Abstract

Key words: Children’s Wellbeing, Movement Intelligence, Body-Ownership, Kinesthesia, ADHD, Movement Patterns and Cognitive Skills

 

Objective: Six Body-to-Brain methods presented are believed to have improved behavior, and physical and ADHD symptoms.  Strategies enhance the ability to sense relationships between bodily organization and perception. Strategies are designed to be adaptable to movement research and community movement programs.

Methods: Strategies based on the Feldenkrais® Method were implemented through motion to enhance Body Ownership and sensorimotor patterns. Strategies were tested and revised between 2006-2018 at a pilot 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 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 to behavioral patterns.

Results: Anecdotal observations showed the re-education of movement patterns and the ability to sense links of mind, body, and brain relationship may be connected to improving physical conditions, attention span, and social-emotional skills.

Conclusion: These strategies could provide valuable information to how motion affects cognitive processing, and enhance ADHD and body ownership research.  The strategies were designed for community movement programs with the intention to increase dialogue among community members about movement and cognition and acquire the quantitative measures needed to understand the multifaceted processes of movement. 

Bio: Catherine Rosasco-Mitchell, a Feldenkrais Practitioner, studied the relationship of movement and cognition for forty years and has presented her work at the Movement and Cognition Conference Movementis 2018, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Feldenkrais Guild Neuroscience Conference.

 

Six Body-to-Brain Presentation

VIDEO CHAPTERS

Intro: Background, Vision, What is the Problem?

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Dramatic Results

Sustainable improvements was reported from the Principal Garcia at the pilot school, Kohala Elementary. Improvements include learning skills, attention span, social-emotional behavior, and ADHD symptoms.

For ADHD symptoms: When dysfunctional motor patterns to cognitive disorders were detected and reeducated behavior improved within the child in 24- 48 hours with every case (50)!

Note: The whole school was involved thanks to the leadership of Principal Garcia.