Shay, an 11-year-old girl who struggled with ADHD and LD. Despite being promoted to the next grade level, Shay was failing many classes and felt embarrassed and withdrawn from activities with kids at school.
Shay’s mom heard about Interactive Metronome (IM) and sought the program out to help her daughter. IM Training helped Shay enhance her focus and attention span, which were major challenges for her.
After just fifteen sessions with the program, Shay retook the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and the IM Long Form Assessment, and showed drastic improvement in her fine motor precision, bilateral coordination, and visual motor integration skills. Her handwriting ability improved significantly and she started to complete assignments much more quickly in the classroom.
The impact of IM on Shay's life was enormous. Her grades improved, and for the first time ever, she passed classes. She even joined the track team and started having sleepovers with friends. Her self-esteem skyrocketed and her conversations became light and funny. It was clear, IM had a big impact on Shay!
We wanted to share two inspiring case studies with you about how Interactive Metronome (IM) has helped children improve their school performance. An 8-year-old boy named Matthew struggled with reading due to poor fluency and comprehension skills. After just two months of IM, his teacher noticed he began focusing better and wasn't asking as many questions. Halfway through 3rd grade, Matthew's reading comprehension level registered on the scale, and his handwriting skills improved too!
Similarly, a 13-year-old girl named Elyssa was diagnosed with Mild Intellectual Impairment and had trouble in school with understanding directions and focusing. After 6 weeks of IM training, her teacher reported that she was reading more fluently and confidently participating in classroom discussions. Elyssa was even able to test out of 2 of her Special Education classes!
Growing up and going through school with learning disabilities is no easy feat - regardless of how determined a person is. The key is to recognize the symptoms and address the issues. In Andrew's case - he just wanted to be a normal teenager, a goal that he was able to achieve through Interactive Metronome® training.
We sometimes get asked about how IM works with other treatment modalities - and while each situation is unique, our Clinical Education Director, Amy Vega sheds some light on IM and the DORE Program.
Temporal processing (or the timing of neural oscillations/transmissions) plays a critical role in coordinated motor movement. In this paper published in Science, the authors distinguish between “continuous” motor tasks, which involves moving steadily and smoothly at a certain pace, versus “discontinuous” motor tasks, which involve a succession of stops and starts as a person accomplishes each step of an overall goal (i.e., picking up a plate, walking it over to the table, and setting it down). They discuss the role of the cerebellum in each of these types of motor tasks and how the timing control for each differs in terms of the brain structures used, arguing that the cerebellum is involved only early on in setting the timing goal for continuous, smooth movements, but that the cerebellum is involved throughout the movement when it is discontinuous or involves several starts and stops by setting several, successive timing goals. Timing in the brain may be disrupted due to developmental disorder, trauma, or illness resulting in uncoordinated movement and/or cognitive impairment. The Interactive Metronome is a treatment program that measures and improves temporal processing, or timing in the brain, that is critical for movement and thinking.
Spencer, R.M.C., Zelaznik, H.N., Diedrichsen, J., and Ivry, R.B. (2003). Disrupted timing of discontinuous but not continuous movements by cerebellar lesions. Science, 300(5624), 1437-1442.
When working with children with Cerebral Palsy and Asperger’s Syndrome it sometimes initially seems that they are overconfident when you are just speaking with them. But after a few physical challenges, hearing stories from their parents and actually getting the chance to talk with them and know them better, you tend to find that the trend in self-confidence goes down a quick spiral.
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Is IM a shot of self-confidence?