For decades, the treatment of children’s neuro - developmental problems, - difficulties including cerebral palsy, autism, PDD, AD(H)D and associated problems such as learning difficulties--- has focused upon either controlling symptoms or upon behavioural principles. In an age which understood little about the brain, where medicine considered that once a brain was damaged, there was nothing which could be done, this was understandable. In an age where professionals could not even imagine how a brain responds to it's environment, it's inherent plasticity, it's ability to create new connections and to discard unused ones, what more could be expected? Consequently, for the millions of children who suffered neuro-developmental problems in this age, the future was bleak. At worst it meant life in an institution, away from the family, with no hope at all and sometimes treatment was harsh. My heart cries out to these lost children because I remember my visit to one in 1988. It was Cranage Hall in Cheshire in the UK and it was the shock of my life. I was already the father to a baby who had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and I was at University studying psychology, child development and special educational needs.

Cranage was a dinosaur of the place and the new government philosophy at the time of 'care in the community,' meant that thankfully, places like it were closing. I think the objective of our lecturer in taking us there was to shock. - He succeeeded because I have never forgotten. During my visit I got to see some sad cases of desperately disabled children who had grown into young adults, who had been placed in there by their family simply because they could not cope and the services were not available as they are today, to support the family at home. I remember holding the hand of a young man in a wheelchair, who had cerebral palsy. He could not speak but he clearly understood some of what I said. As I kneeled beside him, seeing parallels between him and my own young son I swore to him that I would do something about this, that I would fight to see that children like him were helped. Little did I know at the time how I would end up fulfilling that oath.

The next few years saw me on a journey of discovery and led me to various treatment centres all over the world, a few of them good, most of them bad. Some of them were clearly motivated by finance, whilst some of them were staffed by people who were clearly underqualified to be doing what they were doing. During those years however, I did amass a vast amount of knowledge concerning neurodevelopment, which led me to being involved in various projects including the construction of connectionist models designed to replicate the cognitive functions of children and designing strategies to build communication in and language in children who displayed such problems. Allied to this I went on to study at various Universities, first obtaining a degree based in psychology and child development and later gaining qualifications in ‘language and communication impairments in children’ and finally an MSc based in child development and cognitive neuropsychology.

In 2008, six years after the death of my own son from a series of brainstem strokes, I fulfilled my oath to that young man and to my own son when I formed Snowdrop, - a small enterprise dedicated to focussing all of the knowledge and experience I have gained and applying it to the treatment of children’s neurodevelopmental problems. Snowdrop’s approach is called neuro-cognitive therapy and is neurodevelopmental in its foundation.
Neuro-cognitive therapy recognises that often, brain injury or dysfunction is likely to impinge upon the child’s ability to process sensory information coming into the brain from the outside world. In turn, these ‘distortions of sensory processing' will inevitably affect the way in which the child relates to the world and reacts to it. The consequences of these sensory processing deficits express themselves in the output functions of the child, - namely the development of mobility, hand function, language, socialisation, etc.

So, one part of the wide ranging approach of neuro - cognitive therapy focuses upon attempting to train the brain to process incoming sensory stimulation in a more normal manner and consists of providing structured sensory information, within an environment which has been adapted to take account of the child’s sensory processing difficulties.

Another prong of neuro - cognitive therapy is informed by Vygotskian psychology and involves an assessment of the current level of the child’s cognitive functioning and then building upon these abilities in a logical step - by - step manner. The approach focuses upon the way in which children learn naturally in their early years and applies this to stimulating the cognitive development of children with developmental difficulties. It recognises that early learning is a social phenomena which is concentrated within the interactions between the child and more skilled partners (parents, siblings, etc) and that over time and with repetition the child begins to not only take the lead in the learning process, but internalises the learning task into his own developmental capability.

Snowdrop now treats children from all over the world and has some incredible success stories to it's name, which can be read about in my new book, Brain Injured Children: - Tapping the Potential Within.
Anyone who requires more information about Snowdrop's work should visit the website or email info@snowdrop.cc or call 01884 38447

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