LEAP - (Learning Enhancement Accupressure Program)
IMPROVING
ABILITY TO LEARN
The
Use of The Learning Enhancement Advanced Program to Improve The
Transmission of Information Across The Corpus Callosum to Improve
Learning
Based on the research of Charles T. Krebs, Ph.D. &
Susan McCrossin, B. APP. SC.
(from Complementary Health News Journal)
One of the most common factors associated with learning problems is a
"blocked" Corpus Callosum, the site of hemispheric
integration. A blocked Corpus Callosum also generally results in poorly
developed access to Gestalt or Logic functions. An even more important,
yet often unknown factor affecting learning, is a profound deep level
confusion in mental processing which we term "Deep-Level
Switching". In people with Deep-Level Switching, their brain
confuses the location of their Gestalt and Logic processes causing
massive processing problems as information is often routed to the wrong
cerebral hemisphere for processing. While Right-Left, Deep-Level
Switching may profoundly affect, our academic learning, Top-Bottom and
Front-Back, Deep-Level Switching can have equally profound effects on
learning "life's lessons". Unless this "Deep-Level
Switching" is resolved and the "blocked Corpus Callosum,
" cleared, people can never realize their true learning or human
potential.
A number of kinesiological techniques and acupressure techniques can
help reintegrate brain function at the electromagnetic, neurological and
emotional levels. For those who have long-term, ongoing loss of brain
integration resulting from experiences traumatic enough to permanently
shut down part, or most of the communication across the corpus callosum,
or who experience the massive brain confusion that we call deep level
switching, more specific ic and direct interventions are required. The
Learning Enhancement Advanced Program (LEAP) protocol can help address
these imbalances. This article addresses these issues based on the
research and experience of Charles T. Krebs, Ph.D. from Australia and
Susan McCrossin, B. APP. SC. from the U.S.
Mental processing of activities seems to take place in the most ancient
part of the brain, in the limbic system, with its various nuclei and the
paleocortex. The brain, using hierarchical processing, determines how
information is sent, stored or retrieved. With learning disorders some
processes seem to go off-line. Dr. Krebs surmised that the brain
processes in a modular fashion. If one of the antecedent functions were
compromised, all the processes dependent on that function would also
show deficits. A way to unlock the processing sequences was needed.
Applied physiology and kinesiology interacts with on-line brain
processing, and allows the integrity of modular or sequential brain
functions to be directly assessed. Using only a few specific muscle
tests, whole configurations of brain functions such as the integration
of visual processes, can be accurately discerned. Stress or dysfunction
in mental processing can be easily detected by monitoring muscle
response in conjunction with the activation of specific acu-points,
either singularly or in combination. Whenever any factor disrupts
coherent homeostatic muscle proprioception (feedback), a locked muscle
may suddenly weaken or unlock, indication that this factor is acting as
a stress in the muscle feedback system. Thus using only a few specific
muscle tests, whole configurations of brain functions such as the
integration of visual processes, can be accurately discerned.
For a full discussion of Kinesiology and muscle response testing you are
referred to Dr. Kreb's new book, "A Revolutionary Way of Thinking
From a Near Fatal Accident to a New Science of Healing"'.
Applied physiology techniques for brain physiology formatting, developed
by Richard Utt of the International Institute Of Applied Physiology,
Tucson, AZ, provided the guidelines for the primary neurological
processing modules and a basic format to access them. Utt showed that by
focusing on the physiology of the brain itself, the readout of brain
function would often show up as a pattern of acu-point activity instead
of single active acu-points.
Once the pattern of stress, as indicated by a pattern of acu-point
activity, was detected by muscle response testing, factors causing that
stress could be pinpointed, and kinesiological and acupressure
techniques could be applied to normalize the area. Thus, in the case of
dysfunction in communication across the corpus callosum, as soon as the
stress, or stresses that caused shutdown of functions were resolved,
processes vital to learning could come back on-line.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and other techniques revealed that in
all but one of sixty one cases not responding to Leap treatment, the
underlying cause of learning problems was organic brain damage."
Brain damage can occur before, during or after birth even from a blow on
the head, oxygen deprivation or seizures. As long as the affected areas
are either small, or in a non-critical centre of function, the brain is
able to compensate but may function less efficiently.
If damage occurs to a critical structure, like the left hippocampus,
problems in the auditory or short-term memory processing develop. These
processing functions weren't changed, because pre and post-testing of
Weschler Intelligence digit-span test, a standard measure of auditory
short-term memory, remained the same for these brain damaged
individuals.
FUNCTIONAL SHUTDOWN
In cases not involving organic damage, hippocampal function can usually
be restored via acupressure treatment. In several hundred cases
psychometric post testing has shown a return to the normal range of
auditory short-term memory and even more importantly, a child was from
then on able to remember spelling of words and retain multiplication
tables'. For example, consider a 12 year old girl with a digit span of
only 3 digits forward and 2 digits backwards. This low functioning would
place her in the lowest percentile of same-age children for auditory,
short- term memory function, and was thus having extreme difficulty at
school as she had basically no short-term memory. After applying
hippocampal formatting techniques, she improved to the 50th percentile
for children her age. She had gone from practically no useful function
to average ability for her age. She could now access enough short-term
memory to learn spelling words, and for the first time in her life,
could recall her multiplication tables even weeks after learning them.
She improved from the 25th percentile in innate reasoning capacity to
the 99.81 percentile following treatment. Literally, she went from the
bottom of her class to the top of her class in six months.
Learning is a voluntary activity. Even if you have optimal brain
integration you may choose not to use it for a variety of personal and
emotional reasons. Teenage boys can be some of the least satisfying
clients because in many cases they are brought to treatment under
protest. Even if these teenagers currently choose not to take advantage
of their new state of integrated brain function, reintegration does give
them one big advantage: they now genuinely have the ability to develop a
function if they want to use it in the future. Before integration they
had little chance of developing these function.
For example, during a follow-up visit after completing the brain
integration program with a 15-year-old, his mother reported that his
spelling had shown no improvement. He was then checked for his ability
to learn to spell words, which he easily demonstrated. He was then asked
to spell some words he had learned as part of the program months before.
Again there was no problem. He had demonstrated his ability to learn to
spell any word quite easily and to remember it, but he was just choosing
not to do so at this time and for his own reasons. The integration was
showing up elsewhere: He now had 70% accuracy shooting baskets in
basketball. Prior to treatment he had been shooting with 20-30%
accuracy.
An encouraging counterpoint to that case was the case of a 16-year- old
boy who passionately loved reading and who was desperate to be able to
spell well. He came for integration and in the two weeks following the
correction of his spelling functions he mastered 150 words that had
always given him problems. At his next appointment, he bought in a list
of the 50 most difficult words and asked to be tested on them. He got
all but one right. Six months on, he had no spelling problems of any
note and continued to be highly motivated to succeed in an area where he
had previously experienced only failure.
EEG PATTERNS AND BRAIN INTEGRATION
An EEG allows scientists to look at the patterns of electrical activity
generated by the cortex of the brain when it is performing an activity.
Traditional forms of EEG, using only three reference points, were
inconsistent, showing a varying degree of correlation between the type
of mental task and the areas of the cortex showing activity, How were
the researchers to distinguish if activity was due to the stimulus they
were initiating, or some other brain activity, such as random thoughts?
A study was made by McCrossin with five learning-disabled adults ranging
in age from 18 to 45. Primarily, they reported reading comprehension and
short-term memory problems. The study concentrated on a new EEG method
known as Steady-State Visually Evoked Potential (SSVEP). In this SSVEP
technique 64 electrodes are placed on the scalp, covering all processing
areas of the cortex. In this way, specific areas of cortical activity
can be identified, particularly against the constant stimulus of a
flashing light. When the data from the electrodes is fed into a powerful
computer, detailed maps of cortical activity can be constructed. While
being SSVEP scanned, if a person is asked to consciously do a particular
mental task, he will automatically activate specific brain areas related
to the performance of that task. In the area that is active, the SSVEP
signal is reduced and the degree of reduction is proportional to the
degree of activation of that area. An activation map of the brain was
drawn.
In a previous study comparing children with Attention Deficit Disorder
(ADD) to normal subjects on two different mental tasks, the SSVEP
patterns of these two groups showed significant differences. When normal
subjects were doing a purely visual task, observing a computer monitor
displaying numbers, their brains showed activity predominantly in the
occipital lobes in the back of the brain, where visual image formation
takes place. When they were then asked to anticipate, or pay attention
to a particular signal, their cortical activity switched to the frontal
lobes, the area of the brain involved in attentional tasks. In ADD
children, the brain activity did not change. Activity remained
predominantly in the occipital lobes even when they were paying
attention.
Children with ADD or adults with learning problems often just watch
their world and react to whatever happens with little anticipation of
what might occur because they cannot activate the brain areas involved
in "paying attention" which is required for anticipating
outcomes. Likewise, since prefrontal activity is also required for
"planned" decision-making, and there is little prefrontal
activity when people with ADD and learning problems make decisions, it
would appear that these decisions must depend more on
"reaction" to stimuli than on planned actions based on
considered decisions.
Along with these changes in cortical activity, after LEAP there was
concomitant improvement in the adult subjects digit span and reading
comprehension. Before integration, the reading comprehension of the
group had varied from 33 per cent to zero, after LEAP all had 100%
comprehension. On the digit span test, all subjects changed from being
marginal or borderline in their function to being above-average. Changes
in both these mental functions is supported by the significant changes
in cortical activity observed in the SSVEP results.
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
Intelligence has been defined as being composed of two distinct aspects:
"fluid" and "crystalline" intelligence". Fluid
intelligence is the capacity to perform abstract reasoning which
involves "native" intelligence and is thought to be unaffected
by formal education. This includes the ability to solve puzzles,
memorize a series of arbitrary items such as words or numbers, as well
as the ability to change problem- solving strategies easily and
flexibly. Crystalline intelligence, on the other hand, comprises the
abilities that depend upon knowledge and experience or the amount of
stored factual knowledge such as vocabulary and general information.
A number of standardized intelligence tests like the Wechsler
Intelligence Scale of Children (WISC) and Stanford Binet Intelligence
Test, have been developed to measure various aspects of cognitive
function. Regardless of whether these psychometric tests measure
"intelligence" or not, they do provide a standard assessment
of performance in a variety of cognitively demanding tasks.
In a second study by McCrossin, three standardized tests of fluid
intelligence were chosen to help measure intelligence: the WISC Block
Design subtest, the Kaufmann Matrices and Inspection Time". The
subjects were also tested on short-term memory and reading
comprehension. The WISC digit span subtest was used as a measure of
short-term memory, retrieval and distractibility. The Neale Analysis of
Reading, a standardized test to assess reading comprehension, was also
applied. Twenty children were initially assessed on the five
psychometric tests and then were retested six to eight weeks later. In
the intervening period the ten children in the treatment group had the
complete LEAP protocol performed on them. The ten children in the
control group received no treatment, but were retested at the end of the
study.
Empirical observation and scientific validation of these tests show that
fluid intelligence generally does not improve over time". From this
data it has been assumed that a person's past and future performance
will be the same (or, allowing for growth, will hold their relative
position amongst their peers). This appears to hold true for children
with learning disorders even when they have received extensive
remediation.
The McCrossin study found statistically significant improvements in all
of the tests of fluid intelligence between the pre- and post-tests for
the treatment group". No changes occurred in the performance of the
control group. The LEAP protocol was shown to be capable of changing the
innate reasoning capacity of these children. It was capable of affecting
profound changes including the demonstrable ability to apply flexible
strategies to solve problems.
The complex task of digit-span (short-term memory and attention) also
showed significant differences before and after treatment between the
two groups. There was an increase in the forward digit span from 4.8
(before treatment) to 6.2 (after treatment) and an increase in the
backwards digit span from an average of 3.1 (before) to 5.5 (after).
Since the average adult digit span is six forwards and five backwards
these children had clearly improved from a deficit in this vital
function to "above normal" 14.
With the LEAP program, problem areas within the brain can be detected
and corrections can be made to enhance reading, motor coordination,
visual perception and psycho-neural responses.
ADHD and LEAP
Some children who come to the LEAP program are classified as hyperactive
and taking Ritalin to control it. Often when a child is going through
the brain integration program of a LEAP, these children will calm down
and maintain this state even after withdrawal from Ritalin. Parents
often report that LEAP has resolved the child's hyperactivity.
The LEAP protocol has such potential for improving the lives of so many
children and adults, extensive testing by a major medical school or
other research facility would seem to be a worthwhile investment.
Editor's comment: My son, age 14, (grade point average is 3.8) is
distractible, LD in the areas of phonics, reading, spelling and problems
memorizing multiplication facts. After only 2 hours of LEAP, now enjoys
reading, spelling and phonics and coordination has improved.
Other articles addressing the unique needs of our children can be found
in the 1997 issue of Complementary Health News Journal.