Ed O'Riordain is a teacher in Coláiste Chríost Rí in Cork City. He recently gave an overview of his work in Kinesiology to members of the Cork Branch of the I.G.C.

Dyslexia is the most common term used to describe a group of conditions that affect an individual's ability to process language, be it written, spoken or symbolic, in a conventional way. In the past, it often carried with it the stigma of stupidity. However, the child with dyslexia, or as some prefer to call it Selective Learning Disorder (SLD), may have normal or very high IQ (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein etc.,) and show amazing talents in a variety of areas. They may be gifted artistically and be very musical, often showing an ability to play an instrument from an early age. However, school can be a nightmare, literally, as it relies mostly on language skills, ignoring all the other skills these individuals may, to a greater or lesser extent, possess.

Individuals with this disorder have difficulty learning to read by traditional methods, have difficulty organising their desks, homework or using a pen. Life can often be very frustrating as they see their classmates doing well while they are failing. They know that they should be doing better. From interaction on other levels they know that they are cleverer than many of their friends but when it comes to displaying this academically they constantly seem to fall short. They may realise that something is not quite right, but are unable to identify it. In many cases they resort to behaviour that will distract from this inability. Often very hard working, they are told they could do better, are lazy, etc., etc.

The behaviour may take the form of temper tantrums, extreme mood swings or they may react with psychosomatic symptoms such as; headaches, abdominal pains and bed-wetting, to name just a few. Obviously, this can be very alarming for parents and teachers. They are often sent to counsellors and/or child psychologists and although certain traits may be identified, the academic problems persist.

SLD seems to affect boys a lot more than girls. They often display co-ordination problems although they may be good at sport. Very often such individuals will have walked quite early and have skipped the crawling phase. The significance of this is that crawling on ones hands and knees teaches left/right co-ordination and is important in the development of the child. Prior to this the child moved around on its tummy and such movement involves using first, one side of the body and then, the other. Research suggests that one of the main problems with SLD is that individuals tend to process information in a similar way, using first one side of the brain and then the other. For a full understanding we need both sides of the brain to exchange information freely. However, without this ability the cognitive side first processes the information and then shuts down while the artistic side engages. This left/right switching continues, resulting in an unclear picture. Some have likened it to a poorly tuned radio. You can hear most of what is being said but you are still missing some information and at times what you are missing may be the key to full comprehension.

Dr. George Goodheart, a chiropractor in the U.S., developed Applied Kinesiology in the sixties. He found that he was able to monitor stresses in the body by means of an indicator muscle. By isolating a certain muscle, changes in the energy of the muscle indicated when a stress was present, even if the individual involved was not fully aware of it.

This technique is ideally suited to discovering if someone is stressed by such activities as reading, writing, listening etc. Once the specific stress is identified, an exercise is given that is individually geared to correcting the imbalance in each particular case. Often a follow-up exercise is given to consolidate the correction. A number of visits may be necessary, but this depends on the individual concerned. No two are the same and whereas one 12 year old may require six visits another may only need four sessions. Time is needed in between sessions for the body to assimilate the energy balance.

The results can often be spectacular. I have witnessed the astonished look on parents who hear their son reading "properly" for the first time or the satisfaction of a 15 year-old telling you that he got an A in his last Maths test compared to an average E in previous tests.

While remedial work can bring about improvements it does nothing to remove the stress involved in reading, writing and listening. Unless corrected, these problems will persist into adulthood. For some, the condition can be very debilitating, leading to depression and many other stress-related illnesses.

Kinesiology is not just limited to correcting learning disabilities. It can also be applied to correct physical, emotional and nutritional stresses. The results speak for themselves. I have had clients who have limped into the clinic on painkillers, walk out an hour later free of pain.

So why do more people not know about this technique? Some people cannot believe that dyslexia and other imbalances in the body can be corrected without the use of drugs or expensive machinery. But the evidence is out there. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical. When I first encountered Kinesiology I was incredibly sceptical of its ability. However, the more I saw and the more I learned, the more astonished I became regarding its potential application.

A paradigm is the word given to the dominant perception at a given time, which sets the rules by which one can anticipate success in problem solving. We speak of a paradigm shift occurring when a new paradigm evolves making the old one redundant.

Up until 1954 it was considered impossible to run under four minutes for the mile. Dr. Roger Bannister, then a medical student reckoned that he could string four sixty-second quarter miles together and so run a four-minute mile. On the sixth of May that year, at a meet at Oxford, he succeeded in doing just that, beating the four-minute barrier by a fraction of a second. That same year, there were 18 other sub-four minute miles run. There was a new paradigm.

If you would like any further information on Kinesiology, Ed O'Riordain may be contacted at 086-8547620.