Last year my 7 year old daughter was really struggling at school with handwriting. In fact many fine and gross motor skills. It was hugely affecting her confidence and she was becoming aggressive and defiant at home. Riding a bike never came easily, tying shoe laces and doing up her buttons was a real struggle. Eating with a knife and fork required a huge amount of effort and concentration. For many dypraxic children, who are often likely to still retain a lot of their Birth Reflexes, day to day tasks like writing, riding a bicycle, dressing themselves and eating certain foods does not come as easily as it may do to other children. A friend suggested I take her to a Neurological Practioner that had achieved some wonderful results with two of her children who were dyslexic and dyspraxic. I feel a reluctance giving labels and Jessica refuses to as it is often when children are re-evaluated at the end of the programme that all the 'symptoms' of being dylexic, dyspraxic ect disappear.
It is often strongly retained Birth Reflexes that should disappear after several months of a childs life that inhibit and weaken the Vestibular System in functioning properly and cause certain disturbances or obstacles for the developing child. As I mentioned Tayla's confidence was being hugely effected and this was the reason we knew we had to assist this special little person who happened to be our daughter 'get a hold of herself' so to speak and assist her in developing to her full potential.
After the 3 hour evaluation, Jessica informed me that in a few days my husband and I would need to return for the reading of the report but we went through some of what she discovered there and were given activities and exercises for Tayla to start doing at home immediately.
I asked Jessica what had got her into such a profession and she explained that her son, at the age of 7 years could not write at all. They took him to a Neurological Practioner and it was revealed through similar assessments my daughter had done with Jessica that he was severely dyslexic with Asperger's Syndrome which is a mild form of Autism. After 6 weeks on the programme he was writing and excelling at school. He went onto University at Cambridge later. Her journey with her son became the catalyst for her going int this professishe felt compelled to help others. Currently she is working with an older gentleman who has suffered from a stroke and is tapping into all parts of the brain that have been affected. He is making fabulous progress applying some of the same simple activities that Tayla has to do. One of them being drinking from a Crazy Straw!
Crazy Straw
Benefits:
Drinking through a crazy straw can help to improve many functions: interhemispheric integration, binocular functions (eye teaming), light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, articulation, bowel and bladder control, tongue and lip control for articulation, facial muscle tone for nonverbal communication, and more.
Materials
You will need a crazy straw—one of those plastic straws with lots of curls or twists and a small diameter—and a clear drink. The twists and turns of the crazy straw create more resistance in sucking, so people whose ears are very sensitive, should use a regular straw instead of a crazy straw, because one must suck so much harder through a crazy straw that it might be painful. Water is the recommended beverage, since water is essential to healthy brain and body functions. Also, it is easiest to clean a crazy straw if it is used only for water.
Procedure
Hold the straw in the center of your mouth, and sip and swallow, allowing a rhythmic pattern to develop if you can. You will benefit more from doing this with your eyes closed unless your eyes tend to over-converge. If you have a tendency for, or a history of, crossed eyes, be sure that you look at a distant object while drinking.
Variations
- When there is a fear of aspiration, sucking is still possible with an activity such as using a straw to create enough suction to transfer small bits of colored paper from the table to make a mosaic on a larger piece of paper. Or use the straw to pick up a light object, such as a paper napkin, and transfer it from one side of your tray to the other.
- If you cannot swallow thin liquids, use a thick beverage and drink it through a regular straw.
Precautions
Be sure to rinse out the straw well after each drink, so harmful bacteria do not build up in the loops.
If you are pregnant, do not engage in this intense sucking, as it may stimulate contractions.
If you have glaucoma, please do not attempt any intense sucking, as this may increase the pressure within your eyes.
Additional Benefits
When you examine the importance of sucking in human development, it is truly profound. Not only do we suck for nourishment, but also in sucking we do many other amazing things:
- We integrate the two sides of our mouth and cheeks, stimulating the two cerebral hemispheres in a coordinated rhythmic fashion. This enhances our interhemispheric integration in general. We rely on interhemispheric integration to be able to process language, balance our instincts with logic, and so many other functions frequently compromised in neurobehavioral disorders as well as in brain injury.
- As we suck, many of our cranial nerves are stimulated, and they in turn help regulate many aspects of our vision, including the ability of our eyes to converge—that is, focus together on a target.
- One reason that people become light sensitive is that the two eyes do not team in their processing of visual images, which can be based on perception of light and dark.
- Stimulation of the trigeminal and facial nerves directly stimulates structures in the middle ear, also, dampening the volume of the sounds we hear. It is common knowledge that chewing gum or sucking helps people tolerate the pressure change in their ears during take-off and landing on flights. And through a connection in the part of the midbrain called the colliculus, visual focus directs auditory focus, connecting the work of the Crazy Straw in improving visual focus with reduction of distractibility to noises in the environment.
- Of course, we increase tongue and lip control and coordinated breathing, all of which support our ability to speak with good articulation.
- A little known fact (shared by Paula Garbourg in The Secret of the Ring Muscles) is that when we strengthen any set of sphincter muscles (such as the lips and also the esophagus) we strengthen all the sphincters in our body (such as the pupils of the eyes and the bowel and bladder, too).
Sucking, especially early in life, also stimulates the pituitary gland for balanced hormone production, including the human growth factor hormone.
Don't allow your skin to let you down but not hydrating it. 
