What if we could rewind our brain's clock and improve cognitive scores, learning abilities, and even reverse dementia? Welcome to an enlightening conversation with our esteemed guest, Dr. Connie McReynolds, a leading expert in ADHD and neurofeedback. Her journey, from watching her mother's intervention with a dyslexic boy to her own extensive research into ADHD, is a testament to her dedication and passion for understanding learning difficulties and finding alternative solutions.
Our discussion illuminates the potential of neurofeedback for cognitive enhancement, illustrated by the story of an 82-year-old woman who reversed her dementia diagnosis with this revolutionary technology. But it's not just for the elderly or those with learning difficulties - Dr. Connie's work with athletes and gymnasts shows that anyone can reap the benefits. We also delve into the paramount role parents must play in their children's education, particularly when navigating rigid school systems.
As we conclude, we focus on alternative ADHD treatments, underscoring the necessity of accurate assessments, creative thinking, and looking beyond traditional medication. We explore the immense possibilities of neurofeedback in boosting learning abilities, cognitive scores, and even reversing dementia. Don't miss this opportunity to discover the transformative power of neurofeedback and learn how to access Dr. Connie's services. Join us as we unravel the mystique of the human brain and the incredible potential of this revolutionary approach.
https://www.conniemcreynolds.com
Host: Douglas James Cottrell
This episode was produced by Jack Bialik and audio engineering by Doug M Cottrell.
What if we could rewind our brain's clock and improve cognitive scores, learning abilities, and even reverse dementia? Welcome to an enlightening conversation with our esteemed guest, Dr. Connie McReynolds, a leading expert in ADHD and neurofeedback. Her journey, from watching her mother's intervention with a dyslexic boy to her own extensive research into ADHD, is a testament to her dedication and passion for understanding learning difficulties and finding alternative solutions.
Our discussion illuminates the potential of neurofeedback for cognitive enhancement, illustrated by the story of an 82-year-old woman who reversed her dementia diagnosis with this revolutionary technology. But it's not just for the elderly or those with learning difficulties - Dr. Connie's work with athletes and gymnasts shows that anyone can reap the benefits. We also delve into the paramount role parents must play in their children's education, particularly when navigating rigid school systems.
As we conclude, we focus on alternative ADHD treatments, underscoring the necessity of accurate assessments, creative thinking, and looking beyond traditional medication. We explore the immense possibilities of neurofeedback in boosting learning abilities, cognitive scores, and even reversing dementia. Don't miss this opportunity to discover the transformative power of neurofeedback and learn how to access Dr. Connie's services. Join us as we unravel the mystique of the human brain and the incredible potential of this revolutionary approach.
https://www.conniemcreynolds.com
Host: Douglas James Cottrell
This episode was produced by Jack Bialik and audio engineering by Doug M Cottrell.
Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell, your source for helpful information, advice and tips to live your life in a mindful way in this increasingly chaotic world. For over four decades, Dr Douglas has been teaching people how to develop their intuition and live their lives in a conscious way. His news and views of the world tomorrow, today, are always informative and revealing. To learn more about Dr Douglas, be sure to visit his website, douglasjamescotrellcom, where you can download self-help exercises you can do right in the comfort of your own home. And now here's your host, Dr Douglas James Cottrell.
Douglas James Cottrell:Welcome everyone. Today I have a wonderful guest with me. Dr Connie McReynolds is here today and we're going to talk about that ADHD situation we've all heard about. We have the foremost expert in the field who's going to give us some insights into what this is all about and, for those poor children and people who have this situation going in their life, some solutions as to how to deal with it. And also what it's all about. As you know, my daughter, Cheri, had situations that in her life and I kind of akin to children who have these special learning abilities or disabilities or challenges, however you want to put it, my friends. But today Dr Connie is here today to tell us all about it. So welcome to the show, Dr Connie. It's great to have you here.
Douglas James Cottrell:I'm reading your press material and your book, which is an amazing book as far as I'm concerned, and everybody should go out and buy it. We'll talk a little bit more about how to do that. How did you get started in this amazing research and coming to this understanding, and I'm going to let you explain that to the audience. When I read the information about this, I was gobsmacked. It was her saddering it. I'm not trying to overdo it, but I was really impressed. So tell us about how. First of all, who you are and how you got to where you are.
Connie McReynolds:Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to be here today. It's such an honor to be with you and to share this information, which is really why I wrote the book. But it all started many, many decades ago. My mother taught second grade for 32 years in the same classroom and I kind of joke that I grew up in second grade. I watched as she helped children who were struggling to learn. One little boy couldn't learn how to read and she took a special interest in him over the summer, at her own expense and time, took him to a university center and, interestingly, was diagnosed with dyslexia so something at the time that wasn't very well understood and through the support that she received through that university teaching center, they were able to help resolve that little boy's problems and he went on and had a great life. Interestingly, I think that stuck with me more than I really realized until I started writing the book and in between all of those years I was a rehabilitation counselor, so I had a very deep interest in helping people and I wasn't particularly akin to a lot of the diagnoses that I saw my clients coming in with, because I early on discovered in my career, some 30 years ago that the diagnosis really didn't tell me very much about the person I you know. As I started to get to know the person I realized people could come in with the same diagnosis but they were individuals. They had maybe some similar symptoms but they were unique in how it was happening in their life. And through that work then I became interested in obtaining my doctorate.
Connie McReynolds:So I went to the U niversity of Wisconsin, Madison 20, some almost 30 years ago, to get my degree in rehabilitation psychology. So that was a field that crossed both parts of my path. I was always interested in psychology but I liked the rehabilitation psychology piece because it brought a completely different field to the process. And I taught in that field for 25 years and part of my teaching, part of my learning and my teaching that I imparted is that you can have a lot of diagnoses but, as I had discovered early on in my career, it didn't tell much about the person and so I would teach.
Connie McReynolds:Okay, here's the abnormal psychology. Now here's the rehab psychology, here's what you're really going to do, because I wanted solutions for people. I didn't want to just leave with labels and fast forward that in my career at the university in Southern California I was brought in, was given a wonderful opportunity to build an institute. Within that institute evolved this program called neurofeedback, which we'll talk a lot more about. But really it was the process of uncovering a deeper truth about what was really happening with children with ADHD, and that's what I want the world to know. So thank you again for having me here today.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. You are one of the foremost clinical researchers in your field and I heard you say some magic words that rang true to me. First of all, diagnosis is, let's say, an educated guess as to what's going on. Second, labeling when people are given a label when they go to the next therapist physician, the label sticks and already before the person comes in the door, basically they're sunk. You know that's the way you are. Sorry, we can't do anything with it. Go home and live with live with this situation.
Douglas James Cottrell:In my career my daughter had difficulties. We faced that several times and we ultimately put her into an institution, to my great regret looking back. But at the time all the authorities did the right thing and so far they thought, and a young couple my wife, dear wife Karen, was passed on. Now, on myself, we could get on with our lives. We bought that story, but then we ran into some people who taught us otherwise, that they're all alternatives. And so, listening to you and I could see, like you know, you're getting your degree and all those things a few years ago probably seems like yesterday, but you had the insight, the intuition, the intellect, the curiosity to look at people as individuals and there must be something more, and I was fascinated to see that you came up with this idea that people with ADHD, my dyslexia showing up a little, that their brain is wired wrong, they don't learn the same way or there's some misdirection of thinking. How did you come up with that marvelous, wonderful discovery?
Connie McReynolds:Well, I tell you it was just a process. It was something that I didn't even know existed myself. What was happening at the beginning of my clinics 15 years ago is that children were showing up and parents had a very similar story. Regardless of any of the other factors socioeconomic, it didn't matter the same story was coming up, which is we've had my child on medication. It hasn't worked. Or we've been on medications and the side effects are we can't live with, or my child is refusing to take the medication.
Connie McReynolds:Or the other story, the behavioral interventions. Nothing is working, he's misbehaving, he's in trouble all the time. Or the other piece was we don't want to go down the medication route. But it was the first group where the medications weren't working. And the traditional behavioral interventions, these things were not yielding the outcomes that were promised to parents and to teachers. It wasn't working.
Connie McReynolds:And so curiosity kicked in. It's like well, what is going on here? Why are these traditional approaches not doing what we've been told for decades is going to help solve the problem for these children? And so again, just kind of as processes then rolled, I was so fortunate a colleague of mine was using the neurofeedback, which we'll talk more about later came to me. He was in the same department that I was in in the College of Education at this university and he said you know, I think you really need to look into this. We're finding some results in helping children with learning difficulties being able to learn how to read better. And of course, that ticked a bell in my mind because you know right back, to second grade.
Connie McReynolds:It's like, okay, what's going on here? So I actually created a pilot project for a year where we worked with children and we worked with veterans who have PTSD, and that's another thing we can talk about. But it was an uncovering process, a discovery and uncovering and just a revealing that this assessment that we happen to use that was tied to this particular neurofeedback process. It looks at 37 areas of auditory and visual processing and I get this information in 20 minutes. Wow, 15 page report. And so for five years I was looking at these reports, day in and day out. We were doing our interventions, retesting at the midpoint, retesting at the end, and the evidence was supporting this was working and parents were reporting, things were changing at home and at school, which to me is far more important than what an assessment may say.
Douglas James Cottrell:I agree. That's hard evidence. Those are hard facts.
Connie McReynolds:They are. It's like okay. And one parent early on as she came to me we'd been working with her son and she said you know, I'm not really sure that this has really done anything for my son. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, our data show that there are some changes here. And then a week later she came back and she said I stand corrected. So what happened? And she said I went to a family reunion and everyone wanted to know what I had done to my son because he was so much better behaved.
Douglas James Cottrell:So he was improving and she didn't even notice it. Wow.
Connie McReynolds:Yeah, so it was great. So she stood in my office for a while and we chatted and she said thank you. She said it must have just been a subtle process to where you know. She kind of forgot what it was like, but the relatives had not. So so I always hung on to that one. It was great.
Douglas James Cottrell:It makes my heart feel good when you say that again, because people have this misconception that that's the way it's going to be. Your child is going to be on medication for the rest of his or her life. I'm sorry, we can't do anything about it. Go live with it. I, I get my, I get the hair in the back of my neck stands up when I hear that, because that's just intellectually lazy. You went ahead and you proved the point and you had results. How did you do that exactly? How did you get those results?
Connie McReynolds:Well, it's through this particular assessment that we were using and, I'll be honest, yeah, for the first five years where I really was looking at this, I was trusting it because I saw the data. And then I hear the stories. I just want a cute little story about this one little boy, a nine year old.
Connie McReynolds:Early on his parents were bringing him and we've been working with him for a little while and he walks in his little downtrodden that day and I looked at him and I said well, what's going on? He says. He said oh, he said you know. He said it's working. He said I can pay attention now, even when I don't want to. It's working, it's just long in the face. And the parents behind him and I were trying not to burst out in the smiles. I said, oh, my gosh, Okay. So what then eventually happened is I started realizing there was something to these auditory and visual processing problems, because it seemed to me like children were coming in, diagnosed with a long litany of various types of conditions, from intermittent explosive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, autism, tourette's syndrome, and the list just went on.
Douglas James Cottrell:Oh my gosh.
Connie McReynolds:It went on and on and on and I started running this assessment on everyone who came in, regardless of why they walked in the door, and what I was uncovering is that, underneath all of these labels, these massive labels, underneath all of that, in about 85 to 90% of the cases, people had these existing auditory and visual processing problems that no one had accurately identified or described to the people. Now, when this assessments run and I go over the assessment results, they will sit there stunned. Some parents tear up. I've even had adults tear up when they've learned what they've been struggling with for years.
Douglas James Cottrell:Wow.
Connie McReynolds:And then I became really curious. It's like well, you know who else is written about this, because there has to be someone else who's got this out there. You know, this is amazing information. Why, you know, am I not finding it? So I went on a two year hunt for anyone who was writing anything on this and the literature back in those days.
Douglas James Cottrell:That was a decade ago, and I think the audience and I are ahead of you. You were that first person. Not anybody else had done something, am I right? Yes, congratulations, I am so proud to have you here on the show talking about this. And people for whatever the physicians were before, they gave it their best guests and they just kept adding labels to labels, to labels, and you actually knuckled down and discovered the gold to solving these people's problems that I could. I just see the people crying oh my God, finally somebody understands me, somebody can tell me.
Douglas James Cottrell:I'm going to let you finish that thought, because I just wanted to jump in and say that you know, you're the person, you're number one and right here on my show we're talking about this, which is an issue very close to my heart children with special needs or challenges. And to have you do that. You know, I would say you were divinely guided almost to get to your curiosity, your intuition, your spiritual influences, all leading you to do this. And then you had to wear with all the gold and try to find out if anybody else was doing it. Nope, you're it.
Connie McReynolds:So it really was, that. It was baffling to me that no one and that, and I just kept looking because I kept thinking it's so long yes but he has to do that. Someone has to have written about this. Figured this out, looked at this and literally after two years I was working on a manuscript and I thought I am not going to put anything out here If I'm not quoting someone else who's already been out here. I'm not going down that road. That's an academic. It's not going to happen.
Douglas James Cottrell:No plagiarism right.
Connie McReynolds:Yes, it's like no, this is not going to happen. So, finally, I had built up my confidence enough and felt like I covered the ground deep enough, dug deep enough and broad enough that it wasn't there. There were other things out there, called central auditory processing disorder, which is actually a hearing problem, but there was nothing about this type of auditory processing and there was certainly nothing about visual processing. That was out there since that time. It's not necessarily because of me, I don't think, but I did publish in 2018 in an international journal about this, and I published the data of a subset of the children that we worked with that we were able to show that they had consistently participated in the training and we've done the assessments all the way along. Here was the beginning, here was the middle and here is the end of what these outcomes looked like. So that was in 2018. So I was finally able to get that piece out.
Douglas James Cottrell:I'm going to get you to explain in people's what audio and visual dysfunction is, but I just popped up my mind. Did you take any criticism from anyone? Did they try to disprove your research?
Connie McReynolds:No, they haven't. It's been so interesting Now.
Douglas James Cottrell:Obviously the book is fairly new out, so that's the title, and where can they get it?
Connie McReynolds:The title is Solving the ADHD Riddle really the lasting solutions finding the real cause and the lasting solutions. For that it's on Amazon and other book dealers. It's also up on my website.
Douglas James Cottrell:What's your website?
Connie McReynolds:My website is www. My name Connie C-O-N-N-I-E MacRiddles, m-c-r-e-y-n-o-l-d-scom. It's on the homepage. Just click there and go straight to Amazon to get it.
Douglas James Cottrell:From what I've read about you, dr Cony, and what I know about you so far, I highly recommend it. Who suspects or has ADHD? I have to look at my note here to right away investigate by making a simple investment in getting your book. And then I'm going to ask you can people come and see you in person as a patient?
Connie McReynolds:Yes, and so I do want to speak about that.
Connie McReynolds:I am Southern California, I have two clinics in Southern California, so people do come to my clinics.
Connie McReynolds:We do the assessment and then we do the neurofeedback and typically it's going to be 30 minute sessions, usually about 40 of those for, kind of the, I would say, the general auditory and visual processing problem. Now, if we're talking about anxiety and trauma and some of the other more deeply ingrained challenges that might exist, it may take a little bit longer than that, but that's really the end game is two to three times a week for these sessions, after every 10 hours of training, the 20 sessions then we reassess and we will create a different training plan based on the progress that the person has made and then any remaining goals that they may have, and all of the goals are set by the intake. So really figuring out what does the person want to work on, what are the major impacts in their life, how are they affected at home and at school for children, but even at work for adults and those assessments that we run, and so we're always monitoring the progress of that.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, what you're doing is miracle work changing people's lives. I mean the amount of relief you're instilling in people by first of all, giving them a credible diagnosis, then, in my opinion, just from what you said, providing a game plan for them to get their lives back and then having great success doing it. You must have a ton of patience lining up. I hope everybody listening to this interview calls you tomorrow because you have all the credibility. You're an innovator, you're almost first in the field, what you're doing is remarkable work and nobody else has bothered to investigate and look for solutions like you have.
Douglas James Cottrell:So, again, having a special child in my life and having gone through all that, sherri passed away when she was 38. She was born in 1960. We didn't have these alternatives, if you will, to find out what could be done. She did not have ADHD, she had something else some problems in her brainstem, whatever, but the long and the short of it is. Can you go back a step and now explain what exactly is visual audio malfunction? And I was intrigued by reading something about the brain doesn't learn like we learn or, in general, well, me accepted, because I'm weird anyway, but the brain doesn't learn the same for everybody. Can you explain a little bit more about that?
Connie McReynolds:I'd be happy to. I just want to touch base just for the listeners, because I do offer telehealth for neurofeedback, so you don't have to be within driving distance of my clinics. Fantastic, so I just want people to know that is available. I actually got a client in Switzerland and I have clients kind of scattered around the US as well, so you don't have to be within driving distance of Southern California.
Douglas James Cottrell:How about around the world? Because we're going to be putting the audio of this interview on our podcast and even on our radio show is as international. I'm sure people from around the world could, through that same mechanism, get in contact with you. I'm just, I'm just so impressed. The relief that you're offering people is enormous. It's got to be a miracle blessing just to get ahold of you and get that information. But that's again, that's my opinion. So, anyway, this is going to go out around the world so you might end up with our friends in Spain or Australia or Japan, other other places that people watch our, watch our shows. So anyway, back to the after, that wonderful revelation that you don't have to travel, you can do this on Zoom or something. This is amazing. Can you explain a little bit about just not to go back too far? But how is it that the brain malfunctions are? Are they wired differently? Is there a physical disorder? Is there something you know what's going on in the brain?
Connie McReynolds:Well, the wired word that you use is one I use because I think we can understand that very well which is our brain is wired to function in a certain way. We have good habits, bad habits, all of its hardwired in, and so, as we know that when we're trying to change a bad habit, sometimes it's pretty hard to do, that it's because the pattern is pretty strong in the brain. Those are neuronal pathways and so not. I don't like to get too deep down into that because we don't have to. We can just really talk about the brain. The brain is in a state of called neuroplasticity and interestingly, that term was pitched out to the world in 1949 by the Canadian psychologist Donald Heave, and so he did the preliminary work all those years back. But it's really taken a long time for people to fully understand how this works. So the brain is changing all the time. Everything we do is being recorded in our brain and, at the same time, repetition is how we learn. So the brain learns its patterns through repetition, and that's the beauty of all of this is that that's what makes the brain trainable. Now, for some children, adults, whatever it might be and I'm talking ADHD to post-traumatic stress disorder and everything in between. That's all based in neuronal pathways in the brain. So sometimes for children who have auditory and visual processing problems, they can look like they have all kinds of other things going on because the neuronal pathways in the brain are not strong enough across these 37 areas that we look at. Sometimes it's missing complete sections of processing. So they may be really strong in auditory processing but have zero visual processing. On this assessment they can flip it as well, so they can be great in the other one and weak in the other. Or, most typically, there is almost like a saw, like the blades on a saw. It's kind of up and down and up and down across a mixed graph of strengths and areas of weakness.
Connie McReynolds:So those areas of weakness are the things that we target and when we figure out specifically what areas are not working, then we build the training plan specific to those areas that need to be strengthened. And I explained to parents it's a little bit like going to the gym. If I wanted to start a training plan, I'm probably going to get with the trainer to at least do an assessment to figure out what machines do I need to get on to strengthen my body. If these are my goals. How do I do it? That's what our assessment does. It really figures out those areas that need to be trained.
Connie McReynolds:And then neurofeedback, which is EEG biofeedback.
Connie McReynolds:A training plan is designed for each person, unique to their needs, and through the repetition of going through that 30-minute training plan, we literally are targeting specific areas of the brain for the repeated improvements, so to strengthen those areas of processing.
Connie McReynolds:The good news about the neurofeedback, unlike the gym, is that once the brain is trained and these neuronal pathways are strengthened and it's reinforced enough, it's going to hold typically. So the nice thing is and I've had clients call me five years later and say I just want you to know, my brain just keeps getting better and better and it's like, oh, this is such great news. And then I thought about it for a while and I thought, well, yes, because anything that we use anywhere, it gets stronger. The more we do something it's going to continue to strengthen. So once we get the brain kind of tuned up and wired or heading in the right direction across all of this, those become the new neuronal pathway, that becomes the new normal for that brain and then we're going to continue to use that. The brain's going to use that as a strength instead of creating workarounds to get around these areas that aren't working very well.
Connie McReynolds:And so in a nutshell that's what we're doing.
Douglas James Cottrell:Wow, it's amazing. Let's take a quick break, we'll be right back. Can we get a break from there?
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Douglas James Cottrell:Well, dr Connie, just before the break you were telling this is what you do, and I have this image in my mind about these little teeny threads in their brain getting sicker and sicker and then it's like a freeway going back and forth with the thoughts. So that was a marvelous explanation and I guess the best thing is about when you train the brain you don't have to keep going to the gym, so to speak. Keep the muscles going. It just keeps getting better and better. I love it so as people come back again not to overdo it, but you change people's lives. I mean you give them their life.
Douglas James Cottrell:I can't imagine what it would be like to go through a life where you can't think, you know you have this congestion in your thinking. It must be frustrating, it must provoke people to be angry and bitter and maybe violent and anyway, to get to the point that I just can't imagine what it would be like. I know back in the day there wasn't much research in this area. You know autistic children and other people with these problems. By the way, does this expand into autistic children or other things? I'll take that You're smiling. That is a yes. You tell us a little more about that.
Connie McReynolds:Yes. So we have over the years, worked with children who have been diagnosed Some Asperger's kind of. The labels are changing periodically in there and parents will call and say, okay, my child has this, what can you do? And I'll always say, well, let's do an intake, because I can't know until I meet the child, either via Zoom or in person, and we put them at the computer and let's just see what this child's capable of doing, because I've had some people in the severe range that they can't be at a computer, and so that's really one of the keys to this is a child does need to be able to be at a computer or operate a mouse. The parent can be there, we're with them. If it's Zoom, obviously in person, we're with them. So they need to be able to have that level of ability. Now we've had children learn how to use a mouse. I've had 93-year-old men learn how to use a mouse that we've worked with.
Connie McReynolds:So, just to let you know, we can teach people how to use a mouse and with, again, the assessment that we use those labels. They just don't give us enough information and with the assessment I find that a lot of these children with autism, wherever they are in that spectrum, whatever I'm going to call it if they have auditory and visual processing problems that are really underneath that diagnostic label, there's something we can do about that. Now, for children who have the brain that's diagnosed with autism, it is a longer process for some of these children, some of the children in the moderate range, don't really have verbal capability but we're still able to work with them because they can use the mouse, they can sit at the computer, they can follow instructions and not to wax too far into it. But I just had a parent with a child.
Connie McReynolds:I did a follow-up, first round retake assessment with him yesterday and he shared that his son's language has exploded, as what was reported by people who are working with his son. Now he hasn't been able to get through the assessment yet but we're using that as a tracking mechanism. But we're also listening for what's happening in the child's world. So in this particular case they had moved to a different school district. He had been in the mild support group in the school system and the new school has moved him into moderate severe and I didn't feel like that was a good move because there's a lot of behavioral challenges in those classrooms.
Douglas James Cottrell:I wasn't sure About their students right.
Connie McReynolds:Yes, and so in fact the father is reporting and I'll share. They've hired an attorney because they feel like the school district is not listening to them and not providing the proper support and educational opportunities for their son. And this is where schools get a little locked in. They get a little rigid in their approach. Sometimes I know they're trying to do the right thing, they have a lot to manage, but it isn't always. Their decisions shouldn't be the last decision, so the parents should have influence in that as well. So we're going to continue with that, with children with autism again back to those auditory and visual processing problems if they are there and we can help them and that's going to overall help the child do better.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, again, the idea of people have opinions, they're square headed and even when you present facts they don't want to hear about it. I ran up again a lot of that, call it resistance. And those parents I'm sorry to hear that they're meeting such thing. You would think educational places or everybody would be as I was. I expected, hey, we've come up with this chiropractic solution for my daughter's neck and everybody would jump on it. No, that was why I asked you before if you were criticized, because I was severely criticized for looking for alternatives.
Douglas James Cottrell:My daughter was medicated and was patient managed, if you will in the institution, which meant she was living I don't want to say hell, but she was in a very difficult, nightmarish existence. So varying degrees of breaking down barriers and prejudice. This is kind of my job working with different professionals and getting them to work through their minds, just like you are, and I'm intrigued, really listening very carefully to what you're saying, how you somehow were putting this together in your head as you were going through the research and developing stages and figuring out that, hey, there can be something done here. And then you had that revelation time.
Douglas James Cottrell:Can you remember the first time when you said oh my God, I got it. Was there such a revelation point?
Connie McReynolds:Well, it was astonishment, I will say. How it's in that.
Connie McReynolds:You know it was. It just kept looking at it and looking at it and looking at it and thinking is this really what we're dealing with? Because if it is, there's something we can do about this and this can be a game changer for people. It's a game changer for teachers, it's a game changer for parents and for the child. And suddenly we go from a child being labeled as misbehaving or willfully bad to parents in tears realizing they don't have a bad child. They have a child whose brain just can't take in information. And if you have auditory processing problems, it does not matter how many times you tell the child to go pick up their shoes and put them away. If that child can't remember what you're telling them to do. You can tell them 10 times or 100 times and all that's going to happen is the same thing over and over the child's going to forget what you've told them.
Douglas James Cottrell:Isn't that the definition of insanity?
Connie McReynolds:It is, and I think we've been living in it for a very long time with these kids, and so my true mission is to get this out so that people know there is something different. We don't have to keep making the same mistakes with generation after generation of child that comes along. We have some solutions. There's a noninvasive process, which means there's nothing being done to the child's brain. The child is just learning how to empower his or her own brain through brain training exercises, and that builds self-confidence. It improves the self-image in the child.
Connie McReynolds:It gets rid of a lot of that negative self-talk that these children employ very, very early on, because in the classroom and elementary school they're already judging themselves against their peers, and if they see their peers being able to follow something that someone's saying and they don't have any idea what's going on, they immediately go to the place where I must not be very smart and they will use words such as I must be stupid.
Connie McReynolds:They will use these words, the parents hear it and there's heartbreak, of course, but that's the only place people have gone in the past is well, if I can't do this, I must not be very smart. This has nothing to do with intelligence. This has everything to do with processing, and processing we can work on and tackle. And then what happens is, once these children's brains are working better and guess what, they're scoring better on IQ tests, they're doing better on the state school exams, they're doing better in the classroom because now they can understand what the instructions are, they can follow along, they can perhaps visually process things better. So we're changing up the whole process of this child's life in the academic world and at home.
Douglas James Cottrell:You know, it occurs to me, it's common sense, going back to the point of birth. The fetus develops to a point where it's now time for the birth to occur. The birth occurs and the body is still developing and it takes a long time for that baby to develop skills in its brain and coordinating, you know, and getting the body's nervous system to function. And it occurs to me that maybe somewhere along the line, something just stopped the development of these pathways in the brain and maybe a weak point, maybe there was some, you know, cold disease, whatever but it arrested the growth in the brain. And what I'm hearing you say is that you can target this and by whatever this manipulation of programming, patterning, if you will, repetitious movements that the child strikes in those passageways. The brain is growing, I would say, and it continues wherever it was arrested before. It's now relieved and it's it's it's strengthening, growing and creating new pathways. Would that be sort of something that that you would agree with?
Connie McReynolds:Yes, absolutely. That's part of the neuroplasticity and that's how the brain works. Is that an old habit? If we want to change an old habit, we have to develop the new habit or we have to strengthen the better habit. And so by strengthening the better habit, and actually what happens, and there are images of this. How scientists got these images I don't know, but sometimes when I go out and do training, I'll take these images that show these neurons and synapses and these connections happening in the brain cells. And then it shows this thing called pruning, which means if we drop the bad habit long enough, that connection is going to go away.
Douglas James Cottrell:Really.
Connie McReynolds:Yes, and so we're actually able to see how this works in the brain. Again, how they got this I have no idea, but it's fascinating for people to actually see these tendrils, kind of these axions and adendrites come together in these cells and make these connections and then to see it prune away when it's going away. And so we just think of this as just enhancing, strengthening those neuroma pathways. So with the assessment, some children have those pathways there. They're just not strong enough.
Connie McReynolds:In other cases that I mentioned, where maybe the visual is completely missing or the auditory is completely missing, we're going to be building those neuroma pathways and we can do it. How long it takes is very unique to each person, but we've been able to accomplish that with anyone that we've worked with. It isn't a common occurrence, but when we do see it we've had enough experience over 15 years that we know we can affect change. If the parents can hang in there and keep that child coming and we can have consistency with that treatment plan and we continue to build and build on that, then we can get that processing coming online.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, you are one of the foremost clinical researchers and experts in your field, and anybody who has any suspicion that their child has ADHD or any of the diagnosis that you've mentioned I'm not going to repeat them they should come and get your book. To start with, your book was where can they get it? And what's your website? Again, let's get everybody on the bandwagon here.
Connie McReynolds:Okay, so the book the title is Solving the ADHD Riddle. It's on Amazon. It's available in paperbacky book and audiobook and I did the audiobook myself so you get my voice, because I wanted my voice in that, so people could understand where I'm coming from with that. The website is wwwconnymcrenaldscom. Sorry for the long name, but it was my given and that's what I have.
Douglas James Cottrell:And forget it. It's my name, atcom, you know. So let's take a short break. We'll be right back and I have another question to ask.
Advertisement:Oh, what's up? I'm just not sure what to do with my health issues and I keep having this recurring scary dream. What's that about? And I just don't know if my instincts are right, about my business ideas or anything right now. Maybe it's all past life issues.
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Advertisement:Great idea. I love talking to him like chatting with a long lost friend. He's like tapped into a ton of wisdom, loads of spiritual insight, and he's on point. Oh, now what? I can't find his number.
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Douglas James Cottrell:Dr Cottney, I highly recommend your book. Just as a parent who's had such a child in my life, I was able to get someone to give me alternatives that allowed my child to come out of an institution. She was in there from two and a half until six and a half and I regret every day that that day my wife and I took her to this place. But it was part of the karma, if you will, part of the spiritual path. But because of her life, I'm doing what I'm doing today and have done what I do for the last 50 years. So, in a playful way, I wanted to ask you if you could do this for people who have issues like children. What about people like me? Can you make me smarter if I was to go through the same program? You know what I mean. I'm kind of holding my own, but you know if I wanted to be improved, is that possible? I'm just asking, a playful sort of way just popped in my head. So if you know what might, be possible?
Connie McReynolds:yes, Of course it's possible, because our brain is changing, it's the neuroplasticity. So, just so you know, I actually recently put a neurofeedback station clinic inside a retirement center here in Southern California.
Douglas James Cottrell:Really yes, Wow so a couple of years ago.
Connie McReynolds:This is kind of one of those things that just happened. We didn't know it at the time, but I had a man call me. He said his 82-year-old mother was struggling with her memory and did he think that I could help? And I had helped him with some pain management. Did he think I could help his mother? I said, well, let's get her in, let's do some assessments, let's kind of figure out what's going on.
Connie McReynolds:So we did that and we had some shorter memory computer-based assessments that we ran and, yes, we found out that there was some room for improvement for her memory. There was some other things going on with auditorium vision, that's like, well, let's do this. So we did the 20 hours of training with her and then one day she came back in just to kind of stop by and say hello and she was smiling from ear to ear and her son was looking a little coy as well and I'm thinking, okay, what's going on here? So she started saying, well, she said you know, I didn't know this, but before I came in to see you I'd seen my doctor and I just went back for my six-month checkup and what he was assessing her for was dementia. She didn't know it.
Douglas James Cottrell:Oh my gosh.
Connie McReynolds:So she went back after six months and she took the same test that she'd taken six months earlier and he looked at her and she's telling the story. She said he looked at me, he goes okay, what have you been doing? And she goes what are you talking about? And he'll tell it first person. And she said she said, well, I well, why I've been doing this thing called neurofeedback. And he said well, whatever you're doing, keep doing it, because you've just reversed this. You've improved your cognitive score on this test several points.
Connie McReynolds:And I'm going to tell you now that when you were here six months ago, I had been preparing for the last six months to tell you that you were in dementia. You are not. Yeah, he didn't know She'd been coming for neurofeedback and I didn't know that she was that close to being diagnosed with dementia. We had found memory problems, but I'm not a medical physician and I wasn't assessing her for dementia. I was assessing her for does she have some memory problems? And yes, indeed, she did. So I share that to let people know that there's always an opportunity.
Connie McReynolds:I have people in their 90s right now in this retirement center who we're working with and you know it's not going to be maybe the 20 hours. It's probably going to be a longer process, but the brain can still learn, it can still be rewired, it can be strengthened, and that's what these senior citizens are looking for. They want to improve what they have, they want to hang on to what they already have. They don't want this trajectory of a different future for themselves. So anyone can benefit from this.
Connie McReynolds:I think we actually train sports folks to be on the other side of the equation. So we've worked with Major League Ball Player to hone his game a little bit. We've worked with a gymnast who wanted to improve her attention and concentration and focus and when she came back from her competition, she was wearing five medals. When she walked in the door and I was like, oh my gosh, okay, beaming, her smile was bigger than the five medals, it was brighter.
Connie McReynolds:So you know, there's just so much that can be done with the brain, and I think that's really the message. Here is where you don't want to give up on this. We want to keep going and we want to strengthen, and so the intake is an hour and a half, is all it takes of your time, and we do it via Zoom if you're not in Southern California and we do the assessments, the same as if you're sitting in my clinics and I go over everything with you on Zoom and we email you the results at the end of the assessment, and then people can make their decisions, what they want you to do.
Douglas James Cottrell:Wow, I was asking that in a playful way. My interest is exploring the unlimited human consciousness. That's what my show is all about. What my interest has been, because I believe again from hard evidence not just theory or belief in invisible things. But it was like this consciousness is enormous and, as I was just sort of asking about that, I don't have all cybers but I have some timers. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't, so I think I might buy your book.
Connie McReynolds:Well, I just find it, you know, at the end of the day, when a parent has said these things to us and reported these effects, it mitigates any other challenge that there may have been that came across in the day, because, at the end of the day, if we really helped, give a parent or a child or teacher or anyone some hope that there can be a different future for themselves, and that's what this is about. This is about helping people know that there's a different future they can hold for themselves.
Douglas James Cottrell:You give them back their life.
Connie McReynolds:We have. And, not to be immodest about it, it's just the data, it's just the work, it's what's come through me. I didn't create the software, I didn't create the assessment, but I did figure out a little bit of a difference.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, you know it's like a path through the forest, right? Oh yeah, I just take a path, go through the forest. So yeah, anybody can follow the path. But who was the first one that found the path through the forest, or the confusion? And you know, I admire people who are way showers, people who don't take no for an answer and are spurred by whatever spiritual, intellectual, intuitive, whatever pursuit they take to say something can be done about this. And then they have the tenacity to go ahead. And from what you've done again with being an explorer in this field, you know you're not quite sure where to go and the enormous amount of effort that you've done should be somewhat appreciated by your colleagues.
Douglas James Cottrell:So, with that note, have you sent your book to other colleagues, other areas in the medical profession? I'd love to hear what they had to say, because I keep hitting them over the head by saying there's more you can do. Don't just put the blinkers on and say this is what I do and I don't. This is what I do. I do surgery, I don't do anything else. You know, go away and though there's got to be more that you can, as a group of healers, come to a consensus if you will. I'm not talking about a committee kind of making a diagnosis, but I'm talking about the overlap and as I was listening to you, the images were going through my mind. We don't know much about the brain, we don't know much about consciousness we think we do.
Douglas James Cottrell:But here you are, in your life at this point in time, coming up with a brand new field of endeavor that can help babies, children who have, you know, low self-esteem, who think they're stupid, who think nobody cares about them and, more importantly, the parents who love their kids so much and they don't know what to do. They would give their lives to help their children I'm sure I was willing and you don't know what to do and then, like an angel, you show up and you say, oh, I could help, come on down for an hour and a half and we'll see if we can show you a pathway. So have you reached out to other people, or other people listening to you in your field of expertise? Are they wanting you? Do you do seminars? Do you do workshops? What do you do?
Connie McReynolds:Well, that's the hope, that, now that the book is out, that because you really have to kind of prove that you have something. And it took a little while for me to be able to write that book. And I wasn't going to write it until I had solved what I call the remote neurofeedback problem, because I wasn't going to just put a book out and say, oh I'm sorry, if you don't live within 20 miles of my clinic in Southern California, I'm not going to be able to help you.
Connie McReynolds:I wasn't going to do that Okay.
Connie McReynolds:And so once we solve that. The software developer I actually called him. I've had a good long relationship with him and it was in a February A couple of years ago, kind of still in the middle of the pandemic, and out here we were hearing rumors of another shutdown and I thought we can't keep doing this. So we have to get help to people. And I called him. It was late it was probably 10, 3, 11 o'clock in his world that night and he took my call and I said look, we've got to find a solution to this. I don't know what it's going to take, but I have to be able to get this out to people who are more than 20 or 30 minutes from my clinic. And he listened and he called me a month later and he said I pulled off all the programmers, off of everything else and we've created this for you so that we can do this. And so I thought well, we're going to try this and make sure it works.
Connie McReynolds:So two years later, we've been doing it and we're helping people around the country and I hope we can reach beyond where we are to bring us to some other folks. And I just want to be clear I don't diagnose, so people are wanting to use insurance or something I'm not going to be diagnosing, so they'll need to go through their own medical folks to do that, because we're focused on the auditory and the visual processing problems, and so if you want to find out if that's what's going on, I'm happy to work with you on that. But if it comes to diagnostic labels and insurance and things like that, then that's just you'll. You've got to handle that more on your own end.
Douglas James Cottrell:And that's somebody else's part of the solution, or the or the so people coming in assessment from yourself. You provide again summarizing you provide something to them, they try it out and and they more than likely have positive results. And are some people fast and some people slow in this development? I think you might have mentioned that earlier. But just as we get towards the end of the program, how does that work, you know? Like I mean, I'm sure there are people right now who just they're on the computer going to buy your book, they want to call you, and other people are sitting there going. Hmm, I don't know.
Connie McReynolds:And I think I was the whole gamut. I mean, I've been down the whole gamut with it myself, so you know it's just from one end of it to the other and back and back and back about. You know where are we with this? And so finally pulling together the book and really working through that process of getting it published.
Connie McReynolds:And I think it's really good people to know that there are other opportunities, alternatives, if you want to call them, or just options, and it just is possible to do things differently than what we've really kind of thought we've always had to do, kind of outside the box. I think it's an outside the box process here and I feel like that's really where we're going in the world and with humanity. So we can't stay in the same boxes that we've been in up to now and think we're going to have anything different in the future. We have to step outside this box as we have to be open minded to what some of these new solutions and new ways of being can be for us as a human being on this planet as we connect with others, and I think this may be one of the many things that will be coming for humanity over the next decade or so. That could really turn things around in a big way.
Douglas James Cottrell:I listen to your well said, very concise, and I believe that's a prophetic statement. Thinking outside the box is a good term, looking for alternatives, because if there is something in the world that has happened, it exists, and then there has to be a remedy that also exists. It's just a matter of getting the two of those together, and I think that, as my life was always looking for alternatives took me in very unusual places, but it's been fascinating in discovering just who and what we are as people and all the different functions we have. So again, people can get a hold of you at wwwconnyrenalscom. Go to your website and get a book. I wouldn't mind getting an autograph copy of your book, by the way.
Connie McReynolds:That could probably be arranged.
Advertisement:Thank you, Riley.
Douglas James Cottrell:Well, listen, it's been wonderful having you on here and finding all about them Amazing. I'm going to call it miracle work you're doing. They give somebody back their life, especially as a child who thinks they're stupid, they have no self-esteem and that their life is there's something wrong. They know it's wrong because they can feel it in their head but they can't express themselves and they can't remember all those things. I guess you could say it's like youthful Alzheimer's. You know. It's just like your brain doesn't work. You can feel it and you can know it. That's my sense that I'm picking up just now and how terrible it is. But by unlocking those pathways through those neurons and synapses and getting back to the muscle building in the brain, I just love it. That repetition builds strength. You know you don't use it. You lose it in muscles but in the brain the more you do it. Again, as a summary, the book is called Solving the ADHD Riddle.
Douglas James Cottrell:My guest has been Connie McReynolds, phd. She is a foremost researcher in her field. I encourage everybody who's listening to this podcast to get in contact with this groundbreaking researcher. If you suspect your child has some issues like this, if you know somebody who has a special child, send this program off to them so they might be able to find Dr Connie and get ahold of them for some miracle help. It's been wonderful having you on the show. We'll have you on again in the future, I'm sure. I wish you very, very, very well. You're a marvelous person and a true healer. I'm your host, douglas James Cottrell. On behalf of our producers, jack and Paul, and the team here, we wish you peace and prosperity. Remember, although this show is going to end, the journey doesn't end here. Continue to look for alternatives, continue to look within, and may you have peace always, until next time. God bless.
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