Recently I have read several researchers who are calling autism a connectivity disorder. This NIH reasearch paper, Dec 2008, expresses that Dyslexia is a connectivity disorder as well.
This study shows that with in a very short time, you can change the functional connectivity of the brain impacting how the brain preforms. A quote: "fMRI functional connectivity may provide additional information about the temporal coordination of brain regions during specific tasks." Temporal Coordination - I believe this to mean syncronized timing between brain regions. That's what IM does, synchronizes timing between various regions of the brain.
Another quote: "Before treatment a significant difference in fMRI connectivity occurred between children with dyslexia and normal reading controls in the left inferior frontal gyrus and its correlations with right and left middle frontal gyrus, right and left supplemental motor area, left precentral gyrus, and right superior frontal gyrus." After three weeks of treatment (not IM) children did not differ in these areas "showing that functional connectivity may normalize following instructional treatment."For me, this study becomes a source from which I might glean some knowledge of specific tasks may have the power to improve functional outcomes for my students with dyslexia. I am of the belief that each task in IM impacts the brain differently and it is our job as providers to begin to understand the functional importance of each task. What do I do when I see a movement pattern that is deficient? The goal for me is help that child normalize that deficit movement pattern to one that looks typical, like the movement patterns of the elite, well balance, typical population that I also see. I've noted definite movement challenges in definite populations. One such correlation is that children that tend to be very single minded/cognitively inflexible often cannot engage the torso of their body in the rocking tasks. They minimize the movements using their knees or ankles only - a different neuro-network than what I see the more cognitive flexible, more typical population use. A researched area showing movement connectivity related to specific mental process is the study that shows 95% of children with dyslexia have balance difficulties. We are just seeing the tip of a very exciting ice berg!
