Explore the most frequently asked questions and get up to date information on the program and how we can best help you and your family!
The cost is based on the number of sessions the student (what we call a “patient”) requires as well as your situation in life. We do offer discounts for single parents, first responders, veterans, and the like. The average is as low as $167 to $335 a month for 72 months. While we don’t accept insurance, we do offer a variety of discounts and payment options, many interest free.
While the cost of our program may seem high, the cost of raising a child with Autism, ADHD, or Dyslexia is much higher:
• According to MintLine Blog and SafeMinds, the cost of raising a child with Autism is between $24,975 and $87,895 per year.
• According to WebMD, the cost of raising a child with ADHD can run between $2,860 and $18,140 per year.
• Irish Examiner reports that the cost of raising a Dyslexic child runs between $500 and $5,200 per year.
After going through their program, many of the services a child uses will no longer be required, resulting in a cost savings over time.
The NeuroFiT Connections program starts with an assessment because no two people struggling with a developmental issue are the same. Whether someone has been diagnosed or not, we assess ten different categories to determine exactly what’s going on and what their customized program will look like.
Research has shown, and our own assessments agree, that those with developmental issues have three things in common; retained primitive reflexes, weak muscle tone, and one overactive hemisphere of the brain. To correct the developmental issue, we address each of these commonalities among several other key components of development such as fine motor skills, visual ocular mobility, and auditory processing.
Development in the brain starts in the brainstem, where the primitive reflexes are stored. As a child integrates the primitive reflexes, the brain activity increases. Normally, the right hemisphere of the brain grows first, followed by the left. In those with developmental delays, we find that there’s a disparity in the activity of the brain. We integrate the retained primitive reflexes to allow the brain activity to increase properly.
Of course, integrating retained primitive reflexes is not enough. We must also stimulate the weaker hemisphere of the brain. We do this by properly activating the five senses, while engaging the student (what we call a “patient”) in various activities.
Finally, we stimulate the student’s abdominal core muscles through a series of exercises because we know that the more physical activity someone has, the more the brain is engaged. Students take part in these exercises among other activities while also appropriately working with the five senses to properly stimulate the weaker hemisphere of the brain.
We also work on the student’s coordination, agility, balance, visual processing, auditory processing, fine motor skills, rhythm and timing, as well as cognition.
While a large majority of ABA practitioners specialize in autism, ABA certification does not require any autism training. ABA-based techniques are often used to teach adaptive behaviors or to diminish behaviors associated with autism, so much that ABA itself is often mistakenly considered to be synonymous with therapy for autism. According to a paper from 2007, it was considered to be an effective "intervention for challenging behaviors" by the American Academy of Pediatrics. A 2018 Cochrane review of five studies that compared treatment vs. control showed that ABA may be effective for some autistic children, but noted that the evidence for this is weak. The effectiveness of ABA therapies for autism may be overall limited by diagnostic severity, age of intervention, and IQ.
Occupational Therapists partner with you and your care team to help you understand how your diagnosis impacts your daily life, set goals, and guide you on your healing journey.
Physical therapy addresses the illnesses or injuries that limit a person's abilities to move and perform functional activities in their daily lives. Physical Therapists use an individual's history and physical examination to arrive at a diagnosis and establish a management plan and, when necessary, incorporate the results of laboratory and imaging studies like X-rays, CT-scan, or MRI findings. Electrodiagnostic testing (e.g., electromyograms and nerve conduction velocity testing) may also be used.
While we have not evaluated other companies that claim they can resolve developmental delays, we can say that few integrate the primitive reflexes that are the cause of the imbalance between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
To change the brain and correct the imbalance between the hemispheres, it takes three things: integration of primitive reflexes, hemispheric stimulation, and core stabilization. Our program does all three things at the same time. Of those that do work on integrating primitive reflexes, many do not work on all three components at the same time, opting instead to work on one piece at a time.
We are aware that there are no two people who have a developmental delay that are the same. As a result, we personalize our program to each student (what we call a “patient”). Some companies don’t follow this practice, opting instead to put each patient through the same set of steps.
Our Cognitive Coaches are dedicated to being the best they can be at working with those with developmental delays. As a result, they are continually improving their skillset by working with and learning from the world’s best neurologists. Part of the continuing education our coaches go through is Red Light Therapy training. This allows us to stimulate specific areas of the brain to reduce the time a student goes through their program and improve the results.
When a student is caught up, we offer what we call Next Level Training to continue their growth to make them unstoppable.
Over the years, there have been hundreds of research papers focused on developmental delays and what can be done about them. Some concentrate on specific disorders, others are more generic. Many of these papers have been published by Dr. Robert Melillo, whose method, The Melillo Method®, we use with our students (what we call our “patients”).
These research papers are available on request.
Your cognitive coach will provide a home tracker with a set of exercises that need to be completed at home in thirty minutes or less. The set of exercises may change weekly as the student (what we call a “patient”) progresses through their program.
We can’t and won’t guarantee that a student (what we call a “patient”) will become Neurotypical after completing their program. This is because the student does not think like most of their peers and will always retain most of the benefits of their particular disorder. We do know that there will be positive change as the result of their participation in the NeuroFiT Connections program.
While we don’t guarantee results, we start with a set of goals that we work to meet. These goals come from the parent, the student, and the Cognitive Coach.
Being so close to the issue, you may not notice the changes in the student. Never fear. Your Cognitive Coach will point them out as they happen.
Yes. For each family member after the first, we discount their program an additional 10% in addition to any other discounts.
We offer discounts for First Responders, Active-Duty Military, Veterans, Teachers, Single Parents, Families and Referrals. These discounts can be combined up to 20%. Additionally, we offer an additional discount of 10% for paying the entire balance up front.
We’ve also created a list of ways to pay the balance at low or no interest.
The NeuroFiT Connections program is intended to be an in-center program as there is software and equipment the coaches use for cognitive development. While we can make progress without the components we use in-center, the length of the program will be longer. Additionally, the coach needs to make sure that the exercises are performed correctly.
Depending on the need and the severity of the developmental issue, we might offer a hybrid in-center and virtual program. This would have the student (what we call a “patient”) coming into the center once a week and meeting with the coach virtually twice a week. Depending on the age of the student, this option would require the assistance of a parent or guardian during the virtual sessions. Additionally, we may require additional equipment at home to ensure the student has the best results from their program.
The NeuroFiT Connections program is designed to have the student (what we call a “patient”) coming into the center three times a week and doing work at home every day. The actual number of sessions varies based on the results of the assessment. The average number of sessions across all our students is about sixty. The actual number of sessions for you or your student may be different.
NeuroFiT Connections is not your regular services company. Our primary concern is making sure your child gets the help they need. At the same time, we want to make sure that our services are affordable.
When you’ve seen the changes in your child and can appreciate how much becoming a NeuroFiT Kid can improve their lives, you can give the gift of sharing your experience with others. For every child you refer to us that becomes a NeuroFiT kid, we will return the favor with $250 cash for you and a discount of $500 for your referral.
When a student (what we call a “patient”) begins their program, we schedule a specific time of day for them to come into the center for about an hour three days each week to ensure consistency for the student. This may be Monday, Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
We skip holidays and planned family vacations. Additionally, we expect the student to do specific exercises at home for no more than 30 minutes each day, usually twice a day. We recommend in the morning before breakfast and in the evening before dinner.
Yes. Your Health Savings Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or 529A (ABLE) account can be used to pay for services, even if those services are financed.
No.
According to Wikipedia, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a psychological intervention that applies approaches based upon the principles of respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior of social significance. ABA changes behavior by first assessing the functional relationship between a targeted behavior and the environment. The approach often seeks to develop socially acceptable alternatives for aberrant behaviors.
A large majority of ABA practitioners specialize in autism, although ABA certification does not require any autism training. ABA-based techniques are often used to teach adaptive behaviors or to diminish behaviors associated with autism, so much that ABA itself is often mistakenly considered to be synonymous with therapy for autism. According to a paper from 2007, it was considered to be an effective "intervention for challenging behaviors" by the American Academy of Pediatrics. A 2018 Cochrane review of five studies that compared treatment vs. control showed that ABA may be effective for some autistic children but noted that the evidence for this is weak. The effectiveness of ABA therapies for autism may be overall limited by diagnostic severity, age of intervention, and IQ.
ABA practitioners manage developmental issues while the NeuroFiT Connections program gets to the root cause of the issue and corrects it. Our program is shorter than ABA therapy and can work hand in hand with ABA therapy for some children.
No.
In the simplest terms, occupational therapy helps you build healthy habits to change your overall health for the better.
Occupational Therapists partner with you and your care team to help you understand how your diagnosis impacts your daily life, set goals, and guide you on your healing journey. OT’s manage developmental issues while the NeuroFiT Connections program gets to the root cause of the issue and corrects it. Our program is shorter than OT and can work hand in hand with occupational therapy for some people.
Depending on the severity of the developmental issue, the entire program could take from twelve weeks to two years. The average is sixteen to twenty-four weeks. The assessment will tell us approximately how long the entire program will be. We also reassess students (what we call our “patients”) every four weeks to make sure the student is on track. We may adjust their program duration at that time.
Students will work with their coach 3 times a week for about an hour for the duration of their program. Additionally, students will have some work to do at home that will take thirty minutes or less.
While we can and have worked with adults, our program is geared for children from 18 months to 18 years of age. As a result, adults may see language that is more fitting for young people in our documentation. That doesn’t mean the program will be less effective. It may, however, take longer with an adult because they are less pliable and more set in their ways than children.
Many times, the programs we tailor for adults can be completed mostly virtually as they merely need to follow the set of instructions provided by the coach after some guidance.
While we can and have worked with adults, our program is geared for children from 18 months to 18 years of age. That’s because most adults have developed coping mechanisms to help them get through each day, while children haven’t.
Our youngest student (what we call a “patient”) was two and our oldest eighty-four. Our average student age is eleven.
No. A diagnosis is helpful during the assessment process, but it’s just a guide and is, many times, wrong especially when it comes to ADD/ADHD. Our assessment covers ten areas:
Dominance: A dominant side should be selected by three years of age. Not selecting a dominant side in terms of their hands, feet, ears, and eyes indicates a problem.
General eye movements: In terms of the brain, the eyes tell a story. We check both slow and fast eye movements as well as convergence of the eyes, peripheral vision, and eye fixation. When the eyes are not tracking properly, you’ll see problems with balance, reading, sports, coordination, focus, driving, rhythm and timing. Information needs to go in properly to be processed properly.
Primitive Reflexes: All brain growth starts from the bottom up. Retained primitive reflexes, stored in the brainstem, inhibit the ability of the left and right hemispheres to properly grow. All primitive reflexes are expected to be integrated by two years of age, with some integrating as early as three months of age.
Rhythm & Timing: Rhythm and timing impacts us in all areas of life such as cognition, attention, focus, memory, speech and language, executive functioning, comprehension, as well as motor & sensory skills. We measure Rhythm and timing based on the number of correctly timed responses to stimulus.
Cognition: We use a variety of scientifically validated brain health assessments for Visuospatial Working Memory, Spatial Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, Mental Rotation, Visuospatial Processing, Deductive Reasoning, Planning, Verbal Reasoning, Verbal Short Term Memory, Attention, and Response Inhibition. We don’t give every child every test. We pick and choose which tasks to administer based on the information provided.
Proprioception: Poor proprioception means the student (what we call a “patient”) will have difficulty interpreting body positions and movements from the muscles and joints. With poor body awareness comes poor social skills. Poor proprioception can cause several signs and symptoms.
Fine motor skills: Poor fine motor skills result in the inability to perform precise movements with the hands and fingers. This can manifest as difficulty with tasks such as writing, drawing, buttoning clothes, or using scissors. Fine motor skills can affect cognitive skills and might impact speech and food choices.
Auditory Processing: An auditory processing deficit will cause delays in language, and further, reading. This shouldn’t be surprising as it is common knowledge that reading is nothing more than language that has been written down. And it is also well known one must be able to hear and process information to learn a language.
Abdominal Core Muscles: Poor musculature results in poor processing in the brain. Abdominal core muscles are the driving force for the brain growth and speed of processing. We test abdominal core musculature using the Presidential Standards.
Coordination: Coordination is the ability to execute smooth, accurate, controlled motor responses. It involves selecting the right muscle at the right time with proper intensity to achieve proper action. Poor coordination can result in injuries and an inability to perform well in sports. More complex and organized movements create a more complex and organized brain. We test coordination using a pattern crawl across the midline.
The comprehensive assessment tells us all we need to know to accurately determine the issues a student faces, the root cause of those issues and what we need to do to correct the root cause.
No. Nor do we recommend medication for our students (what we call our “patients”). Being on medication does not preclude the ability of our students to go through program either, though we do recommend that our students re-visit their primary care physician to determine if the medication is still required after their program.
Ironically, the most common food sensitivities involved in developmental delays are very nutritious. These foods cause inflammation in the brain, inhibiting the ability of the brain to grow and activate appropriately.
There is no reason for alarm if you discover that your child is sensitive to healthy food. Like all the other symptoms of developmental delay, the sensitivity will most likely go away once the brain imbalance is corrected, so they may not have to give it up forever. It’s also possible that you will discover that your child does not have food sensitivity. However, you cannot assume this to be the case.
Food sensitivities are not the same as food allergies, they do not produce allergic symptoms, but they produce inflammatory symptoms, which are virtually invisible on the outside. It may only affect behavior, mood, concentration, memory or sleeping and there are rarely obvious outward symptoms although some have eczema, digestive symptoms along with other signs.
Primitive reflexes are automatic involuntary movements essential to a baby’s birth and survival in the first few weeks and months of life. They originate in the brainstem, the bottom stalk-like portion of the brain where the cerebellum connects with the spinal cord. These reflexes are normally quickly integrated as the higher centers of the brain develop and voluntary responses become dominant.
One of the primitive reflexes you might be familiar with is the rooting reflex which causes a baby’s head to turn when rubbing a finger or nibble along the cheek. This reflex is normally present at birth and fully integrated by four months of age. If the reflex is still present after four months, you might see poor articulation and speech issues, tactile sensitivity around the face, poor manual dexterity and fine motor skills, picky or selective eating, and chewing on fingernails, clothing, pens, etc.
Even though a child may have hit their developmental milestones, Primitive Reflexes may be present because of a traumatic incident or an uncaught weakness in one side of the body. Research shows that retained Primitive Reflexes are precursors to developmental delays such as ADD/ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Dyslexia. During the comprehensive assessment, we test ten different reflexes.
Research shows that developmental delays such as Autism, ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, Anxiety, Depression, and Learning Disorders are caused by the lack of maturation of the brain as a result of retained Primitive Reflexes. Further complicating the issue is the lack of physical movement of the body.
One of the primitive reflexes you might be familiar with is the rooting reflex which causes a baby’s head to turn when rubbing a finger or nibble along the cheek. This reflex is normally present at birth and fully integrated by four months of age. If the reflex is still present after four months, you might see poor articulation and speech issues, tactile sensitivity around the face, poor manual dexterity and fine motor skills, picky or selective eating, and chewing on fingernails, clothing, pens, etc.
There is no single cause for retained primitive reflexes, nor is there a place to lay blame. The issue
could have been created in utero, during birth, or at any time and for any number of reasons that are out of your control. Chances are the more severe the developmental delay, the more of a combination of things it was.
Neurotypical is a term used to describe people whose brains function in a way that is considered typical or standard. Neurotypical people tend to learn and develop at a similar pace to their peers, and they have a good understanding of social norms and expectations.
Depending on the developmental issue, a student (what we call a “patient”) has certain benefits of their disorder. For example, those on the Autism Spectrum tend to be passionate, understanding, have great memories, are less materialistic and have no social expectations. After completing their NeuroFiT Connections program, these benefits will be retained. What will change is the social, emotional, behavioral, and the academic challenges the student faces.
We know that life happens. Illness, family issues, traffic. Anything can cause you to be unable to make a scheduled appointment. If you let us know in advance, we might be able to reschedule the appointment in the same week, which is our preference. If not, we can add up to three missed appointments to the end of the student’s (what we call our “patients”) program.
If you are just a no-show, we will be unable to make up for the missed appointment.
At some point in the future, we plan on offering tutoring as it is the next logical step for students (what we call “patients”) struggling academically. When a student goes through their program, the imbalance between the hemispheres of the brain will be corrected and they will be better able to learn. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they will have all the information and skills that they missed because of their developmental delay.
Until we get our NeuroFiT Connections tutors online, we highly recommend a tutor for the student at the completion of their program.
When the left and right hemispheres of the brain do not have the appropriate neurological connections, we call this Functional Disconnect Syndrome or a Functional Disconnection. Essentially this means that one hemisphere of the brain is not as developed as the other in terms of the number of connections and the overall activity of the hemisphere.
When someone has a Functional Disconnect, they will have the developmental disorders we know as ADD/ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, OCD, and the like.
When a student (what we call a “patient”) completes their program, they will have integrated all their retained primitive reflexes, strengthened their core, and balanced the hemispheres of brain. Additionally, the student will have met most if not all the goals that have been set forth for them.
More importantly, you will continue to see changes over the weeks and months that follow as the student continues to grow.
We suggest that every student (what we call a “patient”) has regular Chiropractic visits. If you don’t have a regular Chiropractor, we highly recommend Outten Chiropractic of Cary as they are familiar with developmental delays and know how to work with patients who have them.
One of the contributing factors to developmental delays is Mold. We recommend that every household get screened for mold from Pure Air of North Carolina.
While we provide an elimination diet for our students (what we call our “patients”), we highly recommend getting screened for food allergies as these will contribute to inflammation in the brain and will impact how successful we can be.
Our custom child wellness program, based on the Melillo Method™, combines specialized equipment with specific exercises, and diet and nutrition counseling to integrate retained primitive reflexes, stabilize the core, stimulate the appropriate hemisphere of the brain, and resolve any ocular, auditory or cognitive issues.
This program is based on science and research and has been used with hundreds of thousands of children all over the world to correct the root cause of their neurological condition, sync up the hemispheres of the brain and resolve the symptoms.
At NeuroFiT Connections, we’re steadfast in our commitment to creating a better life for those with neurological disorders in as few as twelve weeks without medication or invasive procedures.
At NeuroFiT Connections, we work diligently to resolve the issues, rather than just managing them. As a result, we focus on stimulating specific areas of the brain responsible for processing, learning, behavioral, and developmental disorders, particularly in children. Most importantly, our child wellness program is backed by the latest science and research, supported by some of the most prominent neurological institutes in the world Harvard University, McLean Hospital, University of Cambridge, and more. Our center is one of RDU’s only Melillo Method centers, utilizing Dr. Robert Melillo’s cutting-edge holistic approach to treating kids with a broad spectrum of brain related disorders or concerns.
The NeuroFiT Connections blog is committed to helping provide tips, research, and advice on the diagnosis’ or symptoms that we address. Subscribe to our blog to get up-to-date information and be one of the first people to be notified of upcoming events and activities!
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