**2.5 A complementary approach**

The word 'education' is etymologically derived from the Latin word e-duco meaning 'bring out' and suggests according to Kegan (1994) "a 'leading out from' ". My view is in line with Kegan's who writes that the focus of information is to change what people know while "*education* leads us out of or liberates us from one construction or organization of mind in favor of a larger one" (p.164). This might be very close to what Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fish (1974) and Ahrenfelt (2001) define as a first-order change as opposed to a second-order change. A first-order change (Watzlawick *et al.,* 1974) follows a 'more of the same' strategy based on common sense. It will be a 'renewal' of what is already there (Ahrenfelt, 2001). On the other hand a "second-order change usually appears weird, unexpected, and uncommonsensical; there is a puzzling, paradoxical element in the process of change" (p.83) and there is a change of the whole system (Ahrenfelt, 2001).

My first assumption, which is connected to information, is that many of the remedial teaching methods used today might create changes which are more of a first-order.

Could Motor Development Be an Emergent Property of Vestibular Stimulation

will tentatively discuss this below.

for the development and evaluation of therapy methods.

Therefore, we have recently started such a study.

**3.3 Retraining for balance - An introduction** 

**3.2 Different approaches to sensorimotor training** 

and Primary Reflex Inhibition? A Tentative Approach to Sensorimotor Therapy 249

A third reason might be the fact that no method, so far, has proved to be effective enough. Several longitudinal studies of DCD (Polatajko, 1999) show that motor problems persist and that other parts of the child's development are affected. Meanwhile a lot of research concerning diagnoses and conceptual issues has been published while few, if any, (Polatajko, Rodger, Dhillon, & Hirji, 2004) cohesive training methods have been developed, evaluated and used. Polatjko *et al.* (2004) end their review by stressing the importance and need for rigorous research to explore methods of treatment suitable for DCD. The method Retraining for Balance, to be presented below, is a new strong candidate which in initial studies (Niklasson, Niklasson, & Norlander, 2009; 2010) has shown not only promising results but also has opened up a novel perspective on sensorimotor training. This novel perspective might give us a hint as to why previous methods have failed to break through. I

To conclude; for progress to be possible, there has to be, not only an extended co-operation between different faculties but also a recognition from the scientific community of the need

Coming from the field of education, I have written this chapter in dialogue with representatives from two other fields of science, child neurology and psychology, each with its special interest in the wellbeing of the child. One has argued elsewhere for an early screening and detection of ADHD and DCD (Rasmussen & Gillberg, 2000) not least since coexistence (comorbidity) means that poor psychosocial functioning is very likely. Two of us have previously (Niklasson, *et al.,* 2009; 2010) evaluated a method for sensorimotor therapy, Retraining for Balance. Together we have published (Niklasson, Rasmussen, & Norlander, 2010) a call for the importance of further studies. At this time there exists no standardized manual for the testing of primitive/primary reflexes in older children and adolescents.

Techniques used in formalized sensorimotor training differ both from a theoretical and a methodological perspective. Pless (2001) makes a distinction between General Abilities Approach (GAA), Sensory Integration Approach (SIA) and Special Skills Approach (SSA). The GAA proposes that age-appropriate reflexes, postural reactions, and perceptuomotor proficiency form the basis of functional motor ability and the development of thought processes. The SIA stresses vestibular stimulation and suggests that sensory integration might be the basis for language, motor and intellectual development. According to the SSA,

The method Retraining for Balance (RB) can be considered as a mixture between the approaches of GAA and SIA. The concepts of primary reflexes and postural reactions are borrowed from GAA while the theoretical foundation of vestibular stimulation is borrowed from SIA. The basic GAA perspective, theoretically and practically used in RB was developed by Peter Blythe (Goddard Blythe, 2009) at the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) in Chester, Great Britain. Peter Blythe and Sally Goddard Blythe have over the last 20 years very successfully spread their work globally and a lot of practitioners

finally, more sophisticated motor skills are formed by specific motor learning.

My second assumption, which is connected to education, is that change is possible from within and that such change is of a second-order.

My third assumption is that information and education are complementary and that a pedagogical challenge will be to evaluate how they can counterbalance each other according to the special needs of the child.

My fourth assumption is that it might be possible that learning disabilities to a higher degree than previously realized are due to sensorimotor immaturity.
