What do these children have in common: the colicky baby with frequent ear infections, the hyperactive child, the spaced-out child, and the child with learning difficulties? The answer: they each have the potential to experience enormous improvement with the use of natural supplementation.

Maybe you’re considering tweaking your child’s diet or adding a supplement but have no idea where to begin. Help has arrived! Our guest this month is Dianne Craft. She comes with some unique qualifications. Not only did she homeschool her own children, but she also has a master’s degree in special education and is a Certified Natural Health Practitioner. She has worked extensively with publicschooled and homeschooled children for over 25 years. She takes time from her busy private practice, Child Diagnostics, to visit TOS.

TOS: Welcome, Mrs. Craft. Tell us about the kinds of kids you see in your practice.

DIANNE CRAFT: Christine, thank you for the opportunity to talk to parents about the biological basis of learning and behavior. It is a passion of mine, as I see so many wonderful changes in children, using natural, easy-to-use supplements and diet.

In my practice in Denver, Colorado, Child Diagnostics, Inc., I see children age 4-15 who are bright, hard-working students who are experiencing stress in either the learning system or the behavior system. In other words, they have to use too much energy to complete a school task such as writing, reading, processing auditory material, or focusing and attending. Sometimes I see them when the main issue is that they just have “meltdowns” throughout the day, and that is making the school day very long and wearing. Together we come up with a plan that will help that child feel better (remember, children act how they feel) and retain material easier, taking the stress out of learning.

TOS: Have children changed much over the years? Would you have seen these types of issues thirty years ago? If not, to what do you attribute the change?

DIANNE CRAFT: That is an excellent question. I have been in the field of special education for at least thirty years, and the increase in the number of children who are struggling with learning and attention/behavior issues is alarming. Asperger’s and autism [have] increased by 300 percent in most states … in some the increase is 500 percent. Children diagnosed with SI (sensory integration issues) and bipolar [have] increased tremendously also. The administration of Ritalin, and medications such as this, has increased tenfold in the past few years. We are seeing younger and younger children (sometimes even as young as age 4) being administered medication because their behavior (rages, etc.) are so out of control.

I believe that the biggest change in society to which we can attribute this increase in behavior/learning difficulties is the huge change in the American diet. In the past, more mothers were staying home and cooking whole, natural foods. Now, the fast food industry has lured many mothers into thinking that they can conveniently feed their children nourishing foods without the fuss and mess. This is very erroneous thinking. These little bodies run on the fuel that we feed them. For example, the nervous system is very easily irritated with excess sugar ingestion. The problem is that most parents think that if their child is not eating much candy, that they are not ingesting much sugar. However, they may start their day with a sugar-laden cereal or waffle or pancake, along with juice, and have the equivalent of a Snickers candy bar. This continues throughout the day as they snack on fruit rollups, granola bars, pop, and cookies. This totally changes the child’s gut ecology so that the children become irritated and struggle with attention, focus, and memory.

Another strong contributing factor is the cavalier use of antibiotics. Taking antibiotics frequently, or back to back, completely changes the child’s gut ecology, causing the good bacteria to be killed and the yeast to overgrow. Since the important neurotransmitter serotonin is manufactured in the bowel, this becomes a very serious condition for a child. Serotonin, as you know, is the neurotransmitter that is “re-circulated” by antidepressants, and to some extent by Ritalin and other stimulants. When we have enough serotonin in our system, we are relaxed, can handle stress, focus easily, fall asleep easily and don’t experience night terrors or nightmares, and see things throughout the day as being more positive than negative. A child who is low in this important neurotransmitter can be an “Eeyore” in his view on life, have difficulty falling asleep, can’t remain focused, can’t handle transitions easily, has “meltdowns” when things get stressful, and [is] generally more full of anxiety and small fears than their peers and siblings. These children are really suffering. This suffering can be alleviated when we recognize what is causing it and that it is not necessarily a character problem or a parenting problem but that the child just isn’t feeling well. This also can be addressed quite successfully with a good natural diet (of course a reduction of sugar) and some targeted nutritional supplements. Parents often email me or call to report the huge difference in their child’s behavior (whether it was a major or a minor problem) after they begin to institute a change in diet along with the right supplements. Parents often approach me in tears at a conference to tell me of the wonderful changes in the behavior of their child after making these easy changes. God is good to us.

Many times doing something as simple as giving a good, refrigerated acidophilus (the good bacteria in the gut) to a child three times a day for six weeks or so brings a dramatic change in behavior. The liquid and chewable kinds are too weak to produce a big change, as is the powdered; but if parents get the capsules (I use Primadophilus by Nature’s Way, available in any health food store or from my website) and include them in the child’s diet, either by having the child swallow them or opening the capsule up and putting it into food, they often see a nice change in behavior and focusing ability. At least this is an easy thing to try, and good intestinal bacteria is helpful to everyone generally.

TOS: Take us through the procedure you follow when a parent consults with you about their child’s behavior or learning struggles. How do you begin to assess what’s going on?

DIANNE CRAFT: Before I see a student, the parent has filled out a questionnaire, giving me important information, such as did the child have thrush as an infant, etc. The questionnaire also addresses educational information. I study the questionnaire and any other testing that is sent in. The most important thing that I am looking for is the main cause of the child’s struggle.

In the actual assessment, the first thing I check is the child’s eye/hand dominance. If a child is “mixed dominant,” that invites stress in the writing system and reveals one possibility as to why the child is struggling with reversals, or just getting his thoughts down on paper. Next I check the child’s eye tracking, to see if they are having to expend energy on the task of their eyes moving from left to right in the act of reading. Then I have the child do the “cross crawl,” touching the opposite hand and knee, to check the integrity of the corpus callosum and the body’s ability to easily cross the midline. Over the years that I have studied children, I have found that the ability to cross the midline, which represents using both brain hemispheres together for a task, to be of the utmost importance in a child’s ease in learning tasks.

Next, I have the child write his name and the alphabet for me, while I watch for reversals, writing letters “bottom to top,” which is a vertical reversal, and observe whether or not the child makes his os in a counterclockwise fashion. It has been known in education for years that the brain is ready for the writing task when the circles are made in a counterclockwise fashion. Then I have the child read for me, and watch for extraneous eye movements, which take more energy, and whether sight words or phonetic skills are intact, and if the child comprehends what he reads. Of course, some of the children I see are not reading at all because of a severe dyslexia. After I have found out where the child’s “energy leaks” are, and which of the four learning systems is blocked, then I show the parent how to “unblock” those learning gates. I show them (and we videotape for the parents) a daily writing exercise that eliminates reversals and takes the stress out of the writing system. I then do a “repatterning” with the child, re-educating the two hemispheres of the brain to work together for learning.

One of the most exciting things I do is to show the child how to use his “photographic” memory for spelling words, math facts, and sight words. The child feels very smart when he can spell a long word forwards and backwards easily.

After the educational part of the consultation, I spend time exploring the nutritional needs of the child and set up a week-by-week nutritional plan that the parent can follow to help their child feel, act, and learn more easily.

TOS: How can parents who are unable to visit you personally be helped by your knowledge?

DIANNE CRAFT: I have tried to make products available on my website that help the parent to diagnose the child’s blocked learning gates and [know] how to correct the problem areas. By using the Brain Integration Therapy Manual, a parent can correct their child’s writing issues and auditory processing issues at home. By using the Right Brain Phonics Reading program (just a single book), a child who could not remember the phonics rules to apply them in reading (i.e., a “word guesser”) … can make great strides in reading and decoding long words just by practicing reading these words twenty minutes a day. Our Sight Word Cards get a non-reader reading immediately … within an hour, by bypassing the auditory gate entirely and using the visual, photographic memory.

On the website (www.diannecraft.org) I have a daily remedial reading and writing plan called “Tutoring Instructions.” This is a free document that parents can download and follow. Many parents have followed this detailed, step-by-step daily lesson plan and seen the same results I have always seen in my bright, struggling students—a two-year growth in reading and a two- to three-year growth in writing and spelling. This is a remedial program, not a program for children without glitches or who are not behind. For those children, any program will work. Children who have a learning “glitch” in reading, writing, or spelling need a totally different method of instruction than their “typical learning” siblings and peers. When we are faithful to use these methods, a little bit of time every day in a one-on-one setting, four days a week, tremendous gains are made. These gains are generally testable using any informal or standardized testing.

I also offer videos that will instruct the parent of a child who does not learn efficiently. Teaching the Right Brain Child comes with a manual, with strategies and ideas on how to put “Velcro” on commonly learned material such as spelling words, math facts, phonemes, and vocabulary words. The Biology of Behavior audiotape set includes a study guide with a week-by-week supplement program that helps many children focus and learn better. I receive good reports from parents who use these materials. I do answer email questions that parents have as they use the materials with their child.

TOS: You must spend a lot of time and energy keeping up with the research in this area. What is the most helpful, innovative, exciting thing you’ve read about lately?

DIANNE CRAFT: The relationship of the “gut” to the brain has been extremely exciting. I have rarely found a child who does not benefit to some extent by taking a good form of acidophilus (the good bacteria in the gut) three times a day. Everyone is helped by this easy procedure, and some dramatically. Dr. Michael Gershon, MD, in his book The Second Brain, tells us that 95 percent of the serotonin we have is manufactured in the gut. This explains all the wonderful results we have seen in these children.

Another area that excites me is the brain research that has produced the revelation of the importance of the midline for learning. So many children who are struggling to learn to read benefit from this simple approach to transferring information that is newly learned from the left brain hemisphere to the right brain hemisphere, where it is stored in the longterm memory. When the midline of the brain is acting as a bridge instead of a barrier, many learning disabilities begin to disappear.

TOS: We hope to have you back for another interview, but in addition to supplementation, what other things do you do to help children?

DIANNE CRAFT: I love to help children by showing them how to use their “photographic memory.” Many times a child who cannot spell well or who cannot seem to memorize his math facts (while his sibling can) feels dumb. When I show them how to put “visual Velcro” on the material learned—by using story, color, “weird” humor, etc.—they learn it immediately and feel so smart. So I would say that getting children in touch with the “smart part of themselves” is very exciting and rewarding.

I also love it when I can take a kindergartner, first- or second-grader who cannot remember the names of letters, numbers, sight words, etc., because of an auditory processing glitch, and I show the parent how to do a once-a-week repatterning with that child to inform his two brain hemispheres to work well together, and see that child learn all the names of letters and numbers in 8-10 weeks. When children cannot easily cross their midline, that is such an easy problem to correct and has such huge ramifications for learning.

I currently have the privilege of being one of the Special Needs Coordinators for HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association). In this capacity I consult by telephone with HSLDA member parents across the country, helping them figure out how to help their child learn more successfully at home and providing lists of resources that have been proven to be helpful to parents. I also am helping to develop a webpage for Special Needs/Struggling Learners for HSLDA. This webpage will be a great source of information for parents, giving many ideas, resources, and encouragement to parents of children who are struggling to learn. I would encourage parents to visit www.hslda.org and click on the Special Needs/Struggling Learner icon to see what we are offering to parents.

TOS: There is so much information out there about supplements and their use. How can a parent begin to educate herself to make informed decisions?

DIANNE CRAFT: The best way to make an informed decision about supplements is to do much reading. Sometimes a health food store operator can be very helpful and other times can be a huge source of misinformation, in my experience. A helpful book that one can get at the library is Superimmunity for Kids by Leo Galland, MD. This pediatrician gives a good overview on good eating and supplementing practices for children. I have several articles on my website that should be helpful also. It is very important to get good supplement brands for children, made from pure raw material. Unfortunately these kinds of supplements cannot be obtained at discount stores, but only at health food stores. We offer good brands at low prices on our website. When you go to a health food store, be sure to get the medium-priced brands and not the cheapest. As with anything, you get what you pay for. Normally I have parents do a week-by-week supplement program for just three months. Usually the body can “right itself” after that amount of time, and then just good, natural, non-processed foods and a multi-vitamin will keep them on an even keel.

TOS: You have an informative website at www.diannecraft.org. What will our readers find there?

DIANNE CRAFT: On my website parents will find many informative articles giving the latest brain research on how to teach these wonderful, hard-working children who are working too hard to learn. Articles on right brain spelling and right brain math can be very helpful for these children. I also have articles on how antibiotics can make a child crabby and how to turn that situation around. We do carry supplements on our website, the ones that we have found to work very well with children, for parents who are interested in having supplements sent to their home. God has given us wonderful solutions for these hard-working, struggling children. We are so thankful for that.

TOS: And we are thankful for YOU! Thank you very much for sharing your expertise with our readers. I pray many will be blessed by this!

Christine M. Field, TOS’s Resource Room columnist, practiced law for eight years before becoming a full-time mommy for her four children. Her husband serves as Chief of Police in Wheaton, Illinois. She is a freelance writer and the author of several books about homeschooling, adopting, and more. www.HomeFieldAdvantage.org www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/ChristineField