What is Movement Based Learning?
Brain Gym® for Special Needs Providers (BG 170) offers excellent applications for a variety of mental and physical challenges including: autism, cerebral palsy, attention deficit disorders (ADD and ADHD), dyslexia, Angelman’s Syndrome, Down Syndrome, speech impairments, brain injuries, blindness, deafness and impairments caused by strokes.
Participants taking either course will leave with new skills that optimize learning and performance in all areas of life. And they will find that these tools are immediately applicable in home, school and therapeutic settings.

About the Movement Based Learning Approach

The Movement Based Learning program is geared for use in the educational realm rather than the developmental kinesiology realm. The program teaches adults to work with differently-abled children and adults (through workshops and private consultations) by showing how to observe postural and behavioral cues. Once this information is gathered, a movement program is developed that will enhance a more integrated way of learning. This will allow for the child or the elder to accomplish his goals in life with greater ease – the goal may be walking, talking, self-feeding, reading with ease, organizing classroom tasks, relating to peers or learning to self-regulate behaviors.
Kinesiology is also studied in the relationship between the quality of human movement and the overall health and/or quality of life of a human being. This application is at the core of the books, workshops and programs developed by the founder, Cecilia Koester.
Movement-based Learning and its Many Applications
The foundational pieces of learning, the infant reflexes and developmental movement patterns, all play a part in the physical and mental growth of a human being. The Movement Based Learning program assists the adults in the child’s world – general and special education teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists and parents, to come to a preliminary understanding of these reflexes and developmental movement patterns. A change in the functioning level of a child or elder is assessed, developed, evaluated for effectiveness and then modified as the need arises. Through the use of the tenets of movement-based learning, the child or elder is better able to grasp the methods and techniques.
There is a difference between movement-based learning that the founder, Cecilia Koester, discusses in her book (Movement Based Learning for Children of All Abilities, 2006, 2012) and Developmental Kinesiology. Cecilia’s approach to movement-based learning put emphasis on observation and guided information to establish a learning program that is filled with specific movements and activities. Developmental Kinesiology generally uses muscle checking to determine the specific activities needed to promote the natural development of an infant, child or adult. Oftentimes the approach that Movement Based Learning takes in working with a child or elder, is a precursor to working more in-depth with Developmental Kinesiology, Rhythmic Movement Training and childhood reflexes.
