Brain Integration

The brain is divided into 2 hemispheres: the right and the left. We use both sides of our brain to learn and do different tasks, but everyone has a dominant side from which they primarily operate. The left brain is organized, logical, detail-oriented, systematic, fact-based, analytical, rule-following, judgmental, and controlled. The right brain is disorganized, conceptual, unaware of time, imaginative, informal, intuitive, daydreamy, and whole-picture oriented.

A right-brain dominant person will see and respond to things very differently than a left-brain dominant person. In a classroom setting, a left-brain dominant person will often excel in reading because reading from left to right is a sequential, two-dimensional process. A right-brain dominant person may struggle to keep focus on reading due to its two-dimensional, sequential process. They will often drift off into daydreaming or skip letters, words, or lines as their brain processes in a disorganized way.

Neither side of the brain is more valuable than the other; they are simply designed to accomplish different tasks. Developmental delays, stress, and trauma can cause a disconnection in the brain, resulting in behavioral extremes of the dominant side of the brain. For example, while a left-brain dominant student may do well with the process and content of an assignment, stress can cause them to exhibit the extreme behavior of perfectionism. They might spend unnecessary, extra time on an assignment, obsessing over the details and rules in an effort to achieve perfection. When unbalanced, a right-brain dominant student may focus enough to finish an assignment but be so unaware of time and responsibilities, that they forget to turn it in.

Our brain integration program works to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Brain integration exercises take place over the course of months as each student works on grounding exercises, eye exercises, motor skill development, auditory awareness, visual imagery with kinesthetic processing, and phonemic awareness. Our program also helps each student to learn naturally using his/her dominant side of the brain. Brain integration will not change brain dominance, but it works to eliminate extremes in functioning. For example, a right-brain dominant person will never naturally be talented at memorizing facts, but they are naturally gifted at taking mental pictures and retrieving them later. In this way, students will learn how to get connected to learn!