I've been doing ABMN lessons (Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement®) consistently now for about 2 weeks, after doing lessons only inconsistently before, and getting more progress from the inside out from her, as well as coming up with some really inventive and useful lessons for and with her on-the-fly.
Our daughter has giant problems putting her legs near each other after years of begging, ordering, coaxing, etc.. It's part of the mental scars of her autism in combination with crippling pain from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that has gotten all screwed up in her brain and we cannot convince her otherwise. When she used to cross her legs for years when she wouldn't poop more often than once every 7-10 days and it was just torture to see her suffer but resist pooping that would end it (when she eventually did, she felt great and we were always al relieved, and then the horrible descent into madness of her fighting pooping and us fighting her began again...) Now that I've cured her IBD (I need to finish writing the book, I know, about it, or make a video anyway - contact me if you want me to do so - i.e. if you'd actually buy it if I do, at [email protected]), there is no reason she couldn't walk normally, but she's saying now that she's afraid if she doesn't have them widely spaced apart, she is going to have trouble pooping and potentially have it all get super painful and backed up again. It's crazy, and I go crazy trying to get her to change about it and she won't. she has injured her feet and toes banging them on corners and walls all over our house and has gotten her feet kicked and stepped on in the kitchen because they stick out so far its hard not to hit or impact them, yet no willingness on her part to change. I have some video I'll post at how oddly she walks - swinging her pelvis circularly around her body rather than a true swinging gate, with her legs frozen out to the side of her hips.
I have tried many exercises that include crossing the midline and she absolutely won't do it, but today I was measuring the width an length of a variety of spaces in our apartment gym area, and tried to encourage her to do so - autistic people love repetition with some slight point to it. and shockingly, she joined in, putting heel to toe, measuring by feet (my feet and hers are about a foot long with the shoes on). This was like the police making you walk a straight line to tell if you're drunk - walking on the seam in the flooring in the athletic are of our gym in both directions, then we measured the large deck the same way, having her put heel to toe - one foot in line with the prior one, and counting. I have NEVER been able to convince her to walk in a straight line, even close to it, and today she was walking in a focused and diligent way for hundreds of steps!
I also noticed some cognitive improvements, such as she said "recently" in a sentence unprompted, and a few super subtle but clear as a bell spontaneous modifications to her thinking today. We've mostly been doing Anat's "Desk Trainer" series of 5-10 minute lessons designed to be doable while in a chair at work, and have modified and adjusted the timing and content since I - being an ABMNM practitioner, can see opportunities and areas she may need to slow down and work on, such as pausing the video (at anatbaniel method.com) and having her work on rounding and arching on the "pelvic clock", picturing the 12 a the front and 6 at the back.
I finally REALLY ACCEPTED Anat's statement, "if she would, she could" and stopped trying to get her to do more differentiated speech if she was not progressing, and going back to basics of the brain managing the body's larger areas better, and only then being able to refine already refined movements such as cognition around language, when she can't manage her pelvis and ordinary gross movements well at all. Knowing that if I don't help her brain get more differentiated, all the arguments around how her having her get hip problems later, hurting herself, etc. - I might as well be telling an infant how to drive - it just has nowhere to land.
So today as we were walking variously holding hands on those lines as I sang "He moves through the air, with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on the flying trapeze, his actions are graceful all the girls he does please, and my love he has stolen away!" and Anna was happily walking around on a straight line all over the deck it was like a miracle!
I then led her to the high-edged planter boxes and we leaned on it and lifted our legs in space, and I directed her into variations with straight and bent lifted leg, then folded leg trying the reach around us behind us, then holding to the side and listing the opposite leg and seeing how close each hand vs. lifted leg met up, noticing differences between sides, all variations and distinctions that feel the brain and give it choices.
I'm really embracing and integrating ABMNM lessons with her and hope to bring those who follow my posts videos of us doing lessons at home that you can try at home!
Plus it's making me more mentally focused and organized! Thats for another post...
(Contact me at [email protected] if you want to try ABMNM lessons remotely!)
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