Handle / Brain Highways

[Guest guest]

 

I cannot speak for brain highways, but we have done handle for about 1+ years. 

After about 4 months of starting the exercises, my son sort of came together in

an overall way, and I even had people asking me what I was doing with him (even

a well known OT in the area).  We do about 30-45 min. of handle exercises per

day.  I do them myself and you can also teach others to do them also.  Once you

get the concept behind it, they are easy to do and short for the most part, and

flexible- can be done throughout the day- a minute+ here and there.  It is

different than O.T.  It was made for kids/people that have issues as a baseline,

vs NT kids.  Handle was developed assuming there were already problems to work

through.

 

Part of the idea is called 'gentle enhancement', which is about doing the

exercises without stressing the child.  It involves the reticular activating

system, which is different than other therapies as far as I know, and retrains

the body to not go into a 'stress state /fight or flight' when stimulus is

introduced, also involving the vestibular system.  It is to help reorganize and

put in place neuological pathways that normally develop that many ASD kids miss.

 

It is a bit complicated to expain in theory, and hard to hit on all of it, but

you can go to www.handle.org, to read more. The creator of it had severe autism

as a child and wrote " The Fabric of Autism " - Judith Bluestone.  It is in our

library.

 

The consultant we go to, I am sure is a genius and does tons of reasearch on

everything and did so before choosing to do handle.  Apparently it also has

research done that proves it can change blood flow in the brain after scans are

done after doing handle.

 

For autism treatments, I consider it cheap, compared to some other things, but

it may depend on the provider you go to also.  We had to intially more the

first? 3 months- once a month I recall, and then go every 3 months for follow up

appts. 

 

The philosophy of it fits more with RDI (and greenspan I think), but do not

think it is as compatible with ABA in philosophy. 

 

You can do OT with it also, but our provider said to check with him first to

make sure the OT activites do not work against the handle exercises and

philosophy or I am sure the positive results may lessen.

 

Hope this helps, I do recommend it to others, as we have had a good experience

with it, and I know others that have also.

Angie