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Brain Tools to Brain Functions
A Multi-Sensory Therapy game will stimulate a brain tool, which in turn will help a brain function get repaired, and finally impact a person's behavior, mood, skills, etc and help that person lead a progressively normal life.
Here is how it works:
1. Skills or groups of brain functions
The brain, as part of the central nervous system controls the majority if not all that happens in the body. For example it controls:
- Fine motor skills (drawing, catching, speaking, etc)
- Moods (relaxation, excitement, anger, etc)
- Digestion
- Memory (processing, storage, retrieval, etc)
- Speech (vocabulary, pronunciation, sentence structure, mental image, hearing, etc)
- Learning (translation of sensory inputs, memory, safety system, etc)
- Gross motor skills (balance, motivation, motion planning, coordination, etc)
- Focus (motivation to finish, coping with a challenge, filtering sensory inputs, etc)
- Processing of sensory inputs (pleasure vs. pain, the five senses, vestibular system, proprioception, etc)
- Protection from potential threats (processing of sensory inputs, fight, flight and fright response, etc)
- Self-awareness (mental image, sensory integration, self-esteem, pleasure, etc)
- Sleep (circadian cycle, melatonin regulation, dreams, relaxation, etc)
- Feeding (appetite, textures, flavors, digestion, etc)
The objective of the program is to bring all of these aspects of life to a level that no longer prevents you or your loved from being comfortable in your life and in your environment.
2. Brain Functions
We call brain functions the parts of the brain that perform a given set of tasks, which when done well together help a person perform given skills, behave comfortably, relate well to the environment and/or see their body work better physiologically.
Each aspect of life is controlled by one or more brain function. If any one brain function is faulty, for any reason, then the whole skill or behavior is affected. Conversely, as more and more brain functions work better and better, your loved one will develop more and more in his/her skills, behaviors, emotions, patterns, etc.
For example, for natural verbal communication to develop, assuming the vocabulary is already there, we need at least good tactile, fine motor and visual functions as well as a healthy corpus callosum for good flow between the left hand side and the right hand side of the brain.
3. Two key brain functions: Serotonin and dopamine regulation
Two of the key brain functions on which we focus much of Multi-Sensory Therapy is the Serotonin function and the dopamine function. Of the 41 known brain hormones Serotonin and dopamine are the most researched and the best understood. These brain chemicals, put together control or help control just about every aspect fo our lives.
If we can help the brain produce and regulate healthy levels of Serotonin and dopamine all on its own, without resorting to diet modification, medication, coping mechanisms, herbal remedies or implants, then we cover most of the foundation for a healthy brain than can do everything much more easily.
Helping the brain produce dopamine is the easiest thing in the world. In this video, Claudie explains how.
4. Brain Tools
With Multi-Sensory Therapy there are two ways to help repair a particular brain function, and thereby help improve a complete skill, behavior or any physiological system:
- Stimulate directly and prompt growth locally;
- Prompt growth in a neighboring healthy brain zone.
With Multi-Sensory Therapy, when we use brain function "A" to help brain function "B", we call brain function "A" a brain tool.
Using one brain function to help another, or in other words to prompt repair in a brain function through a brain tool, is what makes Multi-Sensory Therapy unique.
Multi-Sensory Therapy works by making the brain "want" to improve. Where self-motivation stops, Multi-Sensory Therapy takes over by bringing pleasure and gentle associative challenges.
Multi-Sensory Therapy was developed from a brain boost program designed for "neurotypical" children. Our bias, our expertise, is knowing how the healthy brain responds to stimuli.
We don't know how to force the brain to learn a new skill or to change a behavior when the brain functions involved are "broken". What we do know, however is that repeating a direct challenge to a dysfunctional area of the brain is always a stressful process for the brain and stress depletes level of Serotonin, a fundamental chemical for brain regeneration.
Ask yourself this question, would you walk on a fractured leg to help mend it? Then, why do therapists ask you or your loved one to walk on your/their fractured brain to help mend it?
In other words, with Multi-Sensory Therapy, if it is broken, don't fix it!... Yet.
When a person comes to us with a lot of challenges, we assume that brain functions are damaged or dysfunctional to such an extent that protocols that would target these directly would not lead to reliable results. Therefore we look for other ways to help the brain.
To keep with the example of speech, while many therapies would insist on making the person go through repetitive speech-related exercises to improve the person's speech skills, we have a way to leave these deficient areas of the brain alone and to prompt repair in a non-intrusive, stress-free, pleasurable way, and it makes all the difference for permanent, deep, and natural repair.
We know that the brain responds to pleasure and gentle associative challenges by growing.
The brain is interconnected. Each brain function is connected to many other brain functions and has many neighbors. There is no delimited territory in the brain where suddenly you leave one brain function and arrive in another. There is a lot of overlap.
We can find a healthy brain function (a Multi-Sensory Therapy brain tool) that is situated near another brain function that needs repair. We can stimulate it and prompt growth in the healthy area. All neighboring brain zones will benefit indirectly from this increase in activity and growth.
When the "broken" brain function has been repaired enough through this indirect process and is ready for direct stimulation, then we start prescribing games that will work on these areas directly.
So, to summarize, with Multi-Sensory Therapy you get a worksheet, with games which combine into Multi-Sensory Therapy sessions. You have two sessions a day that last 5-10 minutes each. These Multi-Sensory Therapy games target brain tools or brain functions and prompt growth in these areas.