 Publisher: Dr Melodie De Jager
Author: Metz Press
Having picked my way through a labyrinth of assessments with my two daughters, including: general school readiness, occupational therapy, educational psychologists, remedial teachers et all…. I was most intrigued by the title of this book, in particular the ‘removing barriers to learning’ part of the title.
Dr De Jager, who wrote this book, has a doctorate ‘On the relevance and importance of movement in the learning process’. Hence the title of her book, ‘Mind Moves’.
In this book she discusses ways to remove various barriers to learning such as ADD and ADHD.
She speaks about the ‘equipment needed to learn’. This being the:
- ‘Sensory System’ which searches for information
- ‘The Brain’ which processes the information
- ‘The motor system’ which responds to the information.
Dr De Jager writes that this processing of information is affected by our preferred eye, ear, hand & foot. For instance if your left eye is dominant you may not like reading but may be very creative. If you right foot is dominant you may be good at sport and would prefer a step by step action plan.
Dr De Jager goes on to say that information processing is also influenced by our preferred brain dominance – left / right, back / front and top / bottom. For instance the left brain is your logical brain, your back brain is your receptive brain your top brain is your cognitive brain.
Your abilities are influenced by how you are ‘wired’ so if you have a ‘free flow of information’ your sensory input is flowing to the correct side of your brain. But if part of your sensory input is on the same side as your dominant brain and part of your sensory input is on the other side of your body you have a mixed information flow that may result in slightly slower processing of information.
All is not lost once you have assessed your profile as Dr De Jager has introduced a number of exercises or ‘mind moves’ that can be done every day to help you ‘train your brain to gain’. These moves warm up the brain for learning and the beauty of these mind moves is that they can all be done without apparatus and can help you overcome your natural tendencies. Some of these moves are ‘listening Mind Moves’, ‘language Mind Moves’, ‘visual Mind Moves’, ‘concentration Mind Moves’ and even ‘reading and spelling Mind Moves’.
If you don’t feel confident enough about profiling your child or yourself there are fortunately experts out there who can profile you and help you understand how you are ‘wired’ and who can work with you to overcome any barriers to learning or working effectively.
I recently had the privilege of being profiled together with my two daughters aged 7+ and 10 by Michaela de Gier – 072 461 3628 in Durban North.
My youngest has a ‘blocked’ profile as her preferred brain is the left logical brain with input coming from a creative eye and a creative ear and a creative hand and her creative foot. So her brain which wants the facts is being fed all the flouncy stuff and then has to filter through this to get the facts which it prefers.
My eldest has a ‘mixed flow’ profile as she has a preferred left eye (artists eye), left ear (musical ear), right brain (creative), right hand (ruled by left brain so becomes frustrated as wants accuracy), left foot (loves to move).
So with this knowledge I can tackle their learning styles and abilities differently and they are becoming more aware of their learning preferences.
You can look up the Mind Moves web site to find out more information and you will also find a list of profilers near you if you are interested in following this program.
All in all, I wish I knew all this information when they were still babies – before they could talk back and before they had to be bribed to carry out the ‘mind moves exercises’..! But I am pleased that they can slowly be ‘trained to gain’.
Review by Maxine Davies
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