First Steps to a Physical Basis of Concentration - Softcover

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Twenty eight years of varied experience led Roy Anderson to the innovative and exciting conclusions put forward in his book. Following three years in an industrial laboratory, he taught secondary school children in a disadvantaged community and became involved in remedial teaching. This led to posts at a junior school, a Remedial Reading Centre, and a Reading and Language Service. In retirement, Roy helped even more children with his weekly primary school visits. His methods continue to help children to overcome their learning difficulties.

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The basic idea of the physical basis of concentration arises from the work of Dr. Carl Delacato (1959, 1963). He makes it clear that the later book, mostly on early motor development, is to be read in conjunction with the earlier book which deals more with sleeping. Delacato links sleeping with early motor development in a unified concept, but his work was criticised over 30 years ago for its undocumented claims and the extreme demands it placed on parents. Parent and professional associations combined to publish a statement to this effect (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1968).

The concept of devoting a few minutes of daily work to sort out the underlying reflexes was just not available at that time. The situation is quite different now. There is no need for any child who shows a severe concentration problem to spend long periods on early motor exercises. At the other end of the scale, there are many children in mainstream schools with only moderate concentration difficulties who can be greatly helped by a little time on exercises such as walking and crawling.

The vital idea which Delacato proposed in his works in 1959 and 1963 is that while the child grows, the sleeping, crawling and walking areas of the brain should develop. Ascending the brain stem, the successive areas should become strong and dominant in turn, forming a firm foundation for the development of the cortex. Language develops in one hemisphere, usually the left one, which should become dominant, while the other hemisphere becomes sub-dominant.

This idea provides a simple initial strategy for improving a poor physical basis of concentration. If doing related exercises for a few minutes a day fails to bring satisfactory progress, that few minutes might be better spent on specialised modification of aberrant reflexes underlying both early motor development and the child's sleeping position. Certain work on listening and seeing also fits within the theory.