A Retrospective Review of Parent-Reported Anxiety and Emotional Functioning in Children with Developmental Challenges After Participation in the Brain Balance® Program

Abstract

Children with developmental or learning challenges often have cooccurring difficulties in emotional functioning. There is a longstanding need to identify effective nonpharmacologic treatments to address these emotional difficulties. However, few studies have examined training programs that are multimodal in nature and their effects specifically on mental well-being. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact of an integrative multimodal training program (Brain Balance ® ) on mental well-being in children and adolescents with developmental or learning challenges, as measured by parental surveys. A retrospective review was performed on 4 years of archived survey responses from parents of enrolled students (4-17 years; 70.8% male and 29.2% female) before and after program participation. Before program participation, all students tested below age-appropriate developmental levels. The Brain Balance program consisted of three 1-hour in-center sessions per week (45 minutes of sensorimotor stimulation and 15 minutes of academic activities), along with other multimodal activities targeting proprioception and balance, vestibular functioning, fine motor skills, rhythm and timing, auditory and visual processing, and retained primitive reflexes. Parental responses showed that, after 5-6 months of program participation, 75% of children showed up to 25% improvement, and 25% of children demonstrated 60-85.7% improvement, in the following areas: panic/anxiety attacks, worrying, depression-like symptoms, mood, obsessive thoughts or behaviors, social withdrawal, pessimism, emotional regulation, emotional self-awareness, and emotional expressiveness. These findings suggest the potential value of nonpharmacologic training programs in improving mental well-being in children and adolescents with developmental or learning challenges, especially programs that are comprehensive and multimodal.

The Brain Balance® programme improves attention and classroom behaviour in students with attentional and developmental challenges in a school setting (El programa Brain Balance® mejora la atención y el comportamiento en el aula de estudiantes con dificultades de atención y de desarrollo en un entorno escolar)

“…El valor de las intervenciones escolares que adoptan enfoques integradores más amplios ha quedado en gran medida sin explorar. La eficacia del programa Brain Balance en el propio centro se ha demostrado previamente en grandes muestras de niños y adolescentes con problemas de desarrollo y de atención que mostraron mejoras significativas en el rendimiento cognitivo (Jackson & Wild, 2021), la atención (Jackson & Jordan, 2022;Teicher et al, 2023) y el bienestar mental percibido por los padres (Jackson & Robertson, 2020). En particular, los niños y adolescentes (de 4 a 17 años) que participaron en el programa Brain Balance durante tres meses experimentaron mejoras significativas en el rendimiento general en pruebas de memoria, razonamiento, capacidad verbal y concentración (Jackson & Wild, 2021) y experimentaron, en general, una disminución de los síntomas del trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH) en las puntuaciones calificadas por los padres en la Escala de TDA de Brown ® (Jackson & Jordan, 2022).…”

“…The Brain Balance programme, a multimodal childhood training programme, has previously been demonstrated to improve cognitive performance and mental well-being in a centre-based setting (Jackson & Jordan, 2022; Jackson & Robertson, 2020; Jackson & Wild, 2021) but had not yet been implemented or examined in a school setting. In the present study, we showed that students (aged 5–15 years) with developmental challenges who participated in the Brain Balance programme in a school setting displayed improvements in: (1) primitive reflex integration and sensorimotor skills; and (2) teacher-rated behaviours as measured by VADTRS scores.…”

“…The implementation of an on-site Brain Balance programme at school in which students participated during school hours was intended to improve learning and functional outcomes, particularly for those students who had a history of struggling academically. In line with observations of participants from the in-centre Brain Balance programme (Jackson & Jordan, 2022;Jackson & Robertson, 2020;Jackson & Wild, 2021), we hypothesized that students in the school-based Brain Balance programme would demonstrate diminished primitive reflexes, increased skill in sensorimotor activities and improvements in cognitive performance and behaviour in the classroom.…”

“…The efficacy of the in-centre Brain Balance programme has previously been demonstrated in large samples of children and adolescents with developmental and attentional issues who showed significant improvements in cognitive performance (Jackson & Wild, 2021), attention (Jackson & Jordan, 2022; Teicher et al, 2023) and parent-reported mental well-being (Jackson & Robertson, 2020). Specifically, children and adolescents (aged 4–17 years) who participated in the Brain Balance programme for three months experienced significant improvements in overall performance on tests of memory, reasoning, verbal ability and concentration (Jackson & Wild, 2021) and experienced on average a decline in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in parent-rated scores on the Brown Attention-Deficit Disorder Scales® (Jackson & Jordan, 2022).…”

Effect of the Brain Balance Program® on Cognitive Performance in Children and Adolescents with Developmental and Attentional Issues

“…The Brain Balance program consisted of three incenter sessions per week (for 3 months), with each session lasting 1 hour (45 minutes of sensorimotor stimulation and a 15-minute academic component focused on literacy and listening activities), along with other multimodal activities targeting the areas described in the list below. This training program protocol has previously been described in detail in Jackson & Robertson [34]. The program stations consisted of the following key pieces:…”