Encouraging Neurodiverse Genius: Prophets of the Evolving Brain

By

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 7/12

Cathy & Sophie Shorma

We are witnessing the birth of a new breed of neurodiverse people who shed the shame and shyness about their differences like a coat that has become too heavy to wear in a new season. They proclaim the right to be who they are with clarity and strength. We want to nourish and encourage them because they are the ones who can tell us about how the human brain is evolving. They are the teachers of what we can do to empower the growing community of young people who are labeled with sensory problems but who are really the prophets of the future. Here are the directives they issue for how to educate our youth.

1. Educate about tolerance so that the neurotypical world does not erode the selfhood of people who are neurodiverse;
2. Get curious about the visual thinking and multi-tasking, multi-level perceptions of neurodiverse consciousness. It points the way to new problem solving approaches;
3. See over-focus as giftedness;
4. Advocate for supportive modalities that enhance the balance and wellbeing of the growing legions of the neurodiverse;
5. Spread the message of their needed expression so that we can learn more about neurodiversity from the neurodiverse; and
6. Do not allow neurodiverse youth to be bullied. Stand up for difference! Protect neurodiversity. It is a natural resource!

Neurodiverse genius falls broadly into two camps: Systemizers and Storyteller/Artists. Prophecy emerges differently from the members of these two camps. Systemizers invent the technology of the future. Storyteller/Artists sing the praises of the future. Each of these has their own lineage and ancestry. Like clans they boast of heroes and heroines worthy of epic hymns.

Nikola Tesla

Systemizers reference Nikola Tesla, Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. Daniel Tammet and Temple Grandin are the torchbearers for the new generation of wizards. The Storyteller/Artist line up is equally impressive. Hans Christian Anderson, Emily Dickinson, and William Butler Yeats are just a few. The young torchbearers holding the light for future Storyteller/Artists are Dawn Prince-Hughes, Binger Sellin, Jasmine Lee O'Neill and David Eastham. These lists are hardly exhaustive and will soon be overcrowded with new names as the number of young people with Sensory Abundance (my term for what is usually called Sensory Processing Disorder) increases steadily.

Dawn Prince-Hughes

Youth programs are remiss to not include points of entry and inclusion for the neurodiverse including those labeled with autism, Asperger's, learning challenges, and sensory needs. These are the false names masking our guides and teachers, our seers and warriors, heroes and heroines of the new way of thinking.

I am writing to encourage a new perspective on what has at times been called "disability" and to call upon adults to mentor and advocate for those among us who are between the lines and outside the box. In the new world those we shun will show the way.

If you can be present to the mysteries of neurodiversity and listen attentively to what the non-verbal children are saying I believe you will have an experience akin to putting a sea shell to your ear. This moment in history is like the eye of a storm. Soon everything will turn in the direction of neurodiversity!

NEURODIVERSITY AND ADOLESCENCE

By

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 5/12

Adolescent Neurological Development
Courtesy of Paul Thompson/
UCLA School of Medicine

I am old enough now to see some of the young children I have supported therapeutically become adolescents. I hope I am growing up as beautifully as they are! I must report that neurodiversity doesn't change the face of adolescence at the core. All the telling characteristics are the same such as increased independence, curiosity about sexuality and attractiveness, physical growth, developmental and hormonal shifts, expressive differentiation and, oh yes, rebelliousness. These are all good healthy signs! They reflect the vital surge that acknowledges adolescence as a new phase of life experience.

At the same time there are some unique qualities of this rite of passage for neurodiverse youth that can only be revealed by talking about individuals rather than stereotyping the process. I have treated Sophie, for instance, since she was 8 years old. She has been diagnosed with Rett Syndrome which is on the autism spectrum. She is nonverbal. This summer she will turn 14. She becomes increasingly more beautiful, expressive, sensitive and aware. She relishes the sisterhood circle of women that surrounds her and she relaxes deeply in the feminine companionship of her therapists, aunts, friends, and her best friend, her mom.

As Sophie's emotions have deepened so has her articulation of her needs through sounding, movement, gestures, facial expression, and the use of her language augmentation systems. Her love for her family and particularly her enjoyment of her younger brother's playful presence and the companionship of her peers is more overt. At the same time she pushes away as any teen-ager would, to make her individuated needs known.

Sophie as a teenager is more engaged with her art and the physical activities that she loves like yoga and dance. And now she is writing a book about her uniqueness and her unique family!

Like Sophie Jack began seeing me when he was 8 years old. At that time he had a resistance to growing up and that continues as a theme in Jack's life. He is challenged to interact appropriately with his peers and the adults around him and he is facing the challenge! With the support and encouragement of his wonderful family and his team of therapists Jack is learning to find his place in the adult world. He is cultivating the appropriate language and respect for others that is at the edge of his learning curve but he is approaching it, often with others egging him on, but he goes there!

Jack is developing his athletic and technological skills with an eye to the future. His ability to articulate clearly is enhanced as he finds the value of friends and relationships. His desire to connect is beginning to supersede his anger and withdrawal. Go Jack!


If we keep our eye on the health of our neurodiverse youth we see their sensory abundance. It is not that they lack empathy and a theory of mind as many experts have stated. I beg to differ. My experience with neurodiverse children and youth convince me that their perceptions are abundant. Their struggle is sorting what they feel from everyone around them and finding a communicative medium. This has been a lonely, internal process in most cases. If we can become conscious of this then we will see how deeply our neurodiverse young people need the assistance of the adults around them to evolve into their maturity. Adolescence is a rite of passage with an obstacle course built around understanding one's feelings and expressing them. All adolescents struggle with this but neurodiverse adolescents much more so. Their enormous potential is evident if we invest ourselves in their health and support them wherever they are successful. This emphasis must dominate over an emphasis on dysfunction or "disorder."

Adults are the ones who need to cultivate empathy and theory of mind for neurodiverse youth. We are called to the kindness and compassion, patience and attunement necessary to help our neurodiverse youth communicate their complex inner experience even if, or especially if, they are nonverbal.

My forthcoming book due to be released next year from Jessica Kingsley Publications will provide you with a bounty of resources so that you can be this loving support network for the neurodiverse youth in your family, community or healthcare practice. I'm sorry I can't tell you the title yet because we are still sorting out our options! Somehow this is quite fitting for a book on neurodiversity! Get ready to revel in my theories and illustrations of sensory abundance and limbic stimulation. These will fuel you with renewed enthusiasm for the innovative and creative thinking that is needed to allow our neurodiverse youth to make their remarkable contributions to humanity. If you would like previews of these please attend my programs throughout the world. I am so excited about my research and designs for neurodiverse children and youth that I share them wherever I teach.

A RITUAL OF FAITH: Sending Love to the Children of Veterans

By 

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 4/12 

May is the month of Mary and the month of Mothers. With this in my heart I want to ask everyone reading this blog to SEND LOVE to the children in the families of our returning veterans. As vets stream back from Iraq and Afghanistan, many with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and/or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), the children in their families are the most vulnerable to how war comes home.

Children are prime targets for the unnoticed and untreated war wounds of intergenerational shock. As politicians wrangle for power and use the current wars for that purpose, the children absorb the fallout and cannot hide. Their very shelter is a war zone. I am not talking about a few children. I am talking about thousands of children. The Pentagon itself notes, through Dr. Sonja Batten, Assistant Deputy Chief of Patient Services for the VA, "PTSD and TBI are occurring in unprecedented numbers. At least 320,000 soldiers have been diagnosed with TBI and one in eight returning soldiers has PTSD."

I grew up as the child of a veteran with PTSD and TBI. This was life in a war zone. I was in danger more often than not. The shock of being assaulted by the very people you want to trust and rely on scorches the developmental structure of the brain. It is from this perspective that I ask you to take time on Mother's Day or any day to sit quietly and send your love to the children of veterans returning now from combat and military service. You can extend this to the children of ALL those living in the midst of war. All wars are wars against children.

The structures of selfhood are constructed within the brains and bodies of children primarily from their experiences and relationships at home. What children learn in school is insignificant in comparison to what they are learning from their family dynamics. A child's intelligence is shaped by the alchemical fusion of where they give attention and how attention is given to them. Children absorb their sense of people and life from their most intimate environments. Every child, wherever they are, rich or poor, goes through this developmental evolution, absorbing and learning from everything they see, touch, smell, and feel.

If a violent chord is struck and repeated the orchestration of a child's nervous system and development organizes around this theme. The future of our world is determined by what our children (and our children are everywhere) are experiencing now. You can influence that future in many ways but the simplest is to share your abundant love with children on whom the war has been imposed. These children had no preparation for war. They were never instructed in how to protect themselves from combat. Please protect them with your love. It may be their only shelter.

My family was shaped by war but this went completely unattended. There was no awareness and no remedy for how the terrors of war became our terrors. There was no inoculation against the contagion of shock. It was left to me to back track and reconstitute my war wounded self. Because I have done this I reach out to you to remember the children who right now are living in a war zone in their own homes. Send your love there. Visualize it and reach out from your heart to them. They will feel it. It matters. Love always matters. Love is never inconsequential or insignificant. It is our greatest human resource.


I am calling for your silent, potent, compassionate action of love. President Obama has said that the war in Iraq is over but for the children and families of returning veterans the war is not over. For some children the war has just begun.

Families Fuel Social Change and Shelter the Future

By

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 3/12

Families are precious. God brings us together purposefully. Families are also complex networks. Ultimately they assure the continuity of humanity. The children in families are the essence and center of life. They are the source of joy and they are our spiritual teachers. Families assemble to protect, nourish and sustain children. This, I believe, is the spiritual background to all family therapy.

In every family there are struggles, disharmonies, disagreements, conflicts, losses, hardships and strains. Many of these are grueling and heart-breaking. But when we orient towards the wellbeing of the children and focus our attention on them, then even the most daunting, overwhelming and even tragic challenges find resolution. This is how children lead us. No matter how our children come to us they are our guides and their fate is our destiny.

Frequently conflicts in families are prolonged because no one wants to take the first step in a wise, compassionate direction in the interest of children. People often prefer to sermonize about what others should do or to point a blaming finger. Someone must set the standard and model a child centered paradigm and maintain it no matter what.  This is an ego-less, non-self-serving directive and it is always the way to resolve suffering. It is the essence of true parenting.

Learning From Children: The Child Centered Paradigm of Parenting

In order to parent by attuning to children we need to know how to orient in that direction. Unfortunately most of us did not receive this model as a standard and so we revert to old models even when we are acutely aware of their failings. Children's needs are overwhelming and surprise new parents, particularly when both parents have to earn a living to survive during this economic downturn. If one or both parents is a veteran returning from combat or neurodiverse the difficulty is magnified.

Child Centered Parenting demands meditative reflection, dialogue between two parents and even other family members when possible, research and the capacity to observe children to witness their point of view. In TARA Approach Family Clinics we provide a space for that centered, focused observation and give the children the space to display their inner worlds so that we can co-participate with them from their perspective. Then dialogue and reflection revisit and restate what our children are showing us. This must be followed by a period of re-integration and practice of the TARA Approach tools to reorganize so that we can enter a new dimension of family life.

The precious opportunity to focus on the leadership contained within our own family units is hard won these days. It is up to us to make this happen. If we don't we are in danger of tripping over our own messes, both personally and collectively. You can create TARA Approach Family Clinics in your area by contacting us at 1-800-493-6117 or Domproject@tara-approach.org. You can also learn TARA Approach tools using our materials such as our CD series on attunement, handbooks like OUR CHILDREN/OUR FUTURE, and the DREAMING CHILD: How Children Can Help Themselves Recover from Illness and Injury.

New materials for neurodiverse children and families are forthcoming and a sensory integration handbook is available as a precursor to books that will be released next year. You can order this handbook through our business office at the number and address listed above.

Enter the magical realm of using your own hands and your empathy infused intelligence to awaken a fluid stream of inspiration to guide yourself as a caregiver, parent or grandparent and all the children in your world. Contact us now to become part of our worldwide community of stewardship.

FEARLESS VISION ~ FEARLESS PATIENCE

By
Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.
Copyright 3/12 

 

Recent research shows that neurotransmitters circulate in our visual structures (like glutamate receptors in the lens of the eyes) just as they do in the brain. (See the January 10 and February 10 issues of Biochemical and Biophysical Communication). The capacity to be a visionary is a function of intelligence and evolution. It includes the capacity to actually see what is possible in the physical as well as the psychic sense. When I created the PUNAHELE SUMMIT, in March 2005, on the Big Island of Hawaii I had a vision of uniting physicians, nurses, midwives and environmental scientists as the resource team to steward the children of the future and protect them from the damages of industrialized birthing and unconscious parenting. In the seven year interval since PUNAHELE the concepts of that vision have been reiterated globally. The next level of the PUNAHELE vision is to create an actual physical center, like a clinic, that serves children and their families, particularly when those children have identified "special needs"such as sensory integration, learning challenges, autism and related outcries for help.

PUNAHELE is the Hawaiian word that means "Special One" and is a designation that identifies a precious and treasured child. I apply it to all children everywhere. Since the conference it is as if the heartbeat of that vision became the heartbeat of my work and my organization. Since I hosted that conference I have been unable to dull myself to the needs of children and families who seem to be begging me to focus on them.

I don't believe it is erroneous to conclude that in this seven year interval the cries of the children have gotten louder. The rising rates of autism, ADD, learning disorders, sensory processing struggles and related issues has accelerated worldwide. I see as well as hear the children telling us that we must listen, that we must give them what they need. A child stops crying when their needs are met. Our children are not stopping their outcries. They are accelerating them. Both the volume and the quantity are greater. Look around you! School shootings, epidemics of autism, pediatric obesity and diabetes, bullying. These are the reverberating outcries!

Cathy & Sophie Shorma

A visionary must have fearless patience as well as fearless vision. This has been my challenge. I see a clinic staffed by TARA Approach trained practitioners, particularly those who have immersed themselves in the pediatric aspect of this remarkable program. This includes the Occupational, Physical and Speech therapists who have been studying with me for years. A whole family paradigm will inform the clinic's orientation. The clinic will provide regular educational programs designed to empower parents to advocate for their children. Brain-to-brain communication will fuel healthy bonding and attachment alongside innovative problem solving interventions that support human potential from within.

Yes, we dare to dream big. We dare to be idealistic. We also dare to utilize our intelligent vision and fearless patience, and to be guided by the children, putting them first. I invite you to participate in this optimism with me, with the TARA Approach and our nonprofit organizational umbrella the Dom Project. You can do this by learning our holistic, integrated paradigm, by helping us build a network of awareness about brain-to-brain parenting, by sponsoring our programs, purchasing our materials, and by becoming a peaceful revolutionary for sustainable healthcare.

This year the TARA Approach will have its Seventh Self Care Teacher Certification Training on the Big Island in October and with it comes a renewal of the PUNAHELE vision of stewardship for the children of the future. If you would like to attend this training to become grounded as a TARA Approach representative, you can do it! There is time to prepare and meet the pre-requisites, even if you are just beginning! Necessity is the mother of invention! Contact Stephanie Mines directly and immediately to follow the path of your heart and to become a leader who is led by children.

Vision and Prenatal Life

The Eyes Are the Windows of the Brain

By

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 1/12

Many of the premises of the TARA Approach are being validated by new research in neuroscience. Louis Cozolino has done an excellent job in collecting some of this data in his new book The Neuroscience of Human Relationships. Dr. Cozolino speaks about how relationships begin in the uterine environment as the baby evolves adept structures in response to perceptions of the people and world that penetrate within.

It is exciting to see how ideas once thought bizarre, outlandish and unproven are reshaped into cutting edge new discoveries that everyone echoes. I remember one student years ago who ridiculed my proclamations about connective tissue unwinding to become the boulevard of bioelectrical cellular memory that is ultimately stored in the amygdala as an implicit database. He said this was totally "out there." Now this is the popular theoretical basis of a Nobel prize winner's research (Eric Kandel) and the content of seminars with the renowned Bruce Lipton, conference presenter extraordinaire.   

Similarly I have frequently taught about how the baby in utero is able to see. Many, even today, remain incredulous about this. Recently in my research on sensory integration I have come across a stunning paper that is not at all well known but that proves this. Written for and delivered to the College of Optometrists in 1995 this document says:

"The child's visual history begins in the dark, warm, liquid environment of the uterus."

The article goes on to correlate the development of vision with brain development:

"There is a close analogy between the layers of the cortex and those of the retina. At sixteen weeks in utero the fetal vestibular system is operational and necessary for ocular movement and development."

The author, Dr. Albert Sutton, correlates the mother's ability to stimulate the baby in utero with the development of vision, adding:

"Vision is not in the eye; the eye is an instrument of vision. Vision is the product of the other neurological systems interacting with the eye. The foundation for these systems is laid down during the prenatal and first years of life when the neural pathways are formed between the eyes, the brain and the body."

Vision is a neural activity that evolves in relationship to our experience of threat. This understanding opens new possibilities for evaluating the causes of visual processing disorders and other vision problems. We can provide new avenues for correcting these challenges if we understand the intimate connection between vision, the brain, attachment and early threat.

The purpose of investigating the remarkable developmental intensity of prenatal life is not, as some have suggested, to increase the idea of victimization or to cast blame. On the contrary, by opening our awareness to the intimate experience that the baby has of the environment that shapes his or her brain, we open new therapeutic channels. Understanding the formative consciousness of the developing being allows us to further maximize human potential in ways that have not yet been tried.  

The role of vision as a window of the brain in autism and visual processing disorder and related conditions needs to be identified. Vision is a neurological response to epigenetics. That epigenetic environment is within our control to shape. It is an environment of human interaction and choice. We can maximize the opportunities for our children by refining that environment through our stimulating and welcoming relationship to our children prenatally and during the primal period. We can also de-industrialize birth to help prevent the escalation of the sensory disorder pandemic. When we look clearly into our baby's eyes at birth we open the windows of the brain.

Indigenous Intelligence

By

Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

Copyright 12/11

  

Prenates, infants, young children and children with special needs have indigenous intelligence. We tend to relate to them as we do to most indigenous people as if they were primitive and had not yet achieved the adult intelligence that we consider superior.

Indigenous intelligence is sensory and implicit. This makes it pure and transparent. These qualities frequently get translated by the adult mind as unrefined, reckless, naïve and simpleminded. Adults often take a conciliatory approach to children and to children with special needs that can be blind sighted to the child's innate sensibility.

I believe we can and must transform how adults see children and children with special needs by awakening them to the wisdom of innate intelligence that is becoming endangered by sensory overload, poor nutrition, lack of exposure to the natural world and the deficit in appropriate neurological stimulation through eye to eye contact with individuals.

Our children's innate intelligence is endangered because we cannot advocate for it until we recognize it. This is within our control. We can wake ourselves up to what is right before our very eyes. The choice is ours. This is not because of what "they" are doing to us. It's like the emperor's new clothes. We can see what is really there or we can see what everyone is telling us is there. What do you choose?

Margaret Mead in Samoa

Parents and caregivers can change the environment of ignorance about who children really are by taking more of an anthropological stance. I have been reading Margaret Mead's autobiography, Blackberry Winter. I am struck by the unadulterated (the perfect word!) nature of her observations of the Samoan people. She attributes this to how little preparation she had from her renowned teachers Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. They did not prepare her, she posited, because this would allow her to really see indigenous people for who they are. Free of all suppositions she discovered that "one must see what is before one's eyes as fresh and distinctive. If, for instance, you see a house as bigger or smaller, grander or meaner, more or less watertight than some other kind of house, you are cut off from discovering what this house is in the minds of those who live in it."

Imagine if even once we looked at our children without comparing them to other children or without knowing what children should or should not do or be? Do you have the courage to do this? It is within your power!

We can learn what our children are telling us through their expression, their behavior, their symptoms, their healthcare needs, their responses to others, by looking in their eyes, by their dietary choices, their words or their lack of words, their postural stances, and by observing them, as if for the first time, as they play and interact with others of all ages.

Our children are telling us how to save childhood from extinction through the wisdom of their untainted indigenous communiqués sent from the transmitters of their own bodies while we are looking at our cell phones.