Posted 21 October 2010
Category: Video Updates

         Today's update features the fifth episode of my new FREE web series, "Dianne Craft Presents." "Sight Words" explores the way that the brain processes what we read and how sight words are often difficult for children to sound out and read, particularly those with visual processing glitches, dysfunctions, and dyslexia. Does your child struggle with "outlaw" words, like "city" or "the"? Are repetition, change of location, slower speed, or louder speech not working? Try Sight Words! In this video you will see a demonstration of how my Sight Words Cards work and the reasoning behind why embedding images into letters helps these children read.

Posted 18 October 2010
Category: Convention Updates

         I will be discussing "Kids & Teenagers with Focus/Attention Issues: What's Up? How do I Help?" tomorrow night (October 19, 2010) at an @home HSLDA e-vent!

         "Johnny is a constant motion machine. Tom cries in frustration over minor matters. Susie forgets what she has just learned. These behaviors leave you drained and with little to show for your efforts. Are you at your wits’ end about how to help a child who seems lazy and unmotivated? “He’s so smart, but it takes him forever to complete his work!” You’ve tried all the focusing “tricks” from the books you’ve read, but you still use much of your teaching day coaxing the minimum required work out of this child."

         This @home e-vent will present a totally different approach to children with attention and focus issues. Find out how to identify the cause of the behavior and target your strategies. Begin to detect the physical clues that your child is presenting and explore the physical causes of attention/behavior issues. Is it really a character issue, or could something else be going on? Let Dianne, a certified nutritionist, help you explore simple ways to help your child at home."

$11.99 Non-Member Price / $6.99 Member Price

@home e-vent Archive / See the Benefits & Join

Posted 15 October 2010
Category: Convention Updates

         I have updated my speaking itinerary with several dates for the 2011 season including HSLDA, NCHEA, CAPE, MassHope, and VHE. Stay tuned for future postings to the schedule.

Posted 12 October 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Today is the fourth update of my new FREE web series, "Dianne Craft Presents." "Color Reading Transparencies" explores the way that children who struggle to read can benefit from using color reading transparencies when reading.

Posted 7 October 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Today is the third update of my new FREE web series, "Dianne Craft Presents." "Right Brain Multiplication Cards" discusses my product of the same name, how they work, and a demonstration the technique of how to use them with your children.

Posted 29 September 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Today is the second update of my new FREE web series, "Dianne Craft Presents." "Teaching the Right Brain Child " discusses my DVD of the same title and is an excellent companion to my article, "Teaching your Right Brain Child."  It also will help in deciding if Right Brain Strategies are right for your child.

Posted 21 September 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Today is the first update of my new FREE web series, "Dianne Craft Presents." "Battery Energy" discusses children that require too much energy to complete normal tasks.

         Coming soon to the website will be video samples from all of my videos and audio samples from my Workshop Series and "The Biology of Behavior."

Posted 24 August 2010
Category: Frequently-Asked Questions

         While I included a collection of some frequently-asked questions within the Brain Integration Therapy Manual and revised them a bit with the 2010 edition, there is the inevitability of unanswered questions. This blog update serves to answer the first batch of these questions.


         The daily exercises should be done four days a week (preferably Monday through Thursday) in the morning. After your kids have learned the exercises, they should not take more than 20 minutes to complete. Brain Training can be done on any of the other days that aren’t occupied by the daily exercises. This plan, of course, does include time off for summer, Christmas, vacations, etc, but the success rate of Brain Integration Therapy was measured off daily exercises four times a week with a weekly Brain Training session, preferably on Fridays.


         You can absolutely do the once per-week brain training session on Saturday instead of Friday.


         While it is not essential, I highly recommend pre-testing your children so that you can measure your results throughout the year. Nothing formal is necessary.


         Because of the complexity of the Writing Eight Exercise, I do not offer online instructions for it. The Brain Integration Therapy Manual is available for purchase directly from Child Diagnostics at http://stores.diannecraft.org. To purchase, go to the store, click on “books,” click on “Brain Integration Therapy Manual,” then click “add to cart.”


        


         Because the Brain Training sessions are done on a one-by-one basis, each child will have his or her own schedule. The children can participate together during the daily exercises even if they don’t necessarily need to do those specific exercises (it won’t hurt them).


         The daily exercises are components that we will use to construct the Brain Training session at the end of the week. While they will not produce any growth with your child when done individually, they stimulate connections in the brain and keep the neuropathways open during the week, which is an essential building block for what we are going to during the Brain Training session.

         Brain Training sessions are done only once a week. They are a collection of multiple exercises from the daily exercises but there is a step called the hemispheric integration process that allows them to promote connectivity between the left and right brain by giving the brain a challenge such as reading or eye tracking. This is the step that is surrounded by a gray box in the Brain Integration Therapy Manual (2010 Edition). These steps tell the brain to send the information to both hemispheres for permanent storage.

         For more information on the hemispheric integration process, refer to chapter 5.3 “How to Use This Guide” in the Brain Integration Therapy Manual (2010 Edition). For more information about what activities are included in the hemispheric integration process, refer to the step-by-step Brain Training instructions in the manual. Remember: they are the steps that have a thick gray border around them (in previous editions of the Brain Integration Therapy Manual, the hemispheric integration process steps were bordered by a thin black line instead).

More FAQ updates are coming soon!

Posted 4 August 2010
Category: Frequently-Asked Questions

                  Over the past ten years, many parents have followed the 3-month nutritional program outlined in the "Biology of Behavior" CD set. There are many wonderful testimonies that we have received over the years from grateful parents who see their unhappy, unfocused, moody, touchy, sensitive , memory impaired child transform into a happy, cooperative, focused, mellow child. This, of course is not always the case. We wish it was. However, the far majority of parents who use this simple nutritional program see benefits. Some are dramatic, while others are just good. However, there are often questions that parents have. The following are some of the questions that I am frequently asked. If you can find a local nutritionist of integrative physician to work with it can also be helpful.


         The theory most prevalent is that it is the amount (often billions) of good bacteria that make the probiotic effective. However, what Dr. Leo Galland, and Dr. William Crook found in their clinical practice working with children who struggled with attention or behavior, is that the very best results were found when giving the probiotic 3 times a day. It was found that it is the amount of TIMES the good bacterial is planted into the gut, during the day that made the biggest difference, not the number of bacterial available. This has been a big breakthrough in the success of the BOB program. In my clinical practice, I have found this to be true over the past 15 years of working with over 2,500 children from across the United States.

         As I speak across the country at conventions, parents will often tell me that they used the Primadphilus, or another probiotic, and saw no difference in their child’s behavior, attention, or memory. Upon further questioning I often find out that they did not give the probiotic 3 times a day. Either because the directions on the bottle, or the advice from the health food store operator dissuaded them from following the 3 times a day recommendation. Often the reason given, is because there are so many more “billions” of bacterial in the product. As stated before, it is not the amount of good bacterial that makes the biggest difference, but rather the frequency of ingestion throughout the day.

         Another mistake that parents inadvertently make is to give the child a chewable form of Primadophilus or they give the liquid or powder form. In my 15 years of experience with this program I have found that the chewable form, even if given faithfully three times a day does not bring changes in behavior. The liquid has also not brought the results we are looking for. Even the powder, gives us very inconsistent results. So what to do if a child cannot swallow the capsules? It is very easy to open up the capsules and put it into a food three times a day. Parents often use applesauce, yogurt, peanut or almond butter, or if the child only eats about 5 foods, then even in a dab of chocolate frosting can be used.


         In our family, the adults and teenagers follow the same 3 month program when memory, distractibility or mood seems a little, “out of order.” We generally do not modify it. If necessary, if an antibiotic has been recently used, we may take 2-3 Primadophilus capsules 3 times a day. However, generally the one tablet of the grapefruitseed extract is fine, taken 3 times a day.


         It is true that being able to “catch” a child 3 times a day to give a supplement takes some real effort on the mother’s part. Here are a few methods that other busy moms have employed:

1. Make up snack baggies on Sunday night for the whole week. Keep these baggies in the refrigerator for quick retrieval. The lunch baggie can be taken out and put in the middle of the kitchen table, if the visibility will make it easier to take at lunch time. Even though it contains the Primadophilus, it can be out of the refrigerator for the time between breakfast and lunch, and still be OK. You do not have to give the Primadophilus on an empty stomach. My experience is that this is a very hardy bacteria. You can give it with meals, no problem. We don’t have to make this harder than it is!
   
   
2. Put one of the “more responsible” children in charge of the reminding them when to take the supplements.
   
   
3. Do the program with only one child first (the one struggling the most) for cost effectiveness and ease of administration.
   
   
4. If a child does not swallow supplements, put them in some food they will eat, at the beginning of the week. For example, Primadophilus and Paramicrocidin (capsule tasteless Grapefruitseed Extract) can be opened and put into frosting dabs and stored on wax paper in the freezer or frig. The same works well with Liver capsules, if you have a child who will not eat meat.
   
   
5. Even though it may seem that 2 times a day is better than 1, in reality it is exponentially more difficult to see the fast results we are looking for when doing only 2 times a day. So, for at least the first three weeks, try to do 3 times a day, and then do only 2 if that is all you can get in.

         What I do in those cases, is just suspend the supplement program for the length of time the child will be gone. You will just be wasting good supplements, and making the child feel guilty…or worse, “different.” This is not necessary.

More FAQ updates are coming soon!

Posted 4 August 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Along with the re-launch of this site, audio samples from my "Workshop Series" and "The Biology of Behavior" are now online in the "Samples" section of the menu. I also have three video samples online on YouTube: "Smart Kids Who Hate to Write", "Understanding & Helping the Struggling Learner", and "Teaching The Right Brain Child". Stay tuned and subscribe to the Dianne Craft YouTube Channel for future video updates!

Posted 29 July 2010
Category: Site Updates

         Welcome! I'd like to use this first blog post to thank you for visiting my site and to announce some upcoming site features. I will use this blog to post updates from conventions as well as to answer some frequently-asked questions.

         Coming soon to the website will be video samples from all of my videos and audio samples from my Workshop Series and "The Biology of Behavior."

E-mail: craft@ecentral.com (Short questions only, please)

Phone: 303-694-0532

Bio: I have over 35 years experience teaching bright, inquisitive children who are struggling with learning because of a "glitch" in the processing of information (sometimes referred to as a learning disability). I teach to the problems of these children, often including hyperactivity or attention/behavior problems with a unique way: to find the "solutions" to the problem(s), rather than to compensate for the problem.