Neurobehavioral disorder is an umbrella of neurologically-based conditions that affect a child’s social interaction, and her/her ability to learn a physical or cognitive skills, to stay focused and paying attention, to memorize information, following instructions, to control his/her behavior, and hyperactivity. This can affect people of all ages, but the most vulnerable persons are children and adolescents, when the brain is not completely mature yet. Not only those deficits can obviously affect a child’s academics, it can also interfere the relationship with family and friends. It is sometimes hard to find out that a child is suffering from a neurobehavioral challenges, because many times the child will be as smart or even smarter than the average, but at the same time won’t be able to perform some specific tasks or will give the impression of being bored or inattentive.
Causes
There can be several causes that lead to neurobehavioral disorders, as well as many environmental aggravating factors, which leads to imbalance in the central nervous system, ultimately causing altered mental and motor coordination. Control and timing of our body movement is directly connected with our ability to lean, to read, to speak, and to behave. For instance, speech requires a good motor control of our tongue, throat and lips muscles. The ability to track correctly with our eyes is necessary if we want to be able to read, and writing requires a good eye-hand coordination. In the other hand, our brain is responsible to integrate the different input that we receive from the environment through our different senses, such as vision, sounds, or touch. When our brain doesn’t integrate those different sensory input, it won’t provide in return the appropriate response, which will result to abnormal behavior. An interesting way to evaluate a child’s motor response is through the primitive and postural reflexes, which if dysfunctional will indicate that some neural connections are altered.
Treatment
In our clinic, we specialize on restoring brain function using primitive reflex integration, improving visual function, eye tracking, motor coordination and timing, and postural stability. We also focus on identifying nutritional deficits and the possible presence of inflammatory or toxic factors that might contribute to aggravate the child’s behavior. Regardless of the condition or the label given, we evaluate the brain’s functional state and address the deficits to help your child reach full potential.