Neurodevelopmental therapist Kay Ness talks about
-the fundamental principles behind this technique: heirarchichal model of brain development and neuroplasticity.
-how lack of stimulation at appropriate age can interfere with brain development
-the number 1 thing to address in a child with Down Syndrome is Auditory Processing.
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Disclaimer: The information in this Podcast is for educational purposes only. Vaishnavi Sarathy, Ph.D. is an educator, not a doctor, specifically not your child’s doctor. Please consult your physician before implementing any supplement or diet recommendations.
Audio Transcription:
Vaish:
Have you heard of neurodevelopmental therapy for learning, motor or focus challenges? Welcome to function in nutrition and learning for kids, your podcast for all things gut health, brain health, and equal education, for the presumption of competence and healing the gut. I am your host Vaish ex chemist, now nutrition consultant, and math teacher. And I’m really happy to introduce Kay ness to this podcast.
He talks about the fundamental principles behind neurodevelopmental work today. And she introduces a fascinating idea that delayed or lagging auditory processing is the key behind many labels of intellectual delay or disability. Now there are a lot of ideas here that are not often commonly shared. And to check out some of the resources that came mentioned you can go to her website that is www.kayness.com and that’s www.kayness.com.
There is a giveaway this month so I would encourage that you stay till the end of this podcast happy listening. Kay is a master level neurodevelopmental certified by ICANN, which is the International Christian Association of neuro developmentalism K is evaluated in design programs to improve function in over 3000 children with the following labels, brain injury, Down syndrome, other genetic disorders, ATD, ADHD, SPD autism, learning disabled and all manner of those labels, normal and accelerated from one month and the oldest she’s worked has been 93 years old.
She has clients all over the world, including US, Canada, South America, Australia, Poland, Uganda, Spain, Cambodia, Scotland, England, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, and many other places. And she’s an approved educational consultant by homeschool legal defense for Special Needs homeschool children.
Now I can read out your education qualifications and there are so many but they include MRI training by Swetland, Emma’s kotoba, and also Montessori training. And I must mention that k is extremely famous in the community that I worked in, and I, most people that I know have worked at least once with K. So I want to welcome you to this podcast. Kay, thank you so much for coming in here.
Kay Ness:
Thank you. I’m honored to be here. Thank you for talking with me. You’re one of my heroes, too. So thank you.
Vaish:
Thank you for saying that. And you are so famous for doing the work that you do. But can you introduce your audience to what neurodevelopmental work actually means?
Kay Ness:
I’ve heard about mental work depends on two scientists who have scientifically proven concepts. The first step is hierarchical development. When a child is born, very little of the brain is wired up. Normal environmental stimulation and movement actually wire the brain up to be neurologically organized. From the very base level of the brain, the pons, midbrain, those movement activities help wire the brain up. And then cross over to start wearing the human cortex, which is lateralized. So the normal movements that a baby makes will wire up the left hemisphere to the right side of the body and the right hemisphere, the left side of the body. So hierarchical development, we look at all levels of the brain, to see that they are organized so that the higher levels of the brain will be organized and can function. Well.
That’s, you know, the model you use, you’re an engineer to the model you use determines the efficacy of your outcome. So the neurodevelopmental model based on the diamond delicate profile looks at all levels of brain development. And there’s some interesting if you get Glenn determines what to do about your brain-injured child. It shows how they developed that came up with a Developmental Profile. It’s not perfect.
We’re continually upgrading information for it. And so looking at different parts of the brain, you know, like the cerebellum was left off, oh, well, whatever. So I’m working with some other people to help develop those areas. The second principle of this work is neuroplasticity, which is a proven scientific fact that the brain can always or the central nervous system with specific stimulation and the rest Biological Environment, nutrition, and so forth.
Neuroplasticity is a fact of how we are created, that you can actually rewire the central nervous system with the correct stimulation from the very lowest levels to the highest levels. So things you know, when they give labels to children, when they give IQ tests when they give, you know, like, like it’s a fixed brain model that is absolutely incorrect. And a defies all the scientific research that has gone on and neuroplasticity. As a matter of fact, the concept of neuroplasticity is discussed on Stanford University’s website when they talk about cerebral palsy.
Neuroplasticity is a proven scientific concept, as well as the brain, needs to be hierarchically developed in an organized fashion. So what you know, the types of things that interfere with normal developments, the hierarchical development, injuries, pre-birth, post-birth, vaccines, toxins, illness, injuries, you know, all these different things can and not having the opportunities to have that stimulation, as I work with a lot of adopted children that are, especially from it seems like from Eastern Europe, they’re put in a, they’re put in a clip and no one touches and no one talks to them. They don’t move, you know, blah, blah, blah, they’re just are fed and clean.
Lots of problems with that, because they miss a lot of stimulation and development opportunities. But in our society, we tend to work on bucket babies, we tend to put children instead of on their tummy on the floor where they can crawl and create and feel things and see things and develop in a normal fashion. And Johnny-jump-ups and carriers and, and things like that where they can’t move appropriately. Walkers. So anyway. And you know, all of us have made some of those errors along the way, because we didn’t know All right, I did. Yeah. I’m, the perfect parent to have made all the mistakes and tell you what not to do. So
Vaish:
Yeah, same here.
Kay Ness:
Hierarchical development and neuroplasticity is the basis of our work. And, you know, that’s the model is good, you know, finding the correct stimulation to impact you know, seeing hearing tactility reflex integration, all that is an ongoing work, but I don’t and,
Vaish:
Thank you, and one of the things that are different in your work is that, as you said, scientifically, everybody agrees on neuroplasticity, Does everybody agree on the hierarchical model of brain development? That’s also a fact, isn’t it?
Kay Ness:
Neurodevelopmental or developmental steps is an accepted concept? How much is driven by genetics? And they’ll say, Okay, this, this child is from a family that’s not very smart. So he’s genetically predisposed to be stupid, or bla bla.
Vaish:
Yeah. So they focus more on genetics, but you focus on what you can actually do. And it’s you see that a lot of is an environmental and based on stimulation that the child receives in their early years. And another difference is that it seems like the medical model doesn’t actually have a way to increase neuroplasticity, but you use you have certain techniques that you use to increase neuroplasticity?
Kay Ness:
Well, neuroplasticity exists, period. That’s true. The best way to stimulate it, you know, like, how do we stimulate vision? We have children that were born cortically blind that are seeing now how do we stimulate tactility so that I’m sure you’re seeing this, you have some children that don’t feel their skin normally, or they’re hyper tactile or their sensory seeking, or they have low muscle term, which is a tactility issue. Or they don’t sense how to call appropriately.
I have some autistic kids that will put their hands on something and burn their hands before they feel the heat. Alright, so how do we stimulate those pathways to normalize that function? Alright, and through the years I’ve found that we’ve done You know, what is, you know, one of the things you hear. And while I work with lots of children with Down syndrome, and autism, you can’t get in their mouth to brush their teeth, but they don’t like textures of foods, alright? Or you can’t come to their hair, they hate going to the hair doctor, or they can’t.
They don’t feel food on their face when something like that. So how do you stimulate those different pathways to normalize that sensory function? And the same thing is true with hearing vision and tactility. So, you know, those are the type of things we’re always looking for better ways to stimulate those pathways to help improve that. That function?
Vaish:
Would you be willing to share a case study or somebody that stands out in your mind as a, as a good example of how this works, the neurodevelopmental work has really changed from what they were to what they become
Kay Ness:
One of the little guys I saw in Florida with Down syndrome? He was a baby who was under a year old had a big scar on his chest from having heart surgery. And they, they came to me a couple of times, at 18 months old, he came, his mother brought him in to see me and said, at 18 months old said, he can read.
I wasn’t ready to teach them to start teaching him to read. I said, Okay, well, what had happened was, she had bought a visual flash reading program for her five-year-old nephew. And the baby was sitting in the background watching and learning the words. So that’s something I want, I want everybody to do, I want everybody to know. And, you know, just like this job taught me.
Many children have taught me over the years that everybody is innately intelligent because they’re made in the image of God, period, the intelligence is there, you may not be able to access it, or output it. But even the most seriously brain-injured child, you know, that we’ve, we’ve worked with, once we get them moving and talking, they start outputting, all this stuff that we’ve been inputting all that time. So the intelligence is there, on what
Vaish:
you just said, so I’m just going to repeat that, because that’s like, that’s the most important statement in my mind that every child is innately intelligent, regardless of whether we can see it or not, that is our problem. But a child is innately intelligent.
Kay Ness:
I think that has true value. Yeah, yeah. Every individual is innately intelligent, it also is there at the end of life, too. If you have a parent that’s had a stroke, can’t communicate anymore, or has Alzheimer’s, know that they’re still there. Right, they can still hear you. And it, it makes a huge difference in the quality of life of those individuals.
Vaish:
So and this is what you also do with older people, right? Because you said your oldest client was 93. And right.
That same work can benefit people that have, you know, things that we don’t necessarily correlate in our lives. But yeah,
Kay Ness:
The trouble is that older people get all caught up in the medical system, and it’s really hard to get into. And they’re on so many medications. It’s just, it just makes it really difficult. And they have years and years and years of a bad diet. You know,
Vaish:
oh, my heart. Yes. Yeah.
Kay Ness:
Many things working against you. Um, you know, we’re all going to die. But the quality of our lives, we just need to take more responsibility for my own health, with diet, supplements and so forth. So I’m grateful there are people that are that are doing the work to help improve like with Down syndrome. You know, Dr. Henry Turkey Hill started out with the targeted nutritional intervention back in the 1940s. And there’s mainstream medicine is still calling it bonk. But then they say oxidative stress is the problem. You get rapid degeneration and downstream syndrome. Well, hello. Isn’t that hard to address? All right.
Vaish:
Exactly. Yes. Yes, and we’re waiting for the validation of things that have already been validated in different ways, right?
Kay Ness:
Yeah, yeah. So. So it can make a big difference. The problem is that every child with Down syndrome, or T 21, or any genetic disorder is biochemically individual. So a one size fits all doesn’t work. And I’m actually talking to a doctor tomorrow to try to get help with our families with thyroid and the targeted nutritional intervention, individualized testing. Because in the old days, there were two companies, meta metrics, and panics, I think was the name of the company that used to do metabolic testing. And you could send a genetic vane and get a customized, targeted nutritional intervention. And you can’t do that anymore.
All right. Oh, and I work with lots of children with other genetic disorders that, oh, my goodness, that would be so helpful, because the problem with a genetic disorder is the errors of metabolism created by the extra chromosome. You know, I mean, that’s just not that hard to understand. And if you can bias it with proper nutrition, and so forth, you can improve function. And that was shown by true callback Mo. Was it 14 When he wrote his book? Have you read this book?
Vaish:
I have not read his book, I’ve read about him. And I’ve read other people who I think whose work has kind of like started off he has kickstarted the work of so many other people. So I’ve read those books, but I’ve not actually read his book,
Kay Ness:
I should medical treatment of Down Syndrome and other genetic disorders by Dr. Henry took help, you would appreciate his approach. I think that he was hounded by the FDA and he wound up escaping the United States to Israel.
Vaish:
He lived his life talking off of nutritional intervention and supplements and so on. If you had three things that are that you think that a parent of a child with Down syndrome or autism or any, and any specific learning challenge should start right now. Well, let’s keep it to Down Syndrome and Autism for now. So if you had right now, what would that be?
Kay Ness:
Robert i&i where the magnetic vein says every child with Down syndrome should be on the GAPS diet. gut health is huge with autism and Down syndrome. And so I tell parents to get a sample of Nutri Veen and try it and see if it helps their child. The older individuals I work with that have taken Nutri vane will say they feel better when they take it than when they don’t. They will. So the GAPS diet some kind of Tni, now MSB plus in Ken McLeod and in Canada, do individual testing, metabolic testing, and as individualized, custom targeted nutritional intervention, please, he’s quite a brilliant pharmacist. I’ve read his book. Yeah. Yeah.
I haven’t had enough children on either side to really compare, you know, other doing with that. So but he also has a standard product, which a lot of people use instead of the custom, the custom is very expensive, right? So and I can understand, I can understand that. I also like it a lot you know that I had one of the lowest term children little girl come into me at six months old, she had Down syndrome.
She couldn’t even lift her head she came back to see me in three months. She had been on long Vita curcumin and she was crawling. Oh, wow. Wow.
Vaish:
So curcumin
Kay Ness:
proves that much? Yeah. Was a magic bullet for her. All right. Yeah. But you don’t always find the magic bullet because children are just because they have T 29 doesn’t mean there but not biologically individualized, you know?
Vaish:
And, and you may need more individualized work if these things don’t work for you immediately might need to dig a little deeper to see What’s going on?
Kay Ness:
Right? Right. Um, you know they? Yeah. So does that answer that question?
Vaish:
No, that’s that does.
Kay Ness:
Yeah, those are my top three, of course, proper thyroid treatment is another hot spot for me because I don’t think our kids are getting proper thyroid treatment. When you see older children with a thick neck and the mix edema around the face, you know, their thyroid is not optimal. Their body temperature is low, they have constipation and slow growth. So getting proper thyroid treatment, I think you had to feed the thyroid first, given minerals, iodine, selenium, zinc, magnesium, the B vitamins, and so forth all the cofactors of the iodine protocol.
I’ve seen thyroid come in just with like Selenium, or zinc, or iodine to I’ve seen that thyroid numbers come in. But you also need to do the full thyroid panel, which is to stop the thyroid madness.com Your mega that website? Yeah. So we could, we could,
Vaish:
yeah, and I think that getting started with nutrition
Kay Ness:
for 50 years. Because I was in an engineering school trying to survive on three hours of sleep at night. And you know what it’s like. So I said, there has to be a way to have more energy. So I started reading nutrition when I was 20. And I’ll be 70 in March. So I’ve done it a long time. So we could talk about this for a long time. And I tried to give the parents you know, when, when you first have the first diagnosed child, it’s, you know, it’s a zoo out there.
There’s so much advice you don’t know which way to turn or which way to believe. So I tried to give my parents the bottom line, the easiest path to go, there’s not going to cost them a fortune. And the tried and true is to heal the gut and get the nutrients in eating a nutrient-dense diet. Alright. And then go through, you know, on my website, I have free stuff there that people can do. I have the nerd development mental obstacle course where you show to get the baby crawling on his tummy and creepy going to his hands and knees, you know, start doing cross pattern activities.
Do these vestibular activities for balance and so forth. Taking care of the IRS can make sure the IRS stays clear of fluid because you’re building those auditory pathways to the brain. What’s one of the problems with Down syndrome, is smaller canals, they get clogged up quite easily. And I know I think one of the problems is if you have a lot of earwax and all that one of the problems is a retinol deficiency of vitamin A. So I always recommend cod liver oil, even though
Vaish:
that’s new to me, I didn’t know your Vax and vitamin A were connected. That’s good.
Kay Ness:
Oh, yeah. Many many many of my families have gotten rid of earwax just using cod liver oil, and it’s got to be cut liver oil. It’s got to be animals’ source retinol because the beta carotene does not convert very well at all. And that’s the work of Dr. Mary Mixon. I think she’s in Virginia Beach. She worked with autism, you’re familiar with her work.
Vaish:
I am familiar with her work Yes.
Kay Ness:
And she recommends the retinal instead of the vitamin A palmitate which tends to block the retinal receptors and she does. Back in 99 I first read her work and she started giving kids with autism, cod liver oil and some of them started talking. And she has a paper on her website about the retina effect on the sensory system. And we also had a yahoo group listserv at the time with people from all over the world that we’re on our programs. And as long as they avoided other sources like vitamin A palmitate and they took the cod liver oil there was seeing improvements in behavior focus all kinds of things. So said, almost everybody is deficient in vitamin A, unless you are eating liver or taking cod liver oil. Yeah. Because we have very few sources of vitamin A
Vaish:
Are you? Are you still liking I used to do a lot of fermented cod liver oil? For some reason, I’ve kind of gotten out of that habit. Do you prefer the fermented cod liver oil to a regular one?
Kay Ness:
We find, I usually recommend the green pastures the diversity that Yeah, with a vitamin K to with butter oil. Vitamin K two is also very important for a mineral distribution. So this isn’t neurodevelopmental work, but this is what I do. And I know it’s interesting, here’s another thing I see Well, okay, let’s talk about Down syndrome, the century system. There’s a, there’s a lot you can do with a century and development.
One of the things I’m very proactive on I’m proactive on a lot of things is, you know, the downside on a walk, all right, between the leg, the poor leg left and the poor hip joints I am very proactive in getting those kids crawling, creeping, developing the quadricep muscles. And working on that muscle tone with deep pressure and all this stuff on my website, I have the tactile sequence you can do with your child under free stuff. All right, you can do the deep pressure, you can do the, you know, the gnostic, the running the scan, you can do the hot and cold. But the deep pressure is especially important for muscle tone.
Working on this quadriceps strengthening the leg lifting, and also working on the butt then ski reflex and the leg lifting reflex. So they get a good leg lift when they walk, and the crawling and the creeping and all that will help develop those hip sockets. hip sockets are developmental. So when a baby’s born that the femur comes up and just bumps against the hip bone, and by the normal movement, it actually digs in and makes a ball and socket and turns the head of the femur to form a good ball and socket. So many of the kids don’t get all of that they don’t develop a good hip joint.
I’m very proactive on that. In the area of auditory, I want lots of high-quality input, I recommend Mozart with headphones, with headphones because it directly impacts the tympanic membrane, the auditory pathways to the brain, and keeping those auditory pathways open by not having earwax and treating air-fluid aggressively. I had some kids that stood up and walk the day they got your troops walking because they had your influence. And that affected the balance. So they couldn’t walk.
Vaish:
I’ve actually noticed something similar just very recently over the past month with my son that he has some fears of walking on bridges. Like I think he’s afraid he’ll fall down of the bridge, he won’t even get on a bridge. It’s like a very strong fight or flight response. I always thought it was visual. And then what happened is I put these headphones on him and he walked on the bridge and then he was afraid of water and I put headphones on him and the fear went away and was afraid of those firecrackers that we did during the valley last week.
This one once that made any sound actually so it wasn’t auditory it was just visual but I put headphones on him and the fear of and so I was very surprised as to the that sounds I don’t know whether it was on sensitivity with what but it was impacting something out of the park was completely unrelated.
Kay Ness:
That’s interesting because usually a fear of going up and downstairs. Escalators is visual. Mm-hmm. I prefer vision. Yeah. It could be this particular which is what you’re seeing probably sound sensitivity usually goes away with magnesium and cod liver oil. Yep.
Vaish:
Didn’t happen so much for him but we’re still digging into that yes, I agree with you. I’ve seen that magnesium deficiency and, and vitamin E seem to help sound sensitivity. I think I learned it from you long ago.
Kay Ness:
The combination of the two is my magic bullet, but also I do Mozart with headphones a lot. Right? That’s like we call it our Walmart sound therapy. Put the headphones on and listen to I like Mozart or Baroque. If any Baroque the high frequencies, the very mathematically structured sound and the overturn. high-frequency sounds are very stimulating to the brain. low-frequency sounds shut the brain down. Alright, so you see the kids in the car next year waiting at the light with their speakers going. Yeah, shutting their brain down. Alright, um, okay.
Vaish:
I mean, that was, that was a lot of information. So thank you, I’m gonna list that. And I think I might actually also copy that into a blog because this is fantastic. And I hope, people will reach out to you, can you tell us where people can reach out to you if they’d like to work with you
Kay Ness:
can calm down, but I didn’t get to talk about auditory processing.
Vaish:
So please continue. Let’s finish that. Let’s talk about that.
Kay Ness:
All right, we talked about every child is intelligent, but they can’t get it out, they can’t express it. The number one thing with Down syndrome is auditory processing. And that is the ram of your mental computer. That is how many pieces you can take in auditorily. And in your short-term working memory and output. So if your auditory memory is low, and this is why I test, you know, I’m testing just a person that can be back to me auditorily,
I’ll say a sequence of sounds and having a pilot, I can do touch sequence, touch your nose, your hair, and your ear, they can do three, they’re vaccinating, and a three-year-old level, if they can do one, they’re functioning at a one-year-old level, it doesn’t matter their age, if they are our children with Down syndrome to have an independent life, they need to be at six or better. Alright.
I’ll say a sequence of sounds B, row, seven, D, eight, pi, and haven’t moved. Put that back, you know if they can do that. So you can do touch sequence direction sequences. And I have, I have articles on hearing listening learning on my website, talking about auditory processing, and auditory processing, oh, and the work of Dr. Sue Buckley and in England, on the Down Syndrome research project there, she showed that she showed that practicing the auditory simplices you can increase them, alright.
Each increase in the digit is a developmental year. So you practice frequently throughout the day, the auditory sequences and the counting intense, Be positive, be rewarding, and be patient. Because
Vaish:
be intense, be positive be,
Kay Ness:
and be patient. Okay? Because it is very frustrating and hard to change. So, the change is worth it if a child is called intellectually disabled because his auditory processing is low. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay, thank you. So that’s a piece you need with t 21. Or, you know, all those bad labels out there. Right. Well, mental delay, and so forth. You are beautiful.
Vaish:
Thank you. Okay, thank you. We’re so positive and, and I love that you, you know, you believe so much. It’s not even believed I’d feel like the belief is the wrong word, you know, the intellectual ability of children of our children. Right. So it’s just that something you know, it’s like belief seems like something that we’re thinking onto. It’s not a belief. You just know it.
Kay Ness:
Yeah. Yeah. We’re, we’re swimming upstream, though. Yeah. Yeah.
Vaish:
And hopefully, that’ll change soon. And hopefully that this model will become more accepted by the mainstream maybe in 10 years.
Kay Ness:
But it’ll be changed by parents. Yeah,
Vaish:
I think thank you for joining us. Here you can find k@www.ks.com That’s kyess.com. So I am super eager to know what ideas this podcast sparked in you, you can share on facebook.com/functionalnutritionforkids. Now one of my goals for this year is to reach into the depths of wisdom for gut healing and learning techniques for children with Down syndrome or autism and or learning disabilities and to share them on this podcast and to reach this community more and more. And in order for more people to listen to this podcast to be able to even know about this podcast, you know what helps most a review.
Now I am doing a giveaway for the rest of this month. Mushroom matches latte because if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I talk about matcha lattes a lot. Okay. And I talk about medicine and mushrooms as well. So just drop me a note or an email at violet functional nutrition for kids to start to calm. That’s the @Vaish functionalnutritionforkids.com. So in that note, you can just drop a subject saying you’ve dropped a few that’s all I need to know You are in for the drawing signing off I’m your host Vaish and music was by my Maitri gosh bye
