Help available for kids with disabilities

Brain Balance Achievement Centers offer help to children with ADD, AD/HD, dyslexia, Asperger's, Tourette's, PDD and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

In the past, drugs have often been the treatment of choice by conventional medicine for children with these challenges. Many parents are growing concerned about this approach. Brain Balance Achievement Centers offers alternative programs without drugs.

Although medications can keep some of these conditions under control, they don't cure it. Many children who have AD/HD features in adolescence maintain them in adulthood.

The centers offer a nondrug/ noninvasive alternative that targets the underlying problems, not just symptoms.

Through their work at the center, children may become more focused, improve their academic performance and exhibit decreased negative behavior, resulting in enhanced communication and social interaction skills.

"Motor activity is the baseline function of brain activity. Anything affecting postural muscles will influence brain development. When there is a sensory/motor imbalance, it will create an imbalance of brain activity and one part of the brain will develop faster than the other, and that's what's happening in many of these children," said Dr. Robert Melillo, developer of the Hemispheric Integration Model used at the Brain Balance Achievement Centers.

"We identify the underfunctioning part of the brain and use specific activities to correct the problem and help that hemisphere grow," he said.

At the center, each child completes a battery of brain function tests, including visual, auditory and educational assessments, and programs are then tailored to their individual needs.

The program contains 36 sessions over a 12-week period, working with a sensory-motor coach and a special education teacher, and a full nutritional evaluation.

Brain Balance Achievement Center of Westlake Village is at 650 Hampshire Road, Ste. 102, Westlake Village.

For more information, call (805) 371-8082, or e-mail westlake@brainbalancecenters.com, or visit their website at www.brainbalancecenters.com.