TINSLEY HOUSE SUPPORT THREAD - PART 3!!!! :)

[Badvoc]

Well, here is the shiny new thread for all of us either doing the TH programme, doing part of it, or thinking about doing it! :)
A brief synopsis of stage 1 of the programme can be found in the books "is that my child?" Or "the brain food plan" by robin pauc;

Stage 1 of the TH therapy consists of:

1. Daily Multivitamins

• Omega
• Zinc & Magnesium

1. Healthy eating

• High protein, low sugar, no artificial sweeteners, additives etc.

1. Specific neuro development exercises done 3 times a day

• Takes about 4-5 mins

And that's it :)

Stage 2 involves computer programmes to sort out eye tracking and convergence which over 80% of children with reading/writing problems have.

• www.engagingeyes.co.uk

We are coming to the end of our time doing TH I reckon...certainly by the end of the summer I think. It has been in many ways much easier than I thought at the beginning but of course takes commitment and time.

I am so glad we "took the plunge". It has made such a difference to ds and to our lives :)

brilliant!

Great to hear you have nearly completed EE. well done both of you!

I'd be very happy to join a closed FB group.

Would also love your opinions on when we might start to see an improvement in school work. I'm not sure how long we can cope with the increase in homework that ds is being given now he's in year 5. We're having trouble with what seems really simple stuff and I'm scared for him (and my sanity).

Does anyone have a perspective on whether it's in his best interests to push that he is held back a year (he is a late July birthday, so v. young). I know that the LEA is very reluctant to let this happen.

Thanks all - a bit desperate today!

cereal- just having a trawl through old posts and came across this from beautiful possum-

"We are 6 months into the programme and Robin said I could expect things to start getting better at school about now. Fingers crossed it does as DS sad that he cant read very well. ( not helped by kid in class bragging that he was on p296 of Harry Potter!) Think DS has finally cracked teeth ( after 6 months!) and doing well with Wheres Wally and Tracking. I estimate that between my 2 kids we will do Wally for about a year! On the whole I am happy with progress but still have the odd day ( like today) when I wish it would all go away."

Hope this helps (a tiny bit). The frustration and 'time slipping away when other kids are moving on' is sooo hard to take.

Hi all, haven't been around as much lately as a. I have a job now and b. Ds is sooooo much better that I hardly worry about him anymore.
Cereal we saw an improvement at school within the first six months. He continues to improve weekly. Ds has just moved into juniors and is organising his own hwk, pe kit and bag when he arrives in his classroom ( I'm working so he goes to breakfast club and is just dropped off at his classroom. Previously I did everything). He has only forgotten to bring hwk home once in 4 weeks. He is totally independent at dressing etc and can now tie a proper tie by himself. He does his hwk every night independently and with no moaning. I thought I would still be sitting next to him cheer leading him on at 18! He now loves maths ( in year 1 he did no maths for 3 months due to useless teacher giving in when he had enormous tantrums). He is even enjoying Games and PE.
Re keeping kids back - I was a secondary teacher for a decade pre kids. I've never met a kid who was held back, it is so unusual. My view is that the harm it could do to self esteem and peer integration is far greater than any possible benefit from repeating a year. I also think that in a year's time your ds will have made such progress with TH that you won't believe you ever worried about possibly keeping him back a year.

Hello, I've been quiet a long time, mainly as we are not making much progress and I didn't want to cast doubts and general gloom, but reading through the recent threads, I thought I'd comment.

We have been doing TH since Easter. We achieve the exercises pretty much every day, except that sometimes DD is out all evening and then we only manage 2 lots a stairs in a day. We have completed EE, and teeth, and been doing stairs and Hemi P and T for a few months. We have seen very little differences, and the differences we have seen, I think could well be done to just general progression with age. DD is a bit more alert (I think this is probably suppliment based as this started within a few weeks). We abandonded diet over summer, with lots of icecreams etc, and saw no differences. We are back on it now, but less rigorously.

We've seen Robin four times now and he is always v positive, and says there are lots of improvements. Prior to TH we did lots of extra reading, spellings, and toe by toe. I did nothing on top of what teh school asked (except TH) since Easter, then re-started this year with picking up spellings, tables again etc. There is really no difference in her reading (despite completing EE and Robin saying she was lots better), and my attempts to teach spellings are still hopeless. Nothing is retained, letters all back to front etc etc. when I track back over her SATS levels, the only thing to make a jump has been toe by toe which we did over a summer holiday.

One thing I have noticed is an improvement in her agility, nothing huge, but still an improvement. Whether all this work is worht it though, I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, DD has made some progression, her sats are keeping going up slowly, but she is still bottom of teh class, and struggling hard, despite lots of effort on her and our part. Robin was confident when we first met her that her difficulties were minimal and easily sorted.

I have e mailed Robin with all the above. I got a one line reply "children all go at their own rate, don't worry". Maybe he is right, we will give it til Xmas, and I truely hope I am eating my words in a few months, but as people are asking about it, I thought I would share now. I have also been wondering about where the people are who this doesn't work for are....if it was such an all encompassing miralce cure, wouldn't someone have researched it by now? Getting a PhD student to do a bit of reseach for you, to get you started/known, is not expensive.

Re Facebook - I have been in another support gp, which set up a FB group to run along side the group. I'm not on FB and don't want to be - privacy, no time etc - and the group died as most people moved to FB and therefore the "chat" died away on the support network. Most people couldn't keep up with both ends, and write everything twice, so they chose one or the other. Also, I think if you run a private gp, it's harder for new people to join? (As I'm not on FB, please correct if this is wrong) You can't read old threads, and "listen" in until you're ready to join?

Sorry to be all doom and gloom........would be lovely if things were otherwise

Hello brightstars,

I have been lurking here for a long time. I have never posted, because I'm not sure how helpful everything has been either ... but I've been put off by everyone else's super enthusiasm ...

We've been doing TH for about 8 months now. I don't know. DS's behaviour is much improved - but he is also 8 months older and that has made a lot of difference to his friends also.

With reading, writing etc there is no difference.

But the main thing was that Robin was almost certain he could help with DS's eyes - but now it looks as though he can't be helped with his eyes.

I too started off very vigilant about everything. But its become too much - we already do an hour of physio a day for DS. So I've relaxed totally and now just do what I can each day - sometimes that is very little.

I don't agree with the diet - I think that porridge is much healthier than processed meats in the morning.

Hi, sorry to change the tone of the thread so much. Of course it is not good news that other people have also seen little differences, but thank you for posting fishoils, even if it just makes me feel a little less alone and "must be getting this wrong", about TH.

Initially I was full of enthusiasm and thought about asking Robin to see DD3 too, who has similar issues to DD1, but DH said let's wait and see before spending lots more money. In this time, DD3 has made some significant steps forward, she is only 3, but her vocab has taken a leap forward, and she can suddenly hear teh difference between "ephalant" and "elephant". I know that if we had started her at TH, I would now attribute this to Robin. I think kids develop and change so fast, that without some research with a control group to show the difference between general age related development, and that plus TH, it's really hard to say. Changes of school, chages of teacher, a bit more maturity etc can all make so much difference to a child.

I know some people have had massive changes, and it's great that it works for some children, and if you've got the money, well what have you got to loose? There is not much mainstream stuff out there that really seems to help either.

I just think Robin is over optimistic about what he can and can't help, and maybe he doesn't know exactly who it will work for himself. I think for some kids dietary changes/suppliments are key, and luminosity seems to have some objective research, so that probably helps most kids too. I think Robin is putting together a package of things that often help some people, and so some people are helped, but not all.

What I do object to is that Robin never seems to ask me/or allow time for us to discuss how we are finding it, and whether we notice any differences. He tells us every time how much DD has improved, bigs her up and makes her feel good, but I can't see it and he doesn't seem open to this discussion. Either he has seen it all before and knows it will come good in the end, or he's exaggerating (imo).

Sorry to rant, and for those of you it is helping, please don't be put off by my experience. Different strokes for different folks (or whatever teh saying is!)

Hi Brightstars - I wrote a long reply last night and it disappeared. V annoying - so I'll try again. I'm also really pleased you posted - I know it's harder to post when things are not going well. When I had a few months of terrible worry about DS's tics I did post, but not as much so I do understand it's easier to post good news.

We started TH about the same time. I think it's interesting how different the kids are: My DS has obviously had some big issues with convergence and target practice - we're still on Target 3, 5 months on, yours made very fast progress I see. But I wonder why Robin took you off tracking if you DS was finding it hard? My DS has only got 8 stars on tracking 2 in nearly 2 months but he's definitely getting better slowly. Did he say you'd re-vist it when he'd worked on other things?

I'm sure Badvoc will come on here and others who have had dyslexic issues to give their perspective, the improvements we've had (which have been big) have mainly been to do with DS's behaviour and physical changes and although we are seeing benefits at school I think they're largely perpetuated by his attitude and the lifting of his previously crippling anxiety and low self esteem.

My feeling about the school improvements we've had, is that they've happened because as his brain starts to function more 'normally' he's more receptive/able to learn the stuff he couldnt' before. Other than reading, which I can see can be helped 'magically' by an improvement in sight in those who have issues with sight, I think we've still got to do all the extra work, but now it's actually making some difference. Eg. his handwriting which I always try to tackle (usually miserably failing!) each holiday, this summer really improved. We did the work, but I feel like something's happened, physically or in his brain that made that be able to happen. Similarly tables, we've been banging on with them for over a year, but now it's starting to go in.

At start of TH it was impossible to do any extra - there was so much TH stuff to do, but now we only have EE (finished stairs and teeth) we can do a bit of spelling/tables, so maybe (hopefully) you'll find some improvements too? I know lots of ladies on here do TH in addition to spelling intervention, writing intervention, tables interventions, and the combination is the success.

I agree Robin's responses to my (at times essay like displays of worry) can be bruske. "Don't worry, stick with the program" But I had some off thread support who said he said the same to them, and in the end it did come good. So I did - there was no other option ohter than sticking DS on drugs for his tics and.....at the moment (urgh don't really want to jinx this) it seems the tics are much, much better....dare I say passing....

Please keep posting and I really hope things start improving for your DS.

Hi bright stars, fish oil and greener,

I'm glad you have posted. It's really useful to hear 'the other side' to keep things in perspective. It's easy to get carried away with the idea that everything can be fixed. We all want it to be so desparately.

We have not yet started TH properly, but we have been doing stairs/ engaging eyes/ supplements and diet. DS (age 6) is dyslexic (Moving words, struggled with phonics. Extreme difficulty in remembering letter shapes so painfully slow at writing, memory probs, now maths probs)

I am not expecting TH to fix any of these per se, but I am hoping that they will put his brain in a better state for learning. I envisage that I will still have to reteach him phonics and maths skills. We currently do 'toe by toe', 'write from the start' and I have just bought a book on dyscalculia. I am expecting it always to be a long slog throughout school.

This is just my take on things and I fully understand your skepticism. Particularly with the finance involved.

Please keep posting and I hope your DC do improve

Thanks Mango and Harriet.

I do assume that once/if DD improves with TH, I will still have to teach all the gaps she has in her learning. I thought the most efficient way forward was to do TH as well as we can and then once/if her brain seems to be funtioning better, then do teh teaching. I guess having had a 6 month break from the teaching, it was demoralising to give it a go again and see that nothing has really changed.

I am wondering if dyslexia type issues is an area where TH is less successful. Has anyone here had successes specifically with dyslexia type symptoms?

Harriet - re EE. DD did Target A and half of B, which is partly why we have fininshed so soon. When Robin re-assessed he said she didn't need to do C, or more B. He moved her on to eye tracking, but her speed of processing was so slow, that by the time she pressed the space bar, the high lighted word had changed, and so her scores were consistently very low. After 6 weeks he stopped this and we started hemi P and T. He said he would see if we need to return to this later as it appeared to him (watching her eyes), that her tracking was fine. As DD usually needs to do ten times what the average child needs to do, she was delighted to finish "quickly", but as her reading issues remain the same, maybe it was too fast.....

I agree, that right now, there is no other better option than to stick with it and hope for the best.........tx again all.

What is hemi ?

just quickly before bed, sorry for calling your DD a DS brighstars! Get so muddled with everyone!
and i'm pretty sure that Badvoc and Indigo had great success with dyslexic symptoms.....sure others will weigh in...x

Greener - eye tracking problems are things like finishing a line in a book and starting again on the wrong line, losing your place within a line of text, needing to use a finger to follow text. My ds was an above average reader and I hadn't noticed his eye tracking problems or his convergence problems. After we did HTS and eye tracking his reading was amazing and he found writing a lot less frustrating. He was less tired after a school day too which I put down to reading being less effort.

Hi Greener, HTS is the (very expensive!) eye training program that we did before Engaging Eyes was developed.

I'm sorry that some of you have not had the results yet that others have. I think Lumosity was the key turning point for us but then ds has not really had dyslexia type problems.

Both Badvoc and Indigo have had excellent improvements with dyslexia - to the extent that Indigo announced her daughter had been 'cured of dyslexia'.

Pizza, HemiStim is another exercise that involves a computer program that stimulates specific parts of the brain, depending on the settings.

Greener, that pretty much described what my ds was like.

I think we are all following pretty much the same plan but with tweaks here and there for age differences and other issues that arise - for example, ds stopped doing the Hemi stim exercises in case it was triggering his seizures (in retrospect, I don't think it was). Ds has done all the vision stuff - he certainly struggled with the exercises, even though he had no obvious reading issues, which suggests to me that he needed to do them.

Lumosity is a brain training computer program. It works on different brain skills - problem solving, memory, speed, attention. It is supposed to help with executive function type skills.

Hi everyone.
I wonder if it would help if I described my experience of TH?
My son (now 10) had significant developmental delay as a baby and toddler.
He struggled with so many things it would take me too long to list. The start of formal learning in year 1 - as for most kids with issues - was disastrous for him.
He simply could not read or write.
The school ignored my concerns (he was being bullied too) so I removed him and home schooled him for a year.
He went back to a small village primary in year 3.
It became apparent that he was working at a year 1 level.
His writing did not include vowels...it looked like polish!
His self esteem was at rock bottom.
We did ait and rrt prior to TH and I was pleased with the results...ds was no longer hyper sensitive to noise and his agility improved. BUT he still couldn't read or write.
We paid for a private EP report at the start of year 4 and he was dx as severly dyslexic. His spelling was

....should have also said my son is no longer on the sen register, after being in it since year 1.

Ds started with diet, supplements and 'stairs' and 'teeth' exercises. Some have started with a chair spinning exercise if they were younger.

At our second visit (8 weeks later?), we started vision therapy with HTS program, now it would be Engaging Eyes.

Most of us had to continue the exercises at the same time as vt.

No-one can tell you to do it or tell you whether it will help, just like many interventions. I guess the only way you will know is if you start it. I was skeptical all the way through but determined to complete it once we started, in case it would help ds. I'm not sure what else we could have done to help him. As Badvoc says, it was tough going at times so it is not an easy option by any means.