As chiropractors and chiropractic researchers increasingly turn their eyes to all matters paediatric and neurodevelopmental, it was only a matter of time before we landed at the big question: if chiropractic really helps kids, and if it really helps neurodevelopment, what about academic performance? While we are not yet at the stage where we have larger trials on this issue, a case series comprising three children with dyslexia was recently published in the Asia Pacific Chiropractic Journal. In this paper, we can start to see a little of what may lie in store as more paediatric neurodevelopmental research unfolds.
Dyslexia is one such neurodevelopmental disorder, characterised by difficulties with word recognition and often associated with poor spelling stemming from decoding difficulties and fluent word recognition. While working definitions for this condition are still evolving, research has shown us that children with dyslexia have normal intelligence levels, and as such it is not a developmental delay but a specific learning disability. The best research we have at this time is that children will not grow out of it. Nor will they improve with more time or more exposure to written material.
This presents difficulties for students and educators alike. The International Dyslexia Association currently specifies that it is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin.
It’s a matter of how the child’s brain is wired.
It’s a complex area to wade into, as this statement alone is laden with possibilities and ways to mess up the aetiology. If it is in the wiring, does neuroplasticity play a role? If it is neurological in origin, does a neurological intervention supporting optimal function potentially play a role? Would chiropractic be of great benefit, little benefit or none?
As this study’s author points out, “A review of theoretical research in dyslexia suggests that it may be due to auditory, visual sensory, or cerebellar deficits affecting the fluency of learning, along with a phonological deficit, a processing speed problem or a combination of issues. Traditionally, students with dyslexia receive help from educators trained in diverse learning utilising a structured language approach. These may be limited to auditory, visual and verbal training that require substantial cognitive abilities from dyslexic individuals.
However, many of these dyslexic individuals started with neurodevelopmental delay, including poor cognitive function.”
So how did these three cases play out?
Inspired by the work of Robert Melillo (who pioneered the Melillo method and published a number of papers on retained primitive reflexes, their links to neurodevelopmental disorders, and their response to chiropractic care), the attending chiropractor worked along the lines of a chiropractic and functional neurological approach. This included thorough assessments:
- Hemispheric checklists measuring the left and right brain characteristics in motor, sensory, emotional, behavioural, academic, immune and autonomic categories.
- Chiropractic assessments, including deep tendon reflexes, to identify subluxations
- Vital signs assessments
- Primitive reflexes
- Vestibular and balance assessments
- Ocular motor assessments
- Optokinetic reflexes
- Neurotiming
After all of these assessments had taken place, all three children undertook a 24-session care protocol over the course of 12 weeks. While chiropractic care provided the core basis of this, photobiomodulation was employed along with digital therapy, sensory stimulation, ocular motor training and neurotiming training. All of this was aimed at brain stimulation and targeted therapies to enhance neuroplasticity.
While the details and aims of each of the therapeutic interventions are best understood by reading the original case report (referenced below), it should be noted that the chiropractic approach was subluxation-based, using an assessment and adjustment technique called “NeuroImpulse Protocol”. The Core concept of this protocol is that “any aberrant sensory input, such as pain and/or mechanical fault from joints and muscles, will result in dysafferentation to the central nervous system and, in turn, alter the motor output, resulting in subluxations.
All other therapies were aimed at targeting different, specific aspects of neuroplasticity. While in a chiropractic context, this makes complete sense in that the brain is the master controller of the body, it does present a challenge according to traditional research paradigms in that we can’t nail down which aspect of the protocol had the greatest effect.
But to the chiropractor and chiropractic care recipient, a wrap-around approach that takes the whole brain and body system into consideration makes sense.
What were the results?
A nine-year-old girl with dyslexia, dysgraphia and grommets undertook the care protocol. She was struggling in reading, writing and spelling at school, and was showing signs of poor short-term memory and concentration. She was failing in English, maths and science while achieving a high standard in subjects that didn’t involve as much reading. She was uninterested and took long pauses before answering in the initial consultation. Her protocol assessments revealed significant hemispheric differences, asymmetries, retained primitive reflexes, and hypotonias. Abnormal findings also indicated olfactory cortex dysfunction, sensorimotor problems and cerebellum weaknesses. All of this created a clinical picture of brain stem immaturity, left hemispheric weakness, right cerebellum and vestibular weakness, and poor neurotiming.
This patient responded well to the protocol. While significant improvements were noted in the case report (referenced below), it was reported that “From the first week of the program, she appeared to be more emotionally regulated, better ability to retain information, and more able to concentrate and follow instructions. As she progressed through the program, her caregiver reported she became more talkative, more willing to accept challenges, was enjoying homework more and was generally happier. Her teacher reported her reading and handwriting improved while her academic report showed improvement in math and science.”
A seven-year-old girl was also presented for care and placed on the protocol. She had a psychiatrist’s diagnosis of dyslexia. Additionally, she was diabetic and began walking at 16 months (indicating a motor delay). As with the first case, she was doing well in subjects like drama, music and technology, but struggling with maths and English. She also had poor long and short-term memory and was unable to retell a story, multitask and often struggled to comprehend instructions.
As with the first case, she also showed significant abnormal findings across the range of assessments. Unlike the first, her cerebellar and vestibular weakness was bilateral. She also had slow motor activation, especially when initiating eye movement when reading.
This patient/student experienced night terrors and woke up crying during the first 2 weeks of the therapy program (cause unknown). From the third week, she started showing improvements in reading especially in fluency when reading out loud and less frequently skipping words in sentences. From the 9th week, her parent reported noticeable improvement in memory and comprehension. The teacher reported her reading improved 5 levels within 1 term.
This represented significant gains and coincided with significant improvements in objective measures in her repeated tests.
The final case is that of a 15-year-old male who presented somewhat differently to the past two cases. He had no formal diagnosis of dyslexia, but was struggling with academic performance as he struggled with retaining information, relating to learning, and maintaining motivation. He was below average grades across all subjects. He was unable to express emotion easily, experienced frequent meltdowns and had previously been engaged with speech pathology.
His assessment showed significant similarities to the patients with dyslexia when it came to clinical findings such as retained primitive reflexes, brain stem immaturity, right cerebellar and vestibular weakness, poor ocular motor control, and an overall left hemispheric delay.
Given this patient was older than the first two, he was able to self-report more meaningfully and said that his concentration improved after the first session. From then, he made progressive and consistent improvements with reading comprehension, calmess, ability to express emotion, ability to be more flexible in his thinking. Overall, he was more motivated. Alongside improvements in his objective findings, he also reported that he advanced six reading levels in ten weeks and saw an improvement of 30% across all subjects in one semester. He also reported that his relationship with his brother improved.
What does this mean?
While we can’t extrapolate general claims from three cases, this report gives us an indication that chiropractic care with a functional neurological approach like this may offer hope to people living with neurological conditions like dyslexia. We need more research, of course, but these three cases offer an impetus for us to look a little closer at chiropractics offerings when it comes to the brain, neuroplasticity, and neurodevelopment. In time and with more data, we may even be able to offer hope that chiropractic care and functional neurological approaches might belong at the core of the care teams who are making life easier for these kids and their families.
Reference
Huang JS-F. Improved reading and academic performance: A case series of 3 dyslexic students with learning disability. Asia-Pac bChiropr J. 2025;5.4. www.apcj.net/papers-issue-5-4/#HuangDyslexia
