More than 80% of children who are attention deficit have reading and writing difficulties.
In the USA, a staggering population of 14 million to 43 million respectively, have various levels of reading and writing difficulties. In the developing world, upto 17% of children have been reported to be facing similar difficulties. More than 60% of all prison inmates in the USA report some form of attention deficit or learning disability, indicating that such deficits make it difficult for people to lead fully productive lives.
Adult professionals with attention and reading difficulties operate daily at very high stress levels and form one the highest risk groups for chronic conditions such as hypertension or stroke.
In an experiment with six English reading children with learning difficulties using the SynPhNe system in partnership with Sharon Gerken at Dyslexic Association of South Africa (DASA), participants used real-time feedforward and feedback to help maintain a relaxed, attentive brain state while executing tasks with the appropriate muscle strategies.
In this feasibility study of pre-post design, each child underwent 10 sessions of 45 min each over 4 weeks. The children followed a standardized protocol, where individual activities within the protocol were tailored to address each child's specific needs.
All the children had been undergoing remedial work and occupational therapy for the past two years or more at their school in Durban, South Africa, which followed the Cambridge curriculum and included children without similar reading and attention challenges.
The primary outcomes were related to reading, measured pre-trial and post-trial in age-months using standardized reading and comprehension tests (TOWRE-2 SWE: SMD=29.50, SD=14.75; TOWRE-2 PDE: SMD=32.00, SD=16.00; JCDHD Test: SMD=25.83, SD=12.92). A short-term memory test (VADS) was used as a secondary outcome measure (SMD=24.67, SD=12.33).
Participants reported an overall mean 28.00 age-months improvement (SD=2.92) in reading and comprehension age, which was largely maintained in a 3-month follow-up, indicating that the SynPhNe system a promising new technology to be further tested in schools. A previous similar study using SynPhNe done at a school in Underberg following a local curriculum, but with protocols customized for each child, had reported similar results.
If the results are to be considered in its academic context, does this mean that learning to self-regulate brain and muscle simultaneously contributes towards pre-teen and teenage children to catch up 2 years or more in reading and comprehension ability in just one term or just one summer vacation?
More importantly, does that mean that many of the millions of adults out there who have grown up with these challenges now have a tech-enabled way of changing the quality of their lives?
For more information, please visit www.SynPhNe.com, our Facebook page or our Science website www.SynPhNe.org, or simply google “SynPhNe” to read what the world is saying about us! For those interested in a Free Trial of Dynamic Relaxation or participation in our workshops, contact [email protected]
