Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement® for Children

How does NeuroMovement Help a Child with Special Needs?

ABM NeuroMovement is a neuroscience-based approach that stimulates the creation of new neural networks in the brain. It is an intuitive teaching technique that turns on the “learning switch” for thinking, speech, movement, flexibility, and strength.

Healthy children are born with natural spontaneity. They learn through random movements and experimentation, feeling their bodies in space and responding to stimuli. Genetic disorders, cerebral palsy, traumas, illnesses, autism, developmental delays and other learning disorders disrupt this process, often leaving a child stuck in very limiting patterns. When a child can’t reach certain age-appropriate milestones, the traditional approach tries to help the child “catch up” through effortful practice and exercises. But in order to promote lasting, positive change, the focus must shift from fixing a child to connecting with their brain.

What to Expect:

ABM NeuroMovement® for children has been observed to be the most effective when done as an “Intensive”. An Intensive consists of several, consecutive sessions within a very short time frame in order to promote better integration and retention of new information in the brain. Standard sessions are 30 or 45 minutes long and are grouped into a series of two or three sessions per day for two or three days in a row. These sessions are carefully arranged to address your child’s specific needs. An initial assessment will determine what arrangement will best facilitate the greatest progress for your child.

How to Prepare:

For very young children and babies, sessions can be done while they are sitting on their parent’s lap, while they are breastfeeding, or while they are lying or sitting on the therapy table. Older children and teens usually sit or lie in the position that they prefer. It is very important that your child feels completely at ease so please be sure that they are wearing loose, comfortable clothing that does not restrict their movements in any way. Some children fall asleep during the session due to the gentle nature of the movements and almost all children become very hungry and thirsty because of the neuroplastic changes that occur. Please bring a snack and drink with you into the room when you arrive in order to create a seamless, positive experience for your child.

We encourage all parents to read the book Kids Beyond Limits.

Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement® Children with Special Needs

In order to promote positive change, we must purposely avoid patterns that drive pain or that create a stress response and we must help the brain to begin the process of differentiation. In this way, the focus shifts from fixing a child to connecting.

“…the greatest potential for transformation, though often difficult to grasp, is not in trying to make a child do what they can’t, but in finding ways to help each child’s brain differentiate and spontaneously discover how to go beyond limitations.”

-Anat Baniel

1. Isabel – Cerebral Palsy

2. Grace – Brachial Plexus- Birth…

3. Carter – Cerebral Palsy

4. Johnathan – Autism

“Rather than trying to force a child into milestones that they are not ready to do successfully, we carefully wake up the brain to create new connections, often at a staggering rate, leading to spontaneous, often extraordinary breakthroughs in movement, thinking, self-regulation, and connection with others.” –Anat Baniel

Differences between Physiotherapy and ABM® NeuroMovement® Method

Carla Reed, NeuroMovement® Practitioner and Physiotherapist