Contact Information
Lisa Farber
Owner & BAVX Instructor
lisa@learningdynamics.info
phone: 907.696.0900
Joel Akers, MAT ~
Anchorage School District
I have to admit that when I first heard about Bal-A-Vis-X I was a skeptic. Having a Masters of Arts in Teaching I was firmly grounded in an academic approach to learning and I just could not imagine how bouncing balls could help a student attain both academic and social goals. However, my wife convinced me to take a weekend Bal-A-Vis-X course offered by Lisa Farber, and that was a defining moment in me changing my outlook on how to help students achieve in school.
What first interested my wife in the course was the idea that Bal-A-Vis-X could potentially help children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Our 10 year old adopted son has both of these conditions, and although he is a very bright child, he suffered in school both academically and socially. When we took the course from Lisa, it became immediately clear to both of us how Bal-A-Vis-X could help children with issue concentrating and processing information as it requires you to use both your right and left hemispheres of your body as well as your upper and lower hemispheres, and it does this while stimulating your visual and auditory systems. Even in doing the exercises over the course of that weekend my wife and I felt like we could focus and concentrate better ourselves.
Given that, we decided to begin trying Bal-A-Vis-X with our son, and began a daily schedule of doing Bal-A-Vis-X with him for 10-15 minutes. As far as our son was concerned he was just getting a chance to play with some raquet balls each day (although under a structured setting), and he took to liking it immediately. Amazingly, over the course of 1 quarter in school our son improved from an "N" (lowest grade) in Organizational Skills to an "S" (average / at grade level grade). In Following Directions he went from an "S" (average grade) to an "S+" (above average), and in Assuming Responsibility and Completes Work on Time he went from an "S-" (below average) to an "S" (average). Additionally, improved across the board in his academic skills, the most dramatic of those being in mathematics (the area he struggled in the most). Our son went from a failing grade in math to a solid passing grade. In speaking with his teachers, nothing had really changed in his day to day schooling, so the only thing that he was doing different was the Bal-A-Vis-X.
In addition to working on this with my son, since I am an educator I also decided to try Bal-A-Vis-X with a group of my students. The four students I selected were students who struggled either academically or socially in school, and I wanted to see if I could note any improvement in their grades and/or behaviors. Across the board the students improved in their social and academic performance, and one student went from an "F" to an "A" in reading; an "F" to a "B" in writing; an "F" to a "C" in mathematics; an "N" to an "S" in Completes Work on Time; and an "N" to an "S" in Works Independently. The only thing that changed in the student's schooling was the fact that I added Bal-A-Vis-X to his schedule 2 times per week for 30 minutes.
After witnessing the success of my son and my student(s) with Bal-A-Vis-X, I am a firm believer that it helps students by allowing them to develop skills to help them concentrate in the classroom as well as helping them develop the neuropathways in their brains to process and store information. I know that Bal-A-Vis-X has become a permanent part of my classroom learning structure, and I look forward to using this with my entire class next school year.