My older son has completed 35 sessions of neurofeedback therapy for brain injury from Lyme Disease and possibly also from Mono (in 2010) and other multiple high fever illnesses (he is prone to tonsillitis).
This means that in the last four months we have had 35 half days dedicated to him seeking this treatment. That is a lot of time.
The neurofeedback was timed to lessen travel time during rush hours, so that a 45 minute drive was not 90 minutes or longer just due to traffic. However this meant that we had only about two hours a day of homeschool lessons before leaving for the appointment. The therapy drains the brain of glucose and leaves the brain exhausted. My son was so tired he would often fall asleep in the car at noon. He had to nap many days when he got home. On therapy days he could not do any real schoolwork reading all afternoon or night and he definately could not do abstract thinking such as required by algebra.
During that time I lessened his academic load. Algebra was the primary focus and we tried for two hours daily, but he could not always do that much. He also read an hour of history and an hour of science daily. He read an hour of literature daily for his English class. The focus was on reading that he could do when in the car or while siting or laying down relaxing from being tired. I did not focus on stressful activities like writing composition. He was unable to handle memorization of facts so that was not able to be done.
I have been asked why we continued having him do Boy Scouts and sports and why we started the Robotics team. I was asked if academics is the primary goal why did I let him take time in the evenings for extra-curriculars? Why not make him quit those activities and buckle down with schoolwork?
The answer is:
1. First his ability to do abstract thinking and academics was limited as I explain later in this post. Second, the kid needs a social life and we are new to this area after the long distance move. The sport team, being three seasons, has allowed him to make friends of both genders, it's a safe and healthy social experience. Let's not forget the physical aspects: crew is making him quite fit. He is excercising this year more than he has ever exercised in his life and that's a good thing. I also think that excercising is good for the brain and helps stabilize mood.
2. As to Boy Scouts, he enjoys it and he is making friends there too. Especially with his new leadership position, he is learning a lot of good things. Going to Boy Scouts is how he wound up finding out about the FIRST Robotics team.
3. Robotics team is fun and a great learning experience. He is meeting even more new people there although there is some overlap with the Boy Scout kids, but that means those friendships are becoming stronger. This team gives unique hands on experience that he can't get at home or even if he went to school. He also is working with adult mentors, a science teacher and a college student, most of whom are engineers and some are scientists. I think being around engineers and scientists is a good thing with academic merit.
4. If I were to over-focus on staying on track academically when his brain was half dead after therapy it would have been very difficult to actually learn things. Me wanting a goal accomplished does not mean my son could have met the goal! It would have made my son angry and disappointed with himself. It would have been unreasonable to set expectations with lofty goals that could not really be attained. It would have been self-esteem killing and pretty destructive to have stripped all the exciting, good and fun and social things from his life to over-focus on academics that he'd fail at. I would say that such a plan perhaps could be considered child abuse, to be honest, so I didn't do that.
The main goal of this time period was my son's health and healing my son's brain. Academics came second. If that means he has to repeat grade nine, so be it. He has an August birthday anyway and we didn't red shirt him (like so many parents do.) What's the rush? I'd rather have a kid who is now healthy and has a good outlook on learning who graduates a year later than a kid who graduates "on time" but was miserable and hates learning.
How It Worked Out
I have seen multiple improvements in his ability to do schoolwork and related behavior issues and sensory issues have improved. Things that were not even a primary reason for seeking this therapy have resolved.
For example a few sensory issues which have been present since age two have disappeared. He no longer complains of sounds when doing schoolwork such as yelling if his brother uses a pencil or eraser on paper, he's no longer angry at the scratching sounds and declaring that he can't do math if there is a single sound distracting him. He now can wear fabrics that he claimed hurt his skin.
He has expanded his diet because certain food textures are no longer making him gag and vomit. He also can handle different flavors of food such as stronger spice flavors and varied flavors not seeking just bland or salty or sweet. I can't help but think this has improved his nutrition.
He also developed his first ever nervous tic last year during the unemployment time and then during the moving process and it has disappeared. (He started doing a little weird cough thing and would look down to the ground when someone would ask him a question such as a Scout leader or someone he didn't know.)
His temper flare-ups that I thought were typical of teenaged boys have calmed way down and he only has one time he yells, about every 10-14 days. He is more even keeled than ever before and has lost the teen angst attitude. He laughs more now and smiles often.
His ability to recall and remember is better for daily living. He no longer enters a room and forgets why he was there. He is aware of the time of day and gets himself ready for sports practice without me having to notify him of the time. He does multiple preparatons to get to his activities to prepare rather than me telling him "get a water bottle, fill it with water, take your mobile phone, bring a hoodie, take your Scout uniform and Scout book with you". He does all that by himself now without me telling him to.
He is organizing himself more and is keeping a schedule calendar for his activities using Google calendar. He is checking email several times a day and staying on top of communications for his events.
The largest indicator that the neurofeedback is working with his learning is that he went from struggling to do algebra do mastering it easily. This did also start when I changed his curriculum however the way he could handle it in the beginning of neurofeedback is different than now, it's better. He no longer dreads algebra and complains, he does it on his own without me telling him to He learns easily and laughs through the lessons. If he gets stuck he does not become unglued and throw a tantrum, he remains calm, is annoyed but can control himself and keep an open mind to listen to my help, then he gets it and goes forward with the lesson.
At the time I'm writing this I am doing lesson planning to increase his academic load now that we have both the new time from not going to the appointments and new time found from not being brain dead after the therapy. I can't wait to see how he handles the new larger work load across all subject areas rather than just focusing on a smaller amount of content areas daily. I am curious to see if his spelling and grammar improve. I want to see if how he does with writing composition and increased handwriting with pen and paper. I want to see how he does with memorization of facts, vocabulary words and Latin and Greek roots.
At this time of year when many homeschoolers feel bored and in a slump I am excited and hopeful and looking forward to making the academic load heavier and getting some serious learning done.
I am grateful that we found this treatment and that we had the financial means to seek this expensive treatment.