Recently, I spoke with one of our Home Program moms. She related to me how skeptical she was about our program prior to making the decision to give it a try for her son with autism. In her mind, she had already tried everything so what could we possibly provide that nobody else had… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Charles
Raising compassionate, happy and highly capable children
This past November, Conceição and I became grandparents for the first time. John Charles Gaither, named in honor of his grandfathers and great grandfathers on both sides of the family, is the new joy of our life. It is a joy that is difficult to describe. The birth of our grandson has greatly increased… Continue Reading
Hope and the biological reality of brain plasticity
This article is longer than usual but hopefully people will find it worth the effort. Plus, it’s my blog so I get to do that. It is dedicated to the good folks at the Global Hydranencephaly Foundation in celebration of June 2013 being Unofficial Hydranencephaly Awareness Month. The symbol of the foundation is the bumblebee because “Aerodynamically, the… Continue Reading
Music to Grow the Brain
Today, we have a special treat for you. Music to Grow the Brain is a guest post by our dear friend and colleague, Gail Engebretson. Gail probably has more hands-on knowledge and experience teaching music to children and using music to develop the brain than just about anyone on the planet. Gail teaches music in Madison, Wisconsin… Continue Reading
ADHD… real disorder or figment of the imagination?
One of the interesting things about the ADHD issue is how polarizing it is. On the one hand are those who think that all children should conform to an arbitrary standard of behavior that is largely determined by a school system designed in the 19th century to produce factory workers. Good children sit still, pay… Continue Reading
ADHD… back in the news!
ADHD is back in the news! Several recent NY Times articles highlight some alarming realities about children in the United States. One of those articles focused on the latest findings of the CDC in their recently published National Survey of Children’s Health. Here are the essential findings. Nearly 20% of high school age boys and… Continue Reading
Celebrate Giving Tuesday!
Dominic, AKA The Dude. Born with half a heart, Dude has survived 5 open heart surgeries and 4 strokes. Now, thanks to REACH and his amazing mom, he’s on the road back! For the past week we’ve all heard nothing but advertising for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for the Christmas season. Perhaps… Continue Reading
Let’s get that baby moving! Part 2
In our first post on creating good mobility we focused on the initial step in the process, going from no mobility to crawling on the tummy. Now we’ll look at the next step, going from crawling to creeping which we define as forward movement on hands and knees. Creeping is a far more complicated form… Continue Reading
10 steps to develop your child’s understanding
Today, we’ll focus on a function that is often simply taken for granted and therefore not given the kind of attention that it really deserves. That function is understanding of language. Imagine, a little baby is born with no understanding of sounds let alone speech, and yet in just three years that child learns a… Continue Reading
Movement, health and learning
My last post looked at the connection between brain development, specifically the function of mobility, and the attainment of elite status as an athlete. Today I’d like to follow up with some thoughts on this as it relates to general physical health and education. It’s no secret that we have an obesity crisis in this… Continue Reading
