A beautiful sunny spring day welcomed providers from across the UK to a 19th Century former Hunting Lodge in Nottinghamshire for the 2011 ABT Provider Update.

The day began with a presentation from Alan Heath, UK Representative for Advanced Brain Technologies, on the similarity in the challenges experienced in Specific Language Impairment (SLI), Dyslexia and poor readers generally. Following the Phonological Processing Deficit hypothesis, Alan reviewed existing research in the area and constructed a rationale for the use of The Listening Program® (TLP) to help with SLI, Dyslexia and lack of progress in reading generally. This is supported by published and forthcoming research into TLP and reading.

We were fortunate that June Rogers MBE was able to be with us to share the amazing results of the use of TLP and bone conduction with doubly incontinent children with ASD and Down Syndrome. June, who recently won the Child Health Nurse of the Year Award for the TLP study, discussed the practicalities of the study, the powerful results obtained and linked this to Stephen Porges’ theories of the functioning of the Vagus nerve. Read more

After a relaxing lunch, the afternoon was spent discussing the possibilities of working towards assessment tools that can be used across professions by providers to begin to combine action research studies into much larger populations of listeners. Gwyneth Jeyes and Dr. Dilys Treharne of Sheffield University kindly offered to drive this project forward in the coming months. Planning is underway for an International Conference towards the end of 2012 in London and Learning Solutions will welcome any input into the Conference programme.

Alan Heath has shared his presentation to the providers with us and it is now available on the website. Read more