GEORGETOWN – Janice Foot’s son Scott was diagnosed with autism when he was three and over the next eight years, she tried everything under the sun to try and help him.
She took him to a speech and language pathologist. She tried applied behaviour analysis therapy with him. She did whatever his schoolteachers suggested.
“But it wasn’t enough for Scott. He had the behaviours and symptoms (of autism) but nothing was working for him,” she said in an interview.
It wasn’t until she was at a conference in San Diego when the keynote speaker Dr. Alan Fogel spoke about stress in the hippocampus – the part of the brain that plays a major role in learning and memory.
His point was that the hippocampus is pliable and just as it can be damaged by outside stimuli, so can it be improved by the right stimuli.
Foot said she started reading more about it and came upon Judith Bluestone’s book The Fabric of Autism.
Bluestone famously had autism and a host of other disorders. In her life she studied everything from neuroscience and human development to visual processing and sensory-motor integration to understand from the outside what was happening to her on the inside.
That led her to develop an alternate approach and in 1994 she founded the HANDLE Institute, short for Holistic Approach to Neuro-Development and Learning Efficiency.
According to its website, “the HANDLE program helps enhance the functioning of the brain and body through a compassionate approach that taps into the body’s natural ability to reorganize and improve itself.”
Foot said she read the book and it all made sense.
“I read it, I took the introduction course, we spent a weekend with a screener and were referred to a practice in Peterborough,” she said.
“And after eight years we had answers to Scott’s perplexing behaviour and a treatment plan.”
The HANDLE program is different from other therapies in that it considers the entire person and not just the symptoms.
And in figuring out a treatment plan, it considers internal and external triggers like smells, lights, noises and how they affect the brain and the neuropathways to the rest of the body.
Foot called it life changing.
“It allowed me to view Scott’s autism in a different way. They looked at his strengths and we started to understand what his behaviour was telling us,” she said.
“Instead of seeing autism, they saw my son and the gifts he had. And they built on that. It changed our perspective.”
Scott had only a few words at the time but two of them were “I’m stuck.”
“With HANDLE, we found a way to get him unstuck,” she said.
Based on Scott’s success, Foot trained to be a HANDLE trainer and screener and now runs a practice in Georgetown called the Branching Out Centre.
The program works for more than just autism, she said. She hesitated to list conditions because central to the theory is not assigning labels.
But the method can help with autism, Tourette’s, dyslexia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, digestion issues, chronic headaches and even depression and anxiety, Foot said.
It’s not a cure but it can help lessen symptoms and provide tools to cope when difficult situations arise.
It starts with screening.
Foot will spend time with a client and develop a neuro-development profile to establish strengths and weaknesses. From that she develops a series of exercises – activities really – that when done repeatedly over time, can spark new pathways in the brain.
Most people have heard of the fight or flight response – the physiological reaction when we are in a frightening situation. Hormones are released that either prepare you to stay and fight or run away to safety.
But sometimes the body will release those hormones when there is no imminent danger. And some people live in a chronic state of fight or flight, Foot said.
What her exercises do is help people develop new neurological pathways, so they are not in that chronic state and they can move into a state of rest and repair.
The exercises can also help the vestibular system – the inner ear responsible for processing information about movement, balance and space.
People with autism often display behaviours like excessive rocking, staring at things that spin or conversely becoming ill from watching spinning things.
HANDLE can also help people with balance issues, motion sickness and reading, comprehension and language development.
“I saw Scott’s systems shift as he developed new neurological pathways,” Foot said.
“Once he was non-verbal; now he can speak. He only used peripheral vision; now he can look people in the eye.
“His brain began connecting pathways in all his systems. The change was incredible.”
Foot is also trained in the Irlen Method, which uses glasses with light filters that can reduce sensory overload and allow the brain to process visual information more accurately.
The Irlen method can help people who have had a head injury or concussion, who get migraines and a host of other afflictions.
“Like HANDLE, it takes the brain to a state of calmness and that allows the brain to process visual information,” Foot said.
“I want to tell my story so people can be aware. A family can be lost in all this, filled with despair, grief, fear. I know I blamed myself for Scott’s problems.”
Foot said the sessions are 30 to 45 minutes and the prescribed activities take about 30 minutes a day for the client.
She noted she had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and used these techniques on herself.
“I realized I had been in fight or flight for years. This really opened things for me. Now I have anxious moments, but I’m not crippled by it,” she said.
Scott is now 23, is pursuing college and employment and is active in the community.
“Often people come to me at the end of their rope,” Foot said. “If they came at the beginning, they could have avoided that journey.
“It sounds so simple but it’s such a unique treatment. And it can really help you manage your life.”
For more information, visit branchingoutcentre.com.
