Our Brain Balance Story
How Brain Balance Helped
My Son Overcome
When my son, Josiah, was six years old in October, 2021, we began his journey with the Brain Balance program offered in our state. I had first heard about this program in July of 2020 at a homeschool convention I was attending. The man giving the lecture educated me on what happens to children when one hemisphere of the brain is weak compared to the other. He simply referred to it as left brain weakness or right brain weakness. He gave a list of signs to help you figure out what might be going on with your child and how it affects their ability to learn. My ears perked up as I thought about Josiah. It is an expensive program and wasn’t the right timing for us to start, but I couldn’t help, but think about it and desire to know more. I eventually purchased the book “Disconnected Kids” by Robert DeMillo, the founder of this program. Such great information in that book! Check out my recommended book section on my website here!
The foundation of the Brain Balance program involves primitive reflexes. I had heard about these at a TACA conference before, but did not quite understand them then. Now I know that primitive reflexes are developed in the mother’s womb and through infancy to help the child learn to survive in their environment. The reflexes aid in feeding, fear response, fine and gross motor skills, and balance and coordination all necessary for typical development. An infant only has these reflexes in place temporarily as needed for development and then they are supposed to disappear because the child no longer needs them. Retained reflexes means a child has moved on to higher brain development.
In autism, most reflexes are still in place and there needs to be action taken place to help the child further develop. When this issue is not addressed in the autistic child, they are forced to develop new neural pathways to adjust, adapt and cope with their environment creating many of the symptoms of autism.
In the fall of 2021, we were finally in a place to start Josiah in the Brain Balance program. They explained to us that all of the 8 primitive reflexes they assessed for were still in place and he was delayed in his fine and gross motor skills, and his vision and smell senses were functionally declined. Ultimately they found that he has right brain weakness. Weakness in right brain function meant that my son’s biggest challenges were with “big picture” thinking, nonverbal communication, large muscle control, comprehension, math reasoning, interpretation of information, unconscious actions, negative emotions, difficulty with auditory, olfactory and gustatory processing, digestion issues, poor social skills, and many others.
At the start of the Brain Balance program, Josiah would go to the clinic three times a week for an hour each time. I was also instructed to implement a progressive home program twice a day every day while we were in the program. They also offered nutritional coaching, but thankfully we had already conquered the picky eating beast when we started. I do believe having a handle of the diet is beneficial prior to starting this program because it is a lot of work. Dietary changes may add to overwhelm. Focusing on the exercises alone, I believe, is the most beneficial for the child and parents. We were also instructed to reduce screen time to one hour per day Monday through Friday and no longer than 2 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Again, I was thankful I already learned about this and was ahead of the game on this one. Josiah was only allowed limited time on the weekends only and did no electronics at all Monday through Friday.
Josiah’s program in clinic and at home were heavy with primitive reflex-based exercises, visual tracking exercises, core strength and stability exercises, balance exercises, agility exercises and auditory and smell stimulation while performing exercises. I was shocked to see a significant improvement in Josiah’s language, social skills and even a reduction in his anxiety within the first month of starting the program! Everything else we tried took months before we saw improvements. I believe it was the focus on primitive reflexes with the right hemisphere stimulation in mind that brought such improvement.
We moved on to Josiah being seen in the clinic for 6 months total and then we transitioned to the virtual program for 3 months. With the virtual program, you get sent a bag full of equipment to your home to get more involved with targeted exercises. You also get access to two apps that focus on visual tracking and auditory stimulation. You meet with a Brain Balance coach once a week. Your coach will ask you to send videos of your child doing the exercises and then give you feedback, modifications, and progress the exercises as needed.
After 9 months of closely working with the trained professionals of Brain Balance, I decided to continue on my own. No doubt my background in physical therapy helped me with this! Overall the progress we have seen in Josiah with Brain Balance program includes conversational language, progress with social skills, improvements in his fine and gross motor skills, progress with emotional regulation, and academic success!
Because of this, I strongly recommend seeking out a Brain Balance clinic in your area. If you do not have one near you, they do offer a virtual option. And then for those of you not in a position to start a Brain Balance program, I am in the process of creating a primitive reflex course to help get you started in working to inhibit existing primitive reflexes. This ebook will give you more effective therapeutic interventions with the very Brain Balance principles I used. Dr. Robert Melillo has now released courses for healthcare professionals and parents to get certified in the “Melillo Method,” which is a more in depth version of his Brain Balance techniques. I do plan on becoming certified and will update my current ebook and course as I grow in knowledge. Be on the lookout for me to launch!
