Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

Children, as they grow up in their formative years form a great amount of their understandings of the world based on their experiences as they are processed emotionally and physically. In this essay, I question how the emotional and physical processing influences behavior and movement. Do our experiences influence how we hold our body? Likewise, do our experiences, especially those in our childhood and adolescence influence how we hold our facial muscles? I posit that the ‘processed’ experiences place a signature mark on our whole selves and we live out our lives with this coded information. I also posit that we are able to change, or re-code this information while toning our cognitive-physical health. The way we walk,  The way we hold our face muscles,  the way we talk the way we dance. Their is a physical, emotional code that is created and affirmed and the ability to change that signature mark can be done practically through purposeful,...

somewhere in the heart in a crevice of my mind a spark grows from the inside out a revolution that becomes electric The value of self-expression development to a youth or adult with neurological deficits cannot be understated as an engine of positive growth on multiple levels. Be it typing an essay or writing a short poem, playing a musical instrument or dancing up a storm, self expression can be a form of communication, a work of art and a pathway to bringing our inside selves to the outside. By having typical children, those on the autism spectrum, with downs syndrome or executive function skill deficits   practice story dancing , they actively rewire the cognitive-physical story of their lives. In this case, self-expression can become a self-regulatory, communication life line to individuals who may be otherwise verbally-challenged. All said, the greater task exists in getting the student to recognize the value.  What is self-expression anyway? It i...

The goal with the dance videos is to bring awareness to action by parents and Special Educators on the value and benefit of dancing as an efficient and effective strategy to rapidly develop gross motor skills, executive function skills, cross-hemispheric cranial connectivity and all in all increasing cognitive processing speed. This is of great importance to families with children who have special needs, such as autism. Infants, children and adults like to listen to appealing music and swaying our bodies to it comes naturally. This is not always so with children on the autism spectrum. The antidote is to get them moving and playing, roughhousing (safely), dancing and being adventurous. Do schools support these values? How so? The ease a parent or Educator has in playing a song and dancing with their child or students in a classroom to strengthen their cognitive-physical syncronicity makes the activity practical and easily to replicate. In addition, dancing  has a tend...

What happens when we come together under a common goal of social responsibility for each other? Where does apathy run off to? How can an organization of leaders be led successfully? How does the growth mindset play into best business practices and is it possible to run an organization where no one gets paid at first? It started with naturally developing the executive function skills of the students I work with. Movement therapy is part of my instructional tool and strategy kit and is a tremendous approach to achieving increasing degrees of independence. For a child on the autism spectrum, one with down syndrome, or simply one with mild attentional deficits, context activities for movement therapy that I use are dancing and skateboarding. With the passage of time, these two core activities used in many (not all) of my sessions also provide a backdrop for some real-world skills which need constant toning. These are the ‘soft skills’ that are seldom understood or acknowle...

A child’s first 5-6 years are a time of cognitive growth and eventually neural pruning, thus what is done with that time is of utmost importance. Recognizing dancing as a versatile, formidable modality for autism intervention is worth parents consideration. For starters, dance therapy is not dance class. With my three students  (on the spectrum) whom I have coached for over five years, I have rolled out the use of dancing as a form of communication, emotional processing, and tool to re-channel stemming behavior. I do not use this modality with every student I coach.  These early years need to be a time of setting precedent for a child with special needs. The development of the below skills can be strengthened in short time with the right teacher setting up the right conditions.  communication skills social skills sensory skills soft skills (grit, resilience, humility, compassion) executive function skills (like sustaining attention, functional balanc...