Parenting A Special Needs Child

Do you realize how much your special needs child can benefit from participating in dance or movement groups?

As a movement therapist,  I am totally in favor of a Mind-Body approach which advocates activating the body in order to more readily access  and focus the mind.

Have a look at this  Brain Dance Video that I discovered on this wonderful site http://www.sensorystreet.com/ It is the brainy invention of Anne Green Gilbert of the Creative Dance Company in Washington.

She shows how a fully functioning body can create a fully functioning brain and claims that this kind of dance can actually rewire the brain for the better .

Her dance moves contain 8 steps that mirror the behavior of babies during their first year of development.

• 1. Breathing
• 2. Tactile Stimulation
• 3 . Core Distal Patterns of reaching out and contracting
• 4.  Head Tail movements for alignment
• 5.  Upper and Lower body Movements for Emotional Grounding
• 6.  Body Side Movements for Balance
• 7.  Cross- Lateral Reach for Robust Thinking
• 8.  Spinning to work the vestibular system

Anne claims that these movements promote cerebral health and is a strong advocate of dancing one’s heart out for the sake of one’s mind.

Let’s hear your reactions to this incredible video.

To learn more about a Mind-Body Movement program that can help your special needs child, click here

Tags: Anne Green Gilbert, Brain Dance, movement therapy, Special needs child, www.sensorystreet.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Helping the Child, Inspiration, Tips, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.