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Page 2 of 4 Sensory Learning, The Bolles Method was created by Mary Bolles, the parent of a special child. She runs a center in Boulder, Colorado. Through my interview with Ms. Bolles, I gained an understanding of why she worked so hard to create this therapy. Ms. Bolles, like most parents of challenged kids, "knew her son was different from her other children." She explained that he didn't want to be held or snuggled. "He didn't sleep well. His coordination was poor. He was accident prone, but even when both knees were bleeding he would carry on, as if he didn't feel the pain. Yet, if someone brushed against him in line he reacted as if he'd been shoved, as if he was overly sensitive."
"More than that, he didn't have the 'inner peace' my other children had. He was unkind to animals; he was unable to interact with other children. He had a volatile temper. He didn't seem to have any empathy. If a child was hurt it wasn't unusual for him to laugh. When his behavior was hurting other, I looked in his eyes and talked to him, trying to reach an empathetic feeling. But there was no sign of recognition. In fact, our feelings seemed to pale compared to what he was feeling. At times, anxiety and frustration seemed to pour off of him. He was highly manipulative to get his own way. Wherever he was, he seemed uncomfortable and unable to 'be.' The more I watched, the more I saw an uneasiness in his own body that was with him all the time and stood between him and interacting with the people, places and things around him."
One day Mary Bolles watched her son get off the school bus; he looked particularly frustrated. "He stood for a minute squinting at the sun then took off running past the house to the new-plowed field, where he stripped off his shirt and laid down with his bare chest in a furrow of the warm earth. And I then understood that peace began with how he felt in his body."
Ms. Bolles began researching methods to help children like her son. About 10 years ago, she created the Bolles Sensory Learning Method using computer assisted technology that integrates key elements from three sensory training approaches: photo-stimulation, acoustic stimulation, and vestibular stimulation. Separately, each of these modalities had become effectively established over the last forty years or more. By using technology to combine various aspects of these stand-alone methods, the Bolles Method is able to simultaneously re-educate the individual's primary sensory functions associated with sight, hearing, and balance. This enables the brainstem area communication between the ocular, auditory, and vestibular systems to improve. (Sensory Learning website: www.sensorylearning.com)
The three therapies are used simultaneously, and each modality has a very specific function. The auditory portion used a variety of filtered music with certain frequencies deleted and other accentuated to reimprint every frequency in the ears. This establishes more even hearing and right-ear dominance that, in turn, brings about improvement in behavior and learning abilities.
Motion therapy is achieved through the special motion table. This table rotates and stimulates the lower brain stem, inner ear and balance/directional centers of the body. This movement re-orientates the body's perceptional abilities while connecting or reconnecting the body's ability to "feel where it is in space." Coordination tends to improve and fear and sensitivity are greatly reduced.
Finally, the ocular therapy portion uses colored visual lights to stimulate optic fibers to become more receptive. The light gently expands constricted visual fields, increasing the amount of photocurrent being carried back to the brain. This stimulates the brain and increases the ability of the glands in the brain to produce the chemicals and hormones necessary for proper brain and body function.
Unlike some therapies where regression might occur, the Sensory Learning method does not require a second treatment. Improvements in a child may continue up to a year or so after the intial round of therapy.
Ms. Bolles explained, "Brains are more alike than they are different. The brain is primarily a sensory processing machine. By this I mean that everyone has to be able to process sensory information in order to function well. I originally put this method together for children with learning and behavior problems. I had no idea, at the time, that it would also be so effective with other populations such as autism, acquired mild traumatic brain injury, developmental delays and birth trauma. The common factor for all of these populations is that there are structural or functional issues adversely affecting sensory integration in the brainstem area."
"Within the autistic population, I have had children where the doctor has lifted the diagnosis and the child now attends a regular school; children without speech have begun to talk; and children who lived disconnected from family and environment began to respond and interact socially."
Treatment spans a total of 30 days. During the first 12 days, the whole system (light, motion, sound) is used. Sessions last one hour for an adult. For children, two 30-minute sessions each day is suggested, so that the child is not overloaded by the entire stimulus experience. The first 12 days are completed at the center. A portable light box (the same wattage and intensity used at the center) is sent home with the participant to be used for the remaining 18 days. They are instructed to use the light box twice a day, once in the morning for 20 minutes (the boxes are pre-set so they shut off automatically), and 20 minutes at night.
Mae Jae Storrs has seen many participants experience different results over the years, ranging from very slight improvements to more spectacular changes. She has seen children like Connor become much more social, talkative, and improve greatly in school. Overall, they become happier and seem to have a greater ability to process the world around them.
JaNell Davis Mathews is a freelance writer, the mother of two boys, Connor and Cameron, and is married to Trent. They live in Mantua, Utah.
Autism Digest. Article PDF.
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