Attended a talk by Dr. B. Duncan McKinlay, a psychologist in London Ontario, who runs a program called Leaky Brakes. He is doing ground-breaking research in his field, and says that the way we attempt to manage children with a wide range of neurological issues is wrong, that traditional methods do not work. Here are my rough notes:

Leaky Brakes 101 Course. Child and Parent Resource institute. www.cpri.ca

Siblings with lower self-control have poorer outcomes despite shared family backgrounds.

ADHD = Attention Focus Disorder

Intellectual or Neural Developmental Disability

“…forcing compliance misses the point: they want to comply too.”

Poor self-regulation

There is nothing to do about Rage once it starts. “I don’t remember” is a defense mechanism.

Strategy:

• Do a brake job, cognitive-behavioral techniques and pharmaceuticals.
• Find a detour: accommodate as opposed to modify.
• Provide an external brake by compensating what is lacking internally.

Teacher’s assistant/Special Needs = Surrogate Frontal Lobe.