Sunshine Coast Occupational Therapist Cris Rowan saw first hand the escalating difficulties facing teachers and students today, and created Zone’in programs to help. Cris used her 8 years experience as a school based OT, as well as her training in Sensory Integration and Fine Motor Development, to design two educational programs that improve attention, printing and reading skill.

Zone'in optimizes attention by helping children to understand more about their body energy. If their energy is charged and hyper, or sleepy and zoned out, they can’t do their work. By watching Zone’in DVD, and using Zone-O-Meters, posters, tools and techniques, children learn to Switch On to get Zone’in and Learn!

Click here to watch the film trailer!

Why Choose Move'in?

Move'in improves printing and reading by first determining each child’s specific problem, and then providing a solution. Move’in takes children on a Printing Adventure! By playing Ready, Set, Move’in board game, and using Play’in the Lines computer program, children can help themselves on the path to easier printing and reading.

Click here to try Play'in the Lines Computer Program!

Printing
Myth: Children don’t need to print or spell...we have computers!
Fact: Printing precedes spelling, and spelling is necessary for sentence production.
Ponder this: A child with poor printing skill, yet good sentence composition is a rarity!

TV, Attention and Learning
Myth: Watching TV and playing video games doesn’t affect learning ability.
Fact:

Children watch an average of 4 hours of TV per day, EXCLUDING video games. Watching TV and video games correlate with an increase in aggression, addiction and obesity. Children under the age of 4 who watch TV have delayed brain development. Children spend more time watching TV than any other activity except sleeping, and by 18 a child has spent more time in front of a TV than at school.

Ponder this: What effect does watching TV before school, have on a child’s behaviour and ability to learn?

Movement and Exercise
Myth: Exercise doesn’t affect learning ability.
Fact:

Sedentary home life along with the reduction of school recess and gym time contributes to poor motor skill development. Sensory over-stimulation (TV and video games), in combination with sensory under-stimulation in the sensory channels for balance, movement, touch, smell and taste, result in attention and concentration difficulties. Children need repetitive and rhythmical movement experiences, to ensure adequate sensory and motor development.

Family Relationships
Myth: TV hasn't changed family relationships, we all watch it together!
Fact:

Parents spend an average of 3.5 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children. Connection to technology has resulted in a “disconnect” from family, friends and teachers. Brain size is 20-30% smaller in children who are not touched, played or talked to.

Ponder this: Where will we be in 25 years if we continue to de-value the human connection?

Technology and Health Risks
Myth: While cell phones, TV, video games and computers emit magnetic fields and radio waves, use doesn't adversely affect our health.
Fact:

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified extremely low magnetic fields (ELF) as a “possible human carcinogen” regarding childhood leukemia and brain cancer, 2 of the most common cancers found in children. Young children’s brains are especially vulnerable to radio frequency (RF) emission from cell phones.

Ponder this:What health risks will our children face in their future, if we continue to ignore the negative effects of technology?

Cover your TV with a blanket and attach notes with suggestions for alternate activities. When the TV is on, watch selected programs and movies with your children, and go for a walk outside afterward.

Increase duration and frequency of whole body movement through increased organized gym and recess time, balance TV watching with movement based activities such as jumping rope, running, climbing trees, biking, skateboarding, family household, yard and garden chore day.

Limit ELF and RF exposure by reducing TV, video game, cell phone, microwave and computer use, and position oneself as far a away as possible from device. Sit at least 3 metres from TV’s (the larger the TV, the further away you should sit) and an arm’s length from computer monitors.

Value the human connection to children by reading books, conversation, storytelling, playing “pretend”, indoor and outdoor games, or exploring nature.

Increase and challenge your children’s sensation of balance, movement, touch, smell and taste through rough play, couch cushion fort, obstacle course, high arc swings, family cooking night, lap time and lots of hugs!

In the fall of 2006, four University of British Columbia Occupational Therapy students will be researching the effectiveness of the Move’in printing program in the classroom. These major research projects will be part of their thesis to obtain their Masters degree in Occupational Therapy. We are thrilled to welcome Zoe Brown, Marie Rolfing, Kelly Fletcher and Lea Harper. This research project will be in 2 stages. First, the research students will evaluate the feasibility of printing assessments, and then perform a Single Subject Multiple Baseline Across Subjects design to determine effectiveness of the Move’in program in improving printing quality and quantity. This information will be particularly useful in the ongoing revision of Move’in to ultimately create an effective and efficient way of helping children learn to print, both in classrooms and at home.

We’ve had an exciting few months at Zone’in! We introduced an awesome new website www.zonein.ca (check out our commercial) and have added more handouts, weblinks, articles and research to our Resource Section. A literature review yielded new Myths and Facts section to the Zone’in website; see below for a taste. Zone’in articles were published in BC Teachers Federation Cross Currents Journal and The Autism Perspective. I’ll be presenting workshops in 2006/7 at numerous school districts, as well as both BC and Alberta Special Education Conferences.

                                                                             Cris Rowan

Where in the World is Cris?

Check out the summer 2006 issue of The Autism Perspective for Cris’s article titled “Autism and Evolution”.

Watch local Coast Cable TV show Insideout, on Channel 11 for recent interview with Cris.

Cris will be presenting:

October 12-14, 2006 Special Education Council of the Alberta Teachers Association Conference. Edmonton, AB

October 19/20, 2006 Burnaby Special Education Teachers workshop.

November 20, 2006 Burnaby School District Teachers and Parents. Burnaby, BC

Febuary 16-17 2007 Chilliwack School District Teachers and Parents. Chilliwack, BC

March 15-16, 2007 Special Education Association of BC, Crosscurrents Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Would you like to schedule a workshop or conference with Cris?
Give us a call at 1-888-896-6346 or email at info@zonein.ca

In each issue of Zone’in and Learn we will highlight organizations, websites, books or articles that we think you will find interesting.

Johnson SR. Strangers in Our Homes: TV and Our Children’s Minds.
http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/tv_johnson.html. A mother and Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics, UCSF, describes how children’s developing nervous systems are adversely affected by watching TV and playing video games.

Healy J. Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It. 1990 New York: Simon and Schuster. Check out the chapter titled “Sesame Street and the Death of Reading” which states that TV anesthetizes our higher brain function by producing slow wave activity, and disrupts balance between the right and left hemispheres, thus adversely affecting reading ability.