So your child isn’t coping at school.  She’s been diagnosed with ADHD or some other disorder and medications are prescribed to help her brain cope better with the demands of school and home.  This often brings relief to families and the children themselves.

Most of the medications currently used to help concentration, task completion, impulsivity, aggressive outbursts and more are designed to improve the symptoms children show. They do this by affecting the chemistry of the brain – usually increasing the amount of neurotransmitter activity in critical brain areas.

Essentially, they speed up the whole brain as well as the heart and entire body.   But why are we focusing so much on the brain?  Are we not perhaps missing something?

Integrated Learning Therapy believes that addressing the problems associated with ADHD and many other disorders takes careful unravelling of the symptoms.  It is seldom that we find a single underlying cause of learning and behaviour problems.  In most cases, there is a collection of underlying neurodevelopmental and medically-related problems. 

For example, ADHD symptoms can be caused by many underlying factors.  Firstly, there may be risk factors which predispose a child to showing the symptoms of ADHD.  These include genetic factors, environmental toxins, early illness or stressors and lack of quality experiences and opportunities for healthy development within the family.  These all weaken a child’s basic physical and neurodevelopmental foundation needed for optimal development and health.

Secondly, arising perhaps from the risk factors may be triggers such as food allergies, unhealthy digestive systems and autoimmune conditions.   Thirdly, these triggers in turn lead to biochemical effects, such as an imbalance in neurotransmitter production.  Irregular functioning of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine leads to the impulsivity, inattention and hyperactivity that are the cornerstones of an ADHD diagnosis.

Rather than randomly labelling a problem on the basis of observed symptoms and then suggesting an equally random treatment for these, ILT practitioners act as detectives. This means we systematically gather information about developmental history, health and physical status to use as clues to suggest what might be causing the problem.  Brain structure and function can be improved by movement and lifestyle changes but more might be needed.  We might suggest the help of specialists in the medical field to confirm suspicions or to conduct laboratory tests.  This may take time, but the results are worthwhile.  Seeing children’s symptoms and quality of life improve without the risks associated with drugs is highly satisfying. 

So don’t only blame the brain.  Look further to uncover the root cause of your child’s struggles.