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We’d like to thank ChiroSecure for again, having our backs and giving us this amazing platform to enlighten the world about kiddos and chiropractic. So Elizabeth is gonna take a short nap while we get to hang out. Good night, Elizabeth. I’m Dr. Monica Berger, and I’m super excited today to bring you some incredible information that we need to know, and that is how to battle the back to school brain.
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Yes, we are already almost we’re more than halfway through August. Of 2025. Imagine that some kiddos have started to titrate back into school and some are gonna be going back in the next few weeks. And so there’s a lot of shifts and routines and trying to get used to it from both mom and dad’s end to grandparents in to the kiddos end.
So the transition time can be a bit difficult, but let’s look beyond that and that’s where I’m gonna give you some amazing golden nuggets that you really must know in your. Practices And what’s that? That is how to screen to evaluate if a kiddo is neurologically ready to for the demands of school.
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We’re gonna drop three, three, I can count three, three basic things that I’m gonna give you to do a, three to four or five minute screening in your offices to evaluate to help parents and kiddos understand where their kiddos at and to help them be the most successful in school. Ready?
Set. Let’s go. Let’s do this. Okay. We’re gonna start, there’s different ways you can screen for this. And the three things that you’re gonna look for are gross motor, fine motor. Ocular-motor or visual motor. So again, there’s different ways to screen for this. I am going to give you the most commonly cited in the literature.
The reason I’m doing that is because if you want to dig in and dive into the literature like I do you’ll have something tangible. To present to parents, teachers, counselors, so and so forth. I do a lot of work with the schools in southeastern Idaho and I’ve taught CE classes for them. And it’s really been a huge stepping stone for my practice and more on that in a com upcoming episode potentially, but.
So that way you have some backing behind you. So let’s go with gross motor first. Gross motor is gonna, gross motor is needs to come on board before fine motor and before ocular motor. Ocular motor or visual motor is a fine motor skill. So we’re gonna start with a granddaddy, the tree trunk. Okay, and how can we, if easy.
Easily screened for that in our practices. Okay. Tandem walk heel, toe walk. Ha. Now I’m gonna base this off of a five year old-ish skills. So obviously if a 5-year-old is not successful in accomplishing these motor skills, these sensory motor skills, then. We sh definitely a 6, 7, 8, 14-year-old should be.
Got it. So we can use this screening for those that should be neurologically ready to start kindergarten and beyond. Okay. And I advocate, I, I’ve been teaching for over 30 years, and I would, if I would tell people, if you wanna build your practices, do these screenings, go to daycares, go to your your churches, your local moms groups, whatever, and say, Hey let’s line your, the, these little fiddle farts up that are just gonna start entering into kindergarten, and let’s see how we can help make their life.
As stress free and as successful as possible when they get into school. Okay, cool. So tandem walk heel, toe walk. It is literally matching the heel to the toe and walking a line. Take a get some duct tape. They’ve got some cool duct tapes out now, right? They’ve got superman or characters on him or whatever.
Fun stuff for kiddos. Put about an eight to 10 foot line. Down a hallway and have them heel toe walk. And I say heel toe with no spaces, meaning they have to butt their heel up to their toe as they take each step. A five-year-old should be able to do that successfully. Eyes open at this point. Now if you wanna do it, eyes closed, that will just enhance their need for proprioceptive skills.
Okay but let’s go with five-year-old’s. Eyes open, heel, toe walk, eight to 10 feet forward. Can they do that successfully without falling over to one side without losing their balance? Can they do it? Butting their heel up to their toe? No spaces in between. Next one for gross motor. Now we’re still on gross motor.
Okay. Can they balance on one leg successfully for at least 10 seconds? That means that they balance only on one leg and they don’t use the other leg as a crutch. It’s called a posturing. So do they have, if they’re balancing on their left leg, do they have to have their right leg up and propping, put butted up against their left leg to support their left leg?
That’s a no-no. Okay. That’s called posturing. So can they stand on each leg for at least 10 seconds? They should be able to do that successfully. Boom, there’s your gross motor skills. If they’re struggling with one of those, then that’s a red flag in the back of your brain. Now we put that together with fine motor sequential finger touching.
Can they sequential finger touch each hand separately and both hands together now? There’s some keen eye things that you’re gonna look for here. Do they do what? I say happy os Okay. Big O’s. Happy os Cheerios. We’re doing Happy Os and Cheerios. We’re not doing squishy Os. Okay. We’re not doing this because Squishy OS is a little cheap.
When they do sios, they’re looking for more surface space on their fingers. For more proprioceptive and tactile input into the brain because this gives them less. And this is this is a more accurate fine motor skill. So single-handed, both handed, happy os not squishy os five year olds should be able to do that.
And the other thing you’re gonna look for is, do they have any overflow movement? I used to call it overflow movement. Now they call it a neurological soft sign. ’cause they have to change names of everything. All right. So what that means is, while one hand is doing the work, is there another body part that they’re using as a crutch in order to make this happen?
For instance, are they doing this?
Using their tongue, their mouth, or is the other hand trying to move at the same time. The working hands moving, that’s called overflow or assisted movement, or a neurological soft sign. And that’s meaning that the each hemisphere isn’t a strong as it should be. And it’s. Doesn’t have an inhibitory effect on the opposite side.
That should not be working. Okay, that’s a fine motor skill. Getting a shoestring and some cheap little beads at the dollar store. And seed if tie, tie one end the shoestring in a knot so the beads don’t fall off. Can they string about 10 beads? With their right hand and with their left hand. Can they do it each side?
Can they pick up the bead again? Fine motor. Can they pick up the bead, manipulate it and put it on a shoestring? Right hand, left hand, boom. Now we got gross motor covered. We’ve got fine motor covered. Can they do these successfully? And what can we do for ocular motor or visual motor? Put a beanbag on their head.
They can’t move their head and you tell ’em, don’t let that beanbag fall off. Okay? So that makes sure that they’re sit, they’re upright against gravity, standing straight with good posture, the beanbag’s on their head. Don’t move your head ’cause that beanbag can’t fall off. And I want you to watch my special pen only with your eyes, not with your head, no head movement.
And basically what you’re looking for is can they visually track? Across the midline without moving their head, and can their eyes have a smooth pursuit across the midline at least six times. That’s for tracking. Okay, eye tracking then for convergence and divergence, by the way, visual processing. Again, it’s gonna be a fine motor skill because you’re using your, the fine ocular eye mode muscles around the eye to move to navigate the eyes.
Visual processing is very much associated with dyslexia. Fine motor skilled reading, writing issues. And A DHD is, has a high correlation with visual processing dysfunction. If we can’t get gross motor on board first, that tree trunk, if they can’t balance, they can’t tandem walk, it’s gonna be hard to get those fine motor skills on board.
And their second screening for ocular motor is convergence and divergence. And that’s where, again, standing up. Good posture because you want you want vestibular and proprioceptive information maxed out because not one sensory system is working at a time. They’re all working together, right?
Especially visual, vestibular and proprioceptive. Those are the three big systems that are associated with learning attention, behavior, and post-concussion, post head injuries, et cetera. Have the, you have your little secret pen or whatever you want them to track out far, and you’re looking, can they watch Ms.
Llama’s head as is coming into you about two to four inches from the nose, and then as it moves out, so it’s convergence and divergence and what you’re looking for are both eyes teaming equally and accurately. As it’s coming in for convergence, do those eyes tag team and they’re both turning in equally accurately at the same rate and time, and can they hold it or does one eye struggle and wanna dart back out?
Then as the objects diverging, can those eyes equally and accurate at the same time and turn back out and relax. Okay, so boom, ba, there you have it. There’s your three point screening. Five minutes or less to assess if a person is neurologically ready, if a kiddo is neurologically ready to sit in school and for learning attention, behavior, et cetera.
If these skills are not mature enough. Their brain is telling you, their nervous system is telling you that it’s not ready to take in all this academic information throughout the day. And what does that result in? That results in cookie brain. A crazy brain, right? That it results in the kiddo that just shuts down or that’s squirming around and can’t pay attention, or maybe is labeled as A-D-D-A-D-H-D.
It’s because the systems and networks in the brain aren’t ready to handle the load that they’re about to endeavor. Now, how then do we tie this into chiropractic? Boom, here’s your scoop. Alright, mom, dad, teachers, counselors, principals, whoever you’re talk, whatever your audience is, right? All this information’s jumping in into the base of the brain, the little brain, it’s called the cerebellum.
All this sensory information from the outside world and inner world to tell my bro to, for my brain to know what my body needs to be able to balance, to move my eyes in a certain way. It comes in from this sensory input and it blands in the cerebellum, and then it takes a hopscotch jump up to the part of the brain that integrates all the sensory input, and then it skips up to the front part of the brain where our executive functioning takes over and that’s where you will grab them.
Because so many people now are very savvy when you say the words executive functioning. That is a part of the brain that is needed for learning, detention, behavior social skills, self modulation. It’s very much associated with A DHD and not being able to sit and pay attention. So what, when I’m examining little Charlie here and I did this little screening and I saw that there was some areas that he’s struggling in, did you see that he can’t heel toe walk.
He always wants to fall to his right side. Yeah. And then he had trouble balancing on his right leg. And when I wanted him, when we asked him to do Happy os or Boom booms, he had really a hard time with his right hand. It was just like his brain was just di disconnected from his body. And the stringing the beads on the right side was hard.
That could tell me that the right side of this. Bottom part of the brain isn’t getting the information in as it needs to, and it’s not sending the information to the left side of the brain that’s involved in this executive functioning, and then they perk up. Okay? But the good news is that I also examine the little Charlie, I examine his spine for vertebral subluxations.
And I found that there’s some areas in his spine. Look at right here by his, is it lower part of his neck and down by his hips? Look, he’s six years old. He’s probably taking some rough and tumble falls, right? Oh yeah. He’s a rough kid. Yeah. Okay. These vertebral subluxations, it’s misalignments, it’s those areas of the spine that aren’t moving properly and that’s going to dis, that’s gonna disconnect the information from his body to his brain.
Then his brain really doesn’t know the stat of his body and where his fingers are, or where his eye muscles are, have to move in order to read. And that can lead a disconnect between the brain and the body and the brain. But guess what we have seen in the chiropractic neuroscience world that by removing vertebral subluxations, by doing a very specific chiropractic adjustment.
It helps this information coming into the brain to process better for the brain to process. And you know what? There’s a couple key areas that we know of that have been affected in a good way. That happens to be where that information jumps in at that base of the brain and where the information is in that executive part of the brain.
So if we, now these studies have been done on adults, that’s, these are mostly where we’re doing, seeing the findings, but a study that came out about a year ago, these amazing chiropractors were doing it in school program and adjusting kiddos and saw that some of those signs of. DHD were were less than in those kiddos that were receiving chiropractic care in the school setting.
How about that mom? That’s amazing. So what we’re, what I’m telling you is what I would propose is that little Charlie, we start ’em under a program here and we help the brain get the information from the body, help the sensory input be organized and integrated. We watch and we check these motor skills to see how they come along, because that’s gonna help give us a status of what Charlie may or may not need at that, at given time.
Boom, there’s your exam. There’s your ROF, there’s your interpretation to your audience, whoever they are, about neurologically focused chiropractic for kiddos. Now, if you wanna go on to add neuro integrative exercises or what have you, that is just a caveat. To helping regulate and remove those vertebral subluxations.
So there you have it, school readiness from a neurologically focused chiropractic lens. If you want more of this incredible information, scroll down. Take a look at the link. Jump on now because these kiddos need you. They need you so bad. Join our foundations of neural development program. Learn more.
Become the go-to pediatric chiropractic. Your community. I can’t wait to see you on the inside once again. Hopefully you enjoyed that information and we wanna thank ChiroSecure for always having our backs and giving us this phenomenal platform. Join me in September where we’re gonna get you ready for National Sensory Awareness Month, which is in October, but we’re gonna get you prepped next month, so don’t miss it.
Be there. We’ll see you then.
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