Kids Beyond Limits Review 2

From Amazon.com by one of Amazon's Top Reviewers

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Patience and Rewards, April 30, 2012

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) 

 

This review is from: Kids Beyond Limits: The Anat Baniel Method for Awakening the Brain and Transforming the Life of Your Child With Special Needs (Paperback)

In what is one of the most erudite, sensitive, and genteel books published about children with limits Anat Baniel quietly discusses her phenomenal success dealing with children once thought to be impossible medical problems. This book is not only for parents of children with special needs, this is a book that should enjoy a wide readership as the world is gradually becoming aware of the possibilities that lie within the brain. Using the tutelage she received from her mentor Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Anat Baniel seems to have happened upon her Method intuitively - the mere holding of a child who seemed to lack all possibilities of the brain connecting to the rest of the body, a screaming child whose parents were desperate for relief, and finding that through touch and concentration the child not only calmed but became able to connect synapses to enter the world into which she was born. `Through the years that I have worked with Elizabeth we always made a point of identifying and building upon PRESENT ABILITIES rather than focusing on her disabilities, transforming the abilities we had identified into greater abilities, again and again.'

Thus began the Anat Baniel Method - a technique that utilizes simple gentle movements and focus - a technique that requires profound hours of patience on the part of the giver as well as the recipient, and the recipient may have autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy or other developmental disorders.

The first three chapters of this book serve as an introduction to the science of brain function and the alterations that are manifest in the disorders mentioned above. After urging the reader to digest the information and alter the mindset as set forth in these chapters, then Baniel presents the Nine Essentials that define her method - Movement with Attention, Slow, Variation, Subtlety, Enthusiasm, Flexible Goals, The Learning Switch, Imagination and Dreams, and Awareness. The heading for each of these `nine essentials' does not begin to imply the significance of change that they bring. Following these essentials acknowledges `the ability of the brain to change itself in ways that defy our normal expectations and the perceived limitations in the child,' or in other words, neuroplasticity.

Dignity is a word that comes to mind as we read Anat Baniel's fine book - dignity and respect for children (and adults) in patiently accompanying the `limited' child to awaken the brain to form new patterns, patterns that then allow the child to function in a manner that creates happiness rather than fear, mistrust, confusion, and frustration. This is a little miracle of a book, highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 12