The Sensory System and its relation to Dyslexia, ADHD and Executive Function.

Christine Robenhalt, PT...

is a physical therapist, wife, and mother to three children (two of whom are dyslexic). She is a clinical manager at Spark Home Health and owner of Sweet Pea Pediatric Wellness. Christine mainly works with children, but also has a strong interest in nutrition and addressing pain management for all. 

Since 2013, she has been a pioneer in the use of live video visits to provide children in rural areas of the State of Colorado with physical therapy services. She values a multidisciplinary approach and actively works to build bridges between patients, providers, and families.

The Sensory System, Dyslexia, ADHD...

Raising Kellan Podcast

In Episode, 41 of the Raising Kellan Podcast she educates listeners about signs and symptoms of dyslexia and ADHD and things parents can do to help while figuring out how to get testing and resources. She also discusses the sensory system including the 10 senses which she uses as a foundation to talk about dyslexia, ADHD, and executive functioning.

Resources: 

1) Christine has two interesting podcasts: Sparkler Parents and Dyslexically Successful available on Apple, Spotify and Anchor.

Sparkler Parents Podcast

Transcript

Marsh Naidoo (00:22):

Hi guys. Welcome to the Raising Kellan podcast. For those of you listening in for the first time, my name is Marsh Naidoo. I blog at raisingkellan.org where we curate resources for special needs parenting. In today's episode number 41, we talk with Christine Robenhalt, a physical therapist, wife, and mom to three kids, two of whom are dyslexic. Christine is the owner of Sweet Pea Pediatric Wellness in Colorado, and today she's going to discuss the sensory system, including the 10 Senses, which she uses as a foundation to talk about dyslexia, A D H D, and executive functioning. Christine also hosts two podcast sparkler parents and Dyslexic successful. Welcome, Christine.

Christine Robenhalt (01:26):

Well, thanks for having me talk to you.

Marsh Naidoo (01:29):

Listen, I'm so happy that you, you're going to be chatting with us on this early Friday morning. I think it's March the 26th. And so we've had a few questions from when we posted on Facebook, <affirmative> telling folks about this talk and talking about dyslexia as well as, yeah, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder(ADHD). We should lay a bit of a foundation. And I just wanna talk a little bit about the sensory system, talking about the skin and talking about the senses. <affirmative>, if you would like to head into that, that would be awesome.

Christine Robenhalt (02:15):

For sure. So yeah, thanks Marsh. And these are topics I'm very passionate about. So if I get a little off track, just bring me back. And I think one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this topic, I mean, yes, I am a pediatric physical therapist and yes, I have children who have dyslexia but myself, I also am dyslexic. And I didn't know that until my son was diagnosed. But then going back and understanding what dyslexia is, I realized that I'm also a dyslexic learner. As a child, I was just considered loud and fast and always into something. But those were things as a girl that were, I think valued. And so I didn't get a diagnosis of ADHD.

(03:18):

And again, after I started having kids, the stress, and actually it was trauma, the birth process for me through me into symptoms of ADHD that I'm still struggling with today, 12, 13 years later, after. And so again, I think the predisposition for that was there just was not diagnosed, definitely not medicated but along that came anxiety, along that came motor challenges. I am the clumsiest physical therapist you'll meet. So all of this, my current experience is always coming from this lens of what I experience, which just, I think what we all do, at least if we are aware.

Marsh Naidoo (04:14):

That's the key, isn't it? The awareness when you talk about the senses Christine you know what, that's gonna be fundamental right there. Talking about the skin is the largest organ in the body. Talking about reflexes, guys, that's gonna be Anatomy 1 0 1, and perhaps not within the scope of this podcast, but kind of just a little bit of a framework, which parents, can you give parents just a little bit of background or framework of the sensory system because both dyslexia and ADHD kinda are woven in there, but just a bare-bones explanation.

Christine Robenhalt (05:03):

Okay, I'll try. And you're right, because both dyslexia, ADHD, even autism are neurodevelopmental issues. And if that's the case, that this is an issue that is within the brain or within the neurological system we use our senses to tell us about our world, our environment. And that's not only our external environment, what I can touch, taste here, see, smell, but also our internal environment, which would include things like how am I feeling from the inside on a, and this is really from a hormonal or neurochemical standpoint. And of course we don't perceive that, but how do you really know you're hungry? Well, you might have a little rumbling in your tummy, but that's not always why you're hungry. It's more of this chemical. And are you able to be in tune to that? Gosh, this also an ability to understand where you are in space based off of the position of your joints as a physical therapist, whether you're a pediatric or an adult therapist, that's proprioception. And I used to understand percep, just that I would have the client close their eyes and move their wrist and do, if your wrist is flexed or extended, okay, well that's, yeah, bend or straight, that's great, but it's not enough. What the proprioceptive system is really telling us is, are you safe there? And if you are feeling safe there, you will then have access to be able to discriminate the position. So first comes safety.

(07:15):

I slouch in general and always had as a child. And my mother would constantly tell me, Chrissy, sit up straight, Chrisy, sit up straight. And I'm like, What are you talking about lady? I'm sitting up perfectly straight. No you're not. Because I had no aware my body didn't perceive

Marsh Naidoo (07:35):

No what straight is

Christine Robenhalt (07:37):

And that's proper reception. Yeah. So it wasn't that I couldn't do it cuz I could clearly do it. And it wasn't that I was being lazy. I didn't recognize within my body that this is straight and that my body didn't even tell me that feedback of, yeah, you're okay here, you should, this is a good thing, stay here. In fact, my body said no, especially if I'm stressed or nervous or anxious, which I spent my entire childhood until my early twenties is a ball of anxiety that I needed to be here. So it's not about just do I know where I am, but before that is am I okay being there

Marsh Naidoo (08:24):

Guys? And this is audio. So what Christine basically did is that she went into a ball position. So not being safe up erect, but perhaps in a moment of flight or fight, just kind of curling up some.

Christine Robenhalt (08:42):

Yeah, and I think again <laugh>, even babies, you watch them and you see, oh, that's kind of interesting. You don't like to be on your tummy. I wonder why you don't like that or you don't like to do those things with your body. I wonder why you don't like, It's not because they don't want to in the sense of, I'm not gonna do that today, mom. I don't want to, Something in their body is telling them, No, don't do that. That doesn't feel okay. Would you want to continue to do something that felt uncomfortable?

Marsh Naidoo (09:20):

No.

Christine Robenhalt (09:21):

So our senses give us information, give us data. Our senses don't tell us what to do with that data that happens in our brain and our brain. And I didn't talk about all of our senses. So vestibular is the fluid inside our inner ear. Passing the hair cells as we move our head gives information to our brain about where we are in space, but it also about velocity, how fast we're moving rotation works with our visual system again, would

Marsh Naidoo (09:54):

You be okay if we put the senses down maybe on a blog format for parents to Oh, I've got one for you. Okay, that's good. So they can access what actually the senses are. And this is going out of the realm of your typical everyday what we learned five senses, right? Christine Course that that's awesome. So that would be good information guys for y'all. But so we receive that information from around us, it goes up to the brain and then what happens, Christine?

Christine Robenhalt (10:34):

So it's gonna travel from our external internal senses, wherever those sense organs are. So like you said, skin is our largest organ, but within our skin and our muscles and our tendons and our joints and all of that, we have 13 different types of receptors. And each of those receptors have different jobs that teach us about safety. And our brain is our human brain through evolution has developed so many amazing capabilities just crazy things that our brains can do.

Marsh Naidoo (11:23):

And so many layers as well.

Christine Robenhalt (11:25):

Correct. The older, more primitive lay layers of brains of all animals that have a spinal cord, <laugh> are still there. So I once saw a picture of a jelly, not a jellyfish, an octopus attacking an eagle. Okay, so how does this work? The eagle came and somehow was able to get the octopus and the octopus with its nervous system reacted and attacked the eagle. I don't know the outcome of that particular encounter, <laugh>, but it's tough. So through evolution we have developed and yes, we are not octopuses, we are not even eagles. We are much more than that. Our brains are three and 3.3 pounds as an adult mass of highly connected, efficient pathways that allow us to achieve this amazing mental capacity. But we are not only that, there are so many programs that are running in our subconscious that in all reality, if we had to pay attention to all of those things, we would go crazy. We can't. But you do have to have enough awareness to slow down and kind of get in touch with what is this data coming in, not ignoring it and just driving forward because this data is a compiling information for us to use.

(13:29):

So even though we're not aware of every single touch or every single interaction, every single sound, we can't be that way. A child who has ADHD is, and they're the ADHD is like every single sound that comes in, they've gotta check in, Is that safe? Is that something I have to attend to? And then because they're not sure whether or not they need to, and if it's something that's more interesting, whatever you and I are doing is no longer important because something else has now grabbed their attention and then they go because of that sensory system, because they are so much more reactive to the information coming in, their threshold overall of being able to take in the information without having to immediately do something with it is lower because the information is coming in and first comes in through certain filters. So in the lower levels of our brain stem, in the mid level of our brain and our thalamus we have these filters built in for safety, protection, survival of our species. You and I, if we are able to take in information and it makes sense to our body and it goes past those filters or bodyguards or whatever you want, analogy, metaphor you wanna use, then we get to get to the arrival of that awesome really cool cortex of our brain where we can learn how to discriminate

(15:12):

But if everything is getting stopped, because we're not perceiving safety because our brain isn't able to make the correct prediction against what the information is,

(15:28):

We are set into this sense of dysregulation of stop, of block, of don't learn, can't go forward, okay? It's like we're going on a bear hunt what do you do? Gotta, we're coming through the river, we gotta swim through it. So if you and I we're like, okay, we're in this scary place, I don't feel super comfortable, but I'm gonna keep going. Okay, we'll learn. But if the other child's like, Whoop, nope, I'm, I'm not feeling comfortable here with this information coming in, this does not feel safe to me. They're gonna go a different path. And that information that they do learn on that path is different than the information they would have been gathering on the path that we typically take for learning how to read that we typically take for learning executive functioning skills. So it all starts with our sensory system because from zero to two years old, that's all we got.

Marsh Naidoo (16:34):

That's right.

Christine Robenhalt (16:37):

And if the information coming in from your sensory systems, including interpersonal, include, including intuitive, how I feel in my environment as a whole, if I feel good, if I feel I can create a connection with my caregivers, I feel safe. I'm going to be allowed to be vulnerable. I'm going to allow myself to explore and be curious. If I don't feel, if I don't perceive a safety, there's a shutdown and I'm in protection, I'm in survival. And what I learn at that point is every time I reach my threshold, I need to come into survival. My learning stops. You cannot protect and grow at the same time. This is true for a two -year-old, this is true for a 102-year-old .

(17:34):

<affirmative> because it's the same nervous system. So I'll say we have to be in a calm and alert state for learning. What does that mean? And I know that I'm talking in these really big picture things. So let me bring it down to an example that you probably have had experience with yourself. Have you ever been watching a TV program and either your son or your husband is giving you information, talking to you, and then you pause from the TV program for a second and you're like, what did you just say? Right? Is there a problem with your ears Marsh? No. Do you have an auditory processing problem? Cause I think you do. If you can't listen to a TV program and your son at the same time. Np there's no problem with you <laugh>. But you weren't in calm and alert for that conversation with your spouse or your son. You were calm, but your focus was on the tv.

(18:37):

So what would happen when our entire world is that way? When I'm in an environment that I don't know what to focus on, I'm feeling everything is important and I can't yet discriminate yet what's important because everything feels like it needs my attention. And so then I stay in this hyper sensitive state for sound, which does go to reflexes. I won't go into reflexes today, but yes, it does go into reflexes as the initial pathway that's set up for us. And again, if that initial pathway is welcomed within our body and we learn from our experiences, lovely, but that isn't what is happening with ADHD and dyslexia. The initial pathway that was set up with our primary reflexes for safety and survival as an infant did not make sense to the child system. And they did not learn what they were supposed to learn from that path. They picked a different path and eventually we'll get to the same destination.

(19:48):

If there was a snowstorm where you live, could you still get to the grocery store? If one road was closed, yes. But is it gonna take you longer? Yes ma'am. It is. <laugh>, are you gonna, that road, whatever that road is called, is a different road and there's different things on the road. So if you had to pay attention to all those things and that was required for you to learn the landmarks on that road, you're learning different landmarks than you would if that first road was open. So my job as a physical therapist, your job as a parent, the teachers is to, I'm all for options, but I <laugh> want to help them learn the most efficient path. That would be ideal. So you can keep going on your roundabout path for learning and that's fine, but I also want you to be okay with this pathway. So on the other hand, there's this other route and good. Yeah, options are good. I don't want the child to only have one way to do things, and that's as a motor therapist and <laugh> as a parent, we don't want our kids only stuck in one way, but I want their way that they're using to be efficient, to be reliable, and to help them get to the destination in a relatively easy way. I don't want them to have to struggle so much. We watch our kids struggle

Marsh Naidoo (21:20):

Before we get too far into it. Guys, I wanna mention that part of the reason for addressing the subject matter as well. Christine is a parents that had a question <affirmative>, and I'm trying to track down the message so that I can make sure we answer this parents' questions regarding ADHD as well as dyslexia. And just for sure, gimme one second

Christine Robenhalt (21:52):

I could probably find it as well.

Marsh Naidoo (21:59):

So I'm gonna go ahead and read it guys. "I have read that many diagnosis such as adhd, I actually having anxiety responses, the sensory overload, glitches, and with attention span reasoning and impulses. I have seen this with kiddos doing the fight or flight. If you are seeing more anxiety issues perpetuating this a d h, is that, how do you say that word?

Christine Robenhalt (22:35):

Cornucopia.

Marsh Naidoo (22:36):

Cornucopia. What are some techniques to best calm a fighter? Christine, I'm gonna hand that over to you.

Christine Robenhalt (22:46):

Sure. I think so. Mom, we and all moms and dads who are listening, we look at our kids through the lens and through the experiences that we have and we do the best we can to make this, create this story. I mean that's what our brains are doing. They're predicting what's going on. But I guess I'll invite you to step back and notice within your own body when you may have felt this way and notice what you do when you feel like you have to fight. Was there really a reason you had to fight or was that just your perception at the moment? And I mean, I guess if you are in an argument with somebody online, they say something and you're really mad about that. And <laugh>, you feel if you slow down enough, you feel it in your stomach, the pit of your stomach or you feel it in your throat, this tightness. And as an adult, we have enough awareness, most people to walk that back or allow that feeling to subside and then we proceed. And this is not easy as an adult either way, by the way.

(24:15):

It can be developed and it needs to be practiced as a child who's the sensory information coming in is narrow and that there's this block or this threshold of how much of something they can tolerate before they feel like they have to react for safety, for survival. Then they're doing this much more often. And if they're going into the state much more often, they're relatively stuck there, their threshold, depending on the experiences they're having either narrows where now it's happening much more frequently and you're like, Oh my gosh, what's going on? So we all have that experience of dysregulation for a little bit. And as an adult, if we've developed coping mechanisms to kind of bring ourselves back to that calm state, that's good. I think as an adult often we just ignore that and we try to move through past it and our kids can't do that yet.

(25:33):

And actually I don't want our kids to do it. So this is a practice that we do need to recognize that our kids are having struggle struggles with this. I think the anxiety and the fight are two separate things. I mean there's this order in general of how we try to handle problems. If we're aware that there's a problem there and somebody is there in confrontational, our first reaction is to fight to protect ourselves. I'm not gonna just sit there and take it, although maybe some people would. Your first reaction is to fight back. If that wasn't successful, then you're gonna try to get out of there if that isn't successful. Another mechanism that we do have in our evolutionary toolbox is to hide or to play dead.

(26:36):

So for survival, these mechanisms are hardwired into our bodies and it's really not, at some level, it's not a conscious choice for the child to react. Now, yes, it may be into a learned behavior in the sense that I reacted 50 times when I reached my threshold. That's really comfortable. To me that has now become a habit. But I would argue that it's not a conscious choice. Just like if you read a text or read a Facebook post and you feel this intense anger and just like you now you yell at your child because you just read. So that's not related to your child. And now you splashed that anger onto them. That wasn't a conscious choice. It was a reaction too. You reached your bit with some sort of stimulus in this case, visual word that gave a thought that they gave an emotion. That gave a thought, and then your reaction was to yell at somebody who has no responsibility <laugh> for this. But we do this as adults, and yet when we look at our children, we think it's so odd because it's happening much more frequently.

Marsh Naidoo (27:56):

We have the ability to modify our responses. Our kids may not have that ability yet. What can we do? How can we calm that fighter?

Christine Robenhalt (28:10):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> lots and lots of practice at where your child is at. So we went back to the fact that we can't possibly notice every single sense that's coming in, but using mindfulness can help us be more aware at certain times when our bodies are calm. So practicing when we are calm, this ability to notice and to be okay with a sound to grow your ability to just pay attention to a smell or if I'm whispering really quietly, that's a technique. When you want your kid to listen to you, maybe you don't yell, maybe you actually whisper. Because why? Because we want to give them a different experience, something that catches their attention. So playing games that when someone is calm and alert that helps enhance their ability to use their senses for an effective way of learning can help grow their tolerance for what's challenging.

(29:30):

We're always looking to support and stretch our child meaning we want to support them with where they are at right now and help stretch them or guide them to that next stage. And most often this is going to be done in baby steps and it's going to be done in everyday experiences. In everyday moments having conversations in the car creating an environment at dinner that is a calm space so that we can turning off a TV so that we can have a calm space to really just pay attention to what's going on within our ownselves. And so everything in our own self is parents is amped up and your child is amped up. I'm gonna predict that we're gonna have a lot more meltdowns if I as a parent am in a little bit calmer space and I can pay attention to when my child is starting to come out of that calm and alert state, I'm gonna have an easier time guiding them back. Now, I don't need to bring a kid back to calm, I don't wanna take them out of their emotion. But I do think it's important to set up some boundaries. I'm okay with my child having whatever feeling or emotion they wanna have as long as they're not hurting themselves or others.

Marsh Naidoo (31:01):

That's right.

Christine Robenhalt (31:03):

And it's not about taking them out of that emotion, even if it's a big emotion, even if it's something that you as a parent are uncomfortable with, let your child experience that emotion if they're safe to themselves and others because then they're going to, the next time they have that emotion, it's not going to be as big. They're going, they're like, wait, now they have a lived experience of, okay, that was all right, I got out of that. And we can practice things to help build that awareness. Just like we practice fire drills in our school. Why do we have fire drills in our school? Well, or other types of drills because bad things have happened and in that moment of emergency, you absolutely need to have survival mechanisms kick in, but we need to do it in an orderly way. We can't have chaos.

Marsh Naidoo (32:09):

What are some techniques, in your opinion, Christine to bold self-esteem in a already negative thinker? Just a few quick tips on that.

Christine Robenhalt (32:22):

Yeah, again, kinda starting with what the child is already doing. So if they're a negative thinker I can't tell you to stop being a negative thinker. That's not gonna happen. So again, we're try, we're trying and we do this because it makes sense to us as an adult, we're just gonna tell you what to do. Stop saying that. Don't, don't be so negative. And you get frustrated as a parent because that doesn't work and you're like, What's wrong with my child? Okay, Again, I would ask you if you were in a state of panic or if you were in a state of overwhelm, does it help for someone to tell you to calm down or to be happy? Does it naturally? That doesn't. But the difference is in that moment with your child, you aren't as upset as they are. You aren't as negative as they are in the moment.

(33:21):

So of course, just come on, snap out of it. It's not that big of a deal. But the perception to the child as is that it is the perception to the child at that moment is that whatever is going on in their school environment, their social environment, their home environment is a big deal. That is not allowing them access to what they know or not allowing them access to use their thinking brain to logically think through the situation. So what I would say is to walk it back and be curious about what's going on. Ask open-ended questions as best as you can Give a little bit of language to your child about what they're experiencing in a non-judgmental way, in a very open-handed, inviting way. Start a dialogue to help better understand exactly what is producing that negative thought, not what you think is, but really hear it from your child.

(34:40):

And this might take a couple of days to get there. One way that I do it is with a share journal. So with anxiety, with both of my boys also have some anxiety. Talking to me is hard. Talking to me about hard, difficult things is like they can't, And I've felt this way throughout my life as well. I just can't even get the words to come out so much so that after my third child was born, I stuttered for an entire year. But that's another story. So a shared journal is a safe space that they can write out, draw out what they're feeling. So that's the answer is to stop a fighter. To stop this anxiety is to be curious as best as can, non-judgemental in the way that we want to really just understand what's going on for our child, what is our child's experience? Because it's most likely not one thing. And yes, most likely it's no big deal to our adult brain, but to the eight year old, to the nine year old, to the five year old, in that moment, it is a big deal. If it made sense to them, they wouldn't be acting this way to you. What is dyslexia?

(36:16):

For me, a child who has dyslexia, you're gonna see it in two main ways. And those two main ways may overlap. And it's going back to our senses of sight or sound. I think for the most part it's gonna almost always be based in sound, but then also some kids persist with the visual piece of it as well. So all of these words I just said are all made up of components of different phone names, meaning not the letters necessarily themselves, but in the word, but we have the sound. And at some point in my life I must have been able to receptively that sound, those sounds that made up that word. And then I could produce it using my articulators of my lips and my tongue <affirmative>, and understanding how to voice that sound and motor plan, how to make that movement. But if you don't hear the sound, if you don't hear the differences in those sounds, you are not gonna know how to try to produce it. And then you get less experience doing that. And then when the word comes out of the auditory realm of words and becomes a symbol on a page, now it's that much more difficult to understand how those auditory phenoms put together, make words. And now there's symbols on a page.

(38:12):

And so the research has shown us that even though in our brain there's specific areas that are really unique to language development, there is not one area that is there already set up for reading. And that's because reading is a relatively recent finding or development in our human evolution. So even though most children, most adults read easily, you provide the experience, they learn from it, Life is good when we're dealing with a child who has dyslexia, that process does not develop just because the experience was given. So it's not because you didn't read to your child enough when they were a baby, it's not because you know didn't drill with flashcards or they're not paying attention in class or because they're lazy. No, in fact, the child with dyslexia, the child with adhd, the child with any learning challenge or motor challenge, truly, and I say that because it's all the same nervous system, your nervous system, my nervous system is the same structure. How it's functioning may be different, but we're all dealing with the same requirements to make a pathway from our internal and external environment to our motor cortex, which is where we would find the stuff that helps us read and talk. So it's all related but yeah, this is that big picture piece that as a dyslexic learner is super easy for me because I've taken the roundabout path away for round for learning and I pick up lots of things on my path.

Marsh Naidoo (40:17):

So being dyslexic, I've heard this. So I just wanna talk a little bit about it Christine. Can you be an efficient reader and have been difficulties transferring what you perceive to actually translating it to paper?

Christine Robenhalt (40:39):

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean it depends on what's the difficulty with the translating it to paper. Is it the actual physical writing, how you're holding your pen or if that you're writing the letters backwards. So we could get into some dysgraphia, which would just be a little bit finer or another component to it. But yes, absolutely. And I would say that there are definite dyslexic learners who love to read. So going back to whether it was a sound piece or a vision piece. So for dyslexic learners who have a little bit more of the visual component, the words may be dancing on the page or the letters may be reversed or I know everybody may type things backwards every now and then, but I do it on a regular basis. Often I'm typing writing and I'm have no awareness that I did that until after I reread my paragraph three or four times or somebody else read it and then they caught it.

(41:50):

So being able to, I know that the word and is spelled a n d, but almost always I'm typing it a d n. So again, I'll say at 43 years old, I've found my own strategies because when I was a child, I was hadn, never received any sort of remediation for this. But when I was tutoring dyslexia, or we had a woman who came to us who was 65 learning how to read for the first time she had gotten by in school, but she really just kind of memorized. Gotcha. So her boss actually was the one who noticed that she was having difficulties reading and mentioned, Hey, have you ever thought about or considered that you might be dyslexic? And then she searched our program out and came for tutoring and did very well. But again, we go back, no matter what age you are, we go back and we help realize where the individual's at and understand where the breakdown is.

(42:58):

The program that I used to tutor with was very explicit in learning all of the sounds for the sounds in school we teach letters. So even just the way that our system is set up for learning puts all children at a disadvantage. And then there's different schools of thought. Some people like phonics, some people like the whole word. It's a falsehood that we learn in whole words. We don't processing in most people so fast. That's how we perceive it. But that's not how our brain is computing those sounds. We're computing the phone ees and to put, to be able to take the sounds apart and to be able to put them back together. And so we need to have an awareness of the sounds first and then this goes all the way back to our senses. So I'll pause here.

Marsh Naidoo (43:56):

Christine has a podcast. Christine, tell us about that podcast.

Christine Robenhalt (44:00):

Sure. It's called Dyslexically Successful. And yes, I know that that is not a word <laugh>, which is kind of the point. <laugh>. Yeah. I have a podcast and I started that podcast because of listening to a different podcast that was talking about community action. And so I started locally in Denver in the Denver, Colorado area these panels of four or five dyslexic adult dyslexic learners. And then it turned into some older children as well, kind of telling our stories to parents and students in our area. So in hopes that we could show the light at the end of the tunnel. Like none. There's no end, right? It's all a process, but when you're in the middle of it, it feels like so overwhelming that you, for whatever challenge you or your children are dealing with, that you do feel like you're alone. You do feel like you're isolated.

(45:04):

You do feel like there's nobody else who's having this experience. And that's not true. I mean, nobody else is having your exact experience. But the way to get us through that is to have somebody shine a light on our path. We are the ones that have to walk the path just like our child. Whatever issue our child is dealing with will be the one who has to walk this path. And as parents, our job is to shine that light. As a physical therapist. I'm not the one making the changes. I'm not the one <laugh>. I think a lot of therapists, I don't know, understand their roles differently. Again, I see my role as a guide. And so all of this is the point of the podcast, the point of those dyslexic successful community panels is to help us do that and create connections. And I really feel too that I mean, we are social beings and we need connection, social connectedness. Yes, absolutely. And if this is one way to do it, in the Covid times, our typical way of connecting was ripped away from us. But I don't think that that means that we can't have other forms of true social connection.

(46:37):

I mean, like you and I are an example of that, right? I've never met you in person. Nope. And perhaps I never will, and yet I have, and we have a connection. So if that can be created virtually than yet than great. And to be open to that and to be open to this curiosity of what else is there or who else is out there like me. And again, I hope my podcast, your podcast can do that with our guests. Then I have a different podcast that I Yeah, mean can I talk about that real briefly as a background? Absolutely. Okay. So it it's called Sparkler Parents. And the whole point again is to really help us as parents understand how every single moment in our day, whether they're good, bad or neutral is an important moment. And we should do our best to be present in that moment because that's creating a connection with our child. And I think a lot of parents have a tendency to parent in fear, In fear that their children aren't going to turn out, they want the children, their child isn't gonna get the right education, the child isn't going to learn respect the child isn't going to whatever, and they are parent from a place of fear.

Marsh Naidoo (48:20):

Christine, I think this is a perfect place to stop. I think you have answered this mom's questions. And as always, thank you so much for your time, Christine.

Christine Robenhalt (48:36):

Of course. You're very welcome. You have a great day.

Marsh Naidoo (48:39):

And parents, just remember this is Christine and me just chatting. Our information here today on the podcast is purely educational and informational. And if you have any concerns, please seek out advice from your healthcare provider. Christine, thank you and I will see you soon. And before you go though your podcast, would you mind telling our parents how they can get to your podcast or how they could reach out to you? Please?

Christine Robenhalt (49:12):

For sure. You can find both podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcast and like six other outlets. So I'm not quite yet on iHeartRadio and Amazon Music, but hopefully Sparkler Parents is the Parenting podcast. It's about five to eight minutes of little snippets about an activity you can do with your child. I also have meditations for both you and your children to help develop that present moment awareness and that mindfulness and then dyslexic successful interviews mainly with adults, but is also on those same outlets. And if you do want to email me you can find me on Facebook as Christine Physical therapist or we can put my email address in the show notes.

Marsh Naidoo (50:04):

I will absolutely do that. And guys, if there are any more questions out there from parents with regards to motion milestones or any questions regarding special needs parenting, you can email me@raisingkiengmail.com. And as always, remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh s Naidu, together with Christine Rowen signing out.