What can NLP and Energetic NLP offer families with Autism and other learning difficulties?

Sponsored by Dinner PAWSible

NLP & AD/HD

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition that some people experience. ADHD manifests itself through numerous symptoms which may include one or more of the following: hyperactivity, impulsiveness, distractibility, lack of organisation, forgetfulness and procrastination.

ADHD impacts school-aged children and results in restlessness, acting impulsively, and lack of focus which impairs their ability to learn properly. It is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3 to 5 percent of children globally and diagnosed in about 2 to 16 percent of school-aged children. It is a chronic disorder with 30 to 50 percent of those individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to have symptoms into adulthood. Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanisms to compensate for some or all of their impairments. It is estimated that 4.7 percent of American adults live with ADHD

In most cases children with AD/HD have wonderful, creative minds, minds that they don’t have control of. A common perception of suffers of ADHD is that they either could not control their mind or their minds controlled them. This often becomes a belief about their capabilities, which effects their abilities to learn causing them to lose interest and value in learning. As the child ages they would start to develop beliefs about their own identity about being “weird” or “different”.

 

 NLP Provides the HOW

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a way of understanding how we use language to program our brain. NLP helps us understand how we process the information that comes into our brains and how we create a simplified version of our experiences in our minds. NLP shows that the simplified version we may accept is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the actual experience, and is largely determined by what we focus on.

Sometimes referred to as ‘the study of subjective experience’ NLP offers very exciting opportunities for students who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. NLP is the study of how individuals put their experience (pictures, words, feelings, actions) together and how effective they are in achieving the results they want. It is based on the premise that we are “programmed” by our past experiences – sometimes in ways that support us and sometimes in ways that limit us. NLP enables you to recognise non-judgmentally any limiting behavioural, communication, learning, or emotional patterns and gives you the tools to do something about them. It shows you how you can shift, or, if necessary, “reprogram” certain beliefs, internal states, behaviours or (learning) strategies so that you are freed-up to get the results you want in your life.

 

Understanding our Mind Filters

To understand how we take information into our neurology and how that affects our behaviour, there is the NLP “model of communication”. It is based on the notion that our five senses; sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, take in two million bits of information at any one moment. Our conscious mind however, is only able take in approximately 126 bits of information during this same time period.

In order to compensate for this vast difference the mind filters the events our senses take in by deleting, distorting and generalising the information through our language, memories, attitudes, values, beliefs, decisions, etc. We then make an internal representation of the world we are taking in, with pictures, sounds and feeling. That puts us in a state of mind, which can change our physiology, that affects our behaviour. All this happens in a fraction of a second and none of it has to happen in any particular order. We are in a constant state of flux, where our physiology can affect our attitudes just as easily as our behaviour can affect our language.

 

The communication model shows how we as humans interpret the world differently. At any one time during your waking experience, you are being bombarded by over 2 million bits of sensory (light, sound, feeling, tastes & smells.) information. We unconsciously filter out the information which is irrelevant to our cause. We leave out the unnecessary so that we can reduce the incoming information to what matters to us at that time.

Boyes (2006) states that these filters do the job of deleting, distorting and generalising according to our model of the world. Each second these 2 million bits of information come in through our senses and are filtered through our memories, beliefs and values, decisions, meta-programs (how you react to information given to you due to your personality traits i.e. how you conceptualise, perceive and comprehend information) and your idea of time/ space, matter & energy. At the end of this process you’re left with your perception. This perception is your internal representation (re-presentation) of the external information around you when it is reduced down from 2 million bits to 126 bits. All internal representations are made up of images, sounds and sensations that constitute our model or image (belief) of the world. These are instantly translated through the nervous system (neurology) and expressed as chemicals in the body (emotion) which then influence our actions (behaviour). Because of this process how we perceive reality can be completely different to the person stood next to us, who generalises this information down to another set of 126 bits of information and experiences their own version of reality, therefore reality is not “out there” but how we filter it to be.

Subjective experience relates to our own unique perception and understanding of the world within and around us. This encompasses all our sensations, emotions, beliefs and knowledge base that we have developed through our life time. These accumulated personal life experiences are made from our filters, which influence our perception of the world and the way we choose to interact with the world. We create our own reality based on our past experience.

 

Bridges to Success

Bridges to Success offers gifted and challenged individuals a completely new perspective on their current experience of learning difficulties, empowering them to achieve what they thought was impossible. Olive Hickmott explains how people can transform learning difficulties into successful learning differences, enabling their extraordinarily talented spirits to shine through. The focus of Bridges to Success is to help children, family members and educators to look past their sometimes debilitating symptoms to their exceptional talents.

This book is the 4th in the New Perspectives series. It demonstrates Olive’s deep understanding of Learning Difficulties that she has gained through working with challenged families, and combines this with her child-centred approach, utilising NLP and Energetic NLP.

 

Olive Hickmott is a health coach, Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, an Accredited Energetic NLP Master Practitioner (E-NLP), a Thought Pattern Management (TPM) Master Practitioner and a member of ISAH (Institute for the Advanced Studies of Health). She also draws on previous experience of Universal Healing Energies, Reiki and the Alexander technique. She trained as a Dementia Champion and is a Director or the International Association for Health and Learning. Olive Hickmott teaches people with chronic health issues, simple skills that will empower them to take more control of their challenges. Olive spent many years in a successful corporate life, before starting her own management consultancy in 1990. Her passion for developing others led her to start coaching several years ago. She has been a coach for Business Link, working with individuals often committed to changing their professional lives in quite a substantive way. On a purely voluntary basis she coached headteachers for “Business in the Community” where she enjoyed the opportunity to give back to the community. She has delivered a mentoring programme at the University of Hertfordshire.

In this interview Olive Hickmott will discuss her passion for helping people with chronic health challenges and/or learning difficulties achieve their goals. Her skills are around empowering people to better understand their own experience and heal themselves with invaluable coaching “how to’s”. The work Olive does with literacy enables children and adults alike to put dyslexia behind them in just a few hours and she also offers simple techniques to assist with ADHD and Dsypraxia

The Interview

Tune in to this segment of The NLP View Radio Show, as host, Donna Blinston is joined by author,Olive Hickmott to discuss how she uses NLP to help people who have learning difficulties. December the 1st, 2012 at 7pm EDT/4pmPST! Stay Tuned!