specifically the awkward movement patterns.
- To experience the “body as a brain,” do not model movements but watch how a child’s perception interprets the movement and the influence the movement makes to the child’s perception or attitude. The key to experiencing how the body is a brain is to understand the children’s depth of awareness of their bodies. (See the book: A New Sensory Self Awareness)
- Ask these questions: What areas of the body move differently than what the movement direction instructed? Are movements graceful and coordinated? If actions are uncoordinated, how would the movement affect the child’s sense of self, perception, and brain function?
- WTM methods Integrate with what teachers are already doing in classrooms to introduce current cognitive research and the body. Practical WTM steps to bridge research and the body into school day activities are in the book, A New SENSORY Self Awareness. The book teaches learning from the inside, the feeling in the body, and how it helps learning.
- Learn more about the Sensory Body (SB), what is between thinking and feeling physical sensations. Contact Us
Movement lessons uses developmental movement with the Feldenkrais® Methods. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais used the sensation of motion to teach participants. (See above for more information)
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REFERENCES •Burin, D., Pyasik, M., Salatino A., and Pia, L. (2017). That’s my hand! Therefore, that’s my willed action: How body ownership acts up conscious awareness of willed actions.” Cognition, Elsvevier, vol. 166, 2017, pp. 165-173. Accessed 10 October 2017. •Bohm, D. (1988). Sunday afternoon. in P. A. Fleming, David Bohm dialogues. Ojai: David Bohm Seminars, p. 239. •Clark, D., Schumann, F., and Mostofsky, S. H. (2015) Mindful movement and skilled attention. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 29 June, p. 2. Accessed 14 September 2015. •Dijkerman, H. G., and de Haan, E. H. F. (2007) Somatosensory processing subserving perception and action: Dissociations, interactions, and integration. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30:2, 224-233. •Ehrsson, H. H., Holmes, N.P., and Passingham, R. E., (2005) Touching a rubber hand: feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas. J. Neuroscience, 2005, Nov 9, 25(45). 15064-10573. Doi. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0800-05.2005. Accessed 12 October 2017. Ehrsson, H. H. (2012) The concept of body ownership and its relation to multisensory integration, A new handbook for multisensory processing (p.775-792). Cambridge: MIT Press. •Rosasco Mitchell, C. (2013). Pancake body, personal bubbles and no place like home, and no place like home. In Rosasco-Mitchell, C., A New SENSORY Self Awareness p. 40. Kamuela, Hawaii: Wellness Through Movement. Smith, Roger (2019); The Sense of Movement, An Intellectual History: Process Press Ltd., London •Spencer, J. P., Clearfield, M., Corbetta, D., Ulrich, B., Buchanan, P., and Schöner, G. (2006). Moving toward a grand theory of development: in memory of Esther Thelen. Child Dev. 77, 1521. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00955.x. Retrieved February 6, 2018, Database: EPSCO Host at http://cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2240/ ehost/command/ detail?vid= 0&sid=d52cbac6-3b6b-4532-90db-9fce01c09d1f%40sessionmgr120&bdata= JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db =a9h&jid=CDV. •Stein, B. (2012). The new handbook of multisensory processes: The concept of body ownership and its relationship to multisensory integration.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. •Zuk, L. (2011). Fetal infant general spontaneous movement as predictors of disabilities. Developmental Disabilities Research, Reviews 17:93-101 (2011)
√) Mahalo (Thank You)
The Educational Institutions & Parents of Kohala Elementary School, Principal Danny Garcia, and the Kohala Parents and Teachers WTM Pilot School 2009-2019
• Jones, Susie; P.E. Teacher, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, (2005- 2007)
° Soo, Hope; Kindergartner Teacher, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, (2005)
° Rohr, Donna; Movement Teacher, Parker School, (2011)
° Polhemus, Heather; Principal Parker School, (2006-present)
° Souza, Art; Superintendent of the (Big Island) Hawaii, Hawaii, (2006-2019)
°O’Connor, Joyce; Special Needs Teacher, Juvenile Corrections, and Mother, (2020-2023).
° Sanford, Cherry, Parker School Elementary, and Mother (2020 – 2023)
Researchers
• Costantini, Marcello, Università “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara (2020)
• Elizabeth Osgood, Harvard (2018)
• Olivia Cheever, Harvard (2018)
• Ellen Langer, Harvard (2018)
• Buchanan, Pat, Des Moines University (2013)
° Clark, Dav, Berkeley University/Kennedy Krieger Institute (2017)
° Gotshalk, Lincoln, University of Hawaii, Hilo, (2017)
° Kerr, Cathy, Brown University – Dalai Lama (2017)
° Mostofsky, Stewart, Kennedy-Krieger Institute (2017)
• Niemeyer, Kathryn Ferris State University, Education Administrators
° Palmer, Carolyn, Vassar (2013)
° Sterling, Cassidy, University of Hawaii, Hilo (2013)
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RESOURCES
(√) What are the WTM Programs?
Part I of the WTM movement programs gives participants the experience of relations between perception, action, and intention to improve body awareness. (See programs on the website: www.Wellnessthroughmovement.com, and in the book “Part I, A New Sensory Self Awareness,” Rosasco, 2013).
Part II of the WTM programs, uses movement games to reeducate sensory-motor mapping. The three ways to reeducate movement:
- Analyze the grace of an action
- Clarify the perception of one’s body, the self, and the outer world
- And reeducate the motor patterning related to behavior
Part I is of the utmost importance and is available on the website. I am still reevaluating my criteria and progress with Part II of the WTM movement games. Some circumstantial data is narrowing my recommendations, and my results need clarification. However, suggestions on the WTM website for Part I proved effective and are radically important to consider for movement or body awareness research. (It is essential to note: This “Wellness Through Movement” website is the United States site, not the Australian website ending with “au.”)
(√) Is There a Book?
PART I
A New Sensory Self Awareness
Note: Written for Elementary School Teachers and Parents
The book is written for teachers, researchers, and parents to teach their children. The lessons are for groups of children (or family members open to playing). All lessons are foundational in both Part I and Part II of the WTM programs. The book teaches the beginning stages of how to bridge the physical sensation of the body to the mind.
This book is Part II. Part II will have all the movement lessons used to reeducate movement associated with cognitive behavior. Sign up for announcements.
Other WTM resources