What is the Cerebellum?
The cerebellum, often referred to as the “little brain,” is a crucial structure located at the back of the brain, responsible for coordinating voluntary muscle movements, maintaining posture, balance, and equilibrium. It plays a significant role in motor learning and has been increasingly recognized for its involvement in cognitive functions such as language, attention, and social interactions. The cerebellum contains nearly half of the brain’s neurons despite accounting for only about 10% of its volume, highlighting its dense neural network and importance in processing information.
The cerebellum has been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. In ADHD, cerebellar dysfunction is associated with difficulties in coordinating thoughts and attention, suggesting that the cerebellum’s role extends beyond motor control to cognitive processing. For autism, research indicates that cerebellar abnormalities, including loss of Purkinje cells, may contribute to symptoms such as impaired social interaction and communication. The cerebellum’s involvement in language and social cognition supports its potential role in autism spectrum disorder. Both conditions highlight the cerebellum’s broader impact on cognitive and behavioral functions, underscoring the need for further research into its role in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Have you missed a window of opportunity for healing?
Unfortunately, doctors and parents don’t know everything, and parents are not told everything that doctors know. It’s a really hard situation and it becomes less and less easy to trust “experts” when so many previous efforts have failed. In our experience the flaw in the correct treatment plans of doctors who have seen our pediatric neurodivergent kids in the past, is frequency, consistency, time and patience.
What is “failure”? Failure to most parents is when a treatment may not work within the period of time that the patient, parent or doctor has set their expectation to. When you have a 10 year old child who is considered neurodivergent, and they have not received occupational therapy or chiropractic care, what is a reasonable period of time to notice clearly defined improvement? As a general rule, improvement in function can happen within weeks to months, but the full impact of care may not be visible for a year or more. The alternative to time and a great strategy for your child though, is hoping that something improves with time, or waiting to see if a new discovery is made, or returning to the types of care that you’d become frustrated with as a parent, and expecting different results. To be fair, if you did not give it a reasonable chance, trying those old methods again with different expectations may be a decent plan of action. We only believe that you may have missed a window of opportunity if you have given up on your childs neurological potential.
Have you ever tried to grow a tomato plant? If you try to grow a tomato plant and after 2 weeks there are no tomatoes, does that mean that you are not growing a tomato plant? Of course not. It’s in progress. It will become a plant that should yield fruit. Can you expect the plant to grow faster? Yes you can, but does that make it grow faster? No. It grows as it grows, and people heal as they heal. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes nourishing care to grow and improve. Failure needs to be acknowledged as being relative to your expectations. Most people have expectations that need “improvement”. Sometimes they are overly optimistic and under informed, and other times not very optimistic and informed or misinformed. A board certified pediatric chiropractor (with the letters CACCP or DACCP behind their name) with extensive training and experience in neurodivergence and neurological tone, should be able to give you reasonable expectations. If you don’t like the time frame, nobody can force you to put your child in care, and no provider under any circumstances should guilt you for not accepting their plan of action.
Current medical perinatal care practices do not adequately address the specific challenges faced by perinatal neurodivergent individuals. With limited understanding to begin with, these ever more common diagnoses are sensitive, specifically detailed and often unique to the individual, and require time and tremendous parent-doctor communication to adequately understand the specific needs of the child. Short appointments resulting in prescription drugs being recommended have failed to help neurodivergent children in a long term, drug free way that parents are generally satisfied with.
Gentle Re-booting has been shown to help
The chiropractic approach helps to reboot the brain like a computer that’s getting glitchy. Chiropractic is not a cure, but it has been show to affect parts of the brain that when improved functionally could impact, and indeed do impact, the neurology of these children. One of these areas is the cerebellum.
The effectiveness of interventions for neurodivergent children, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), can vary as the child ages. Early intervention is widely recognized as crucial for optimal outcomes, with research indicating that starting interventions as early as possible, ideally before the age of 3, leads to better long-term results in terms of improved skills and reduced problematic behaviors. However, this does not mean that interventions are ineffective for older children.
Some people may not know this, but every child at a reputable chiropractic or medical office, should receive a thorough examination prior to determining what they need for care. It seems obvious and simplistic, but not all offices start with finding answers that lead to strategies. In fact, some board certified pediatric chiropractic specialists even take hours over the course of multiple visits to understand your child even better. Some children are different from moment to moment, day to day, and may not always display certain behaviors or patterns in a short 30 minute visit. You know your child. You understand how difficult or easy it is to observe and understand their behavior. It is important to mention this to the office that you are taking them to, and suggest that your child receives extra time with the doctor for adequate observation and communication.
You likely already know what is in this post. You may or may not be familiar with what is in the video above though. We recommend watching the video and applying what you believe you’ve learned to your child’s situation. As mentioned above, communication is key when working with neurodivergent kids, and that communication may begin by asking questions. Please let us know if you have any.
Respectfully,
Dr. Lou
Dr. Lou is a board certified pediatric and perinatal chiropractic specialist. He’s worked with kids and moms for over 23 years as a family chiropractor in Portland, Maine. He may be reached at (207) 774-6251.