How Does Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement® Work for Children With Disabilities?
How NeuroMovement® Helps Children With Disabilities Learn, Grow, and Thrive
By Phoebe MacRae, Brilliant Movement – Portland, OR
Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement® Practitioner, singer, educator, and child-development specialist
Every week, I meet families who have been searching, often for years, for something that truly supports their child’s development.
They’ve tried therapy after therapy. They’ve heard promises, followed programs, watched their child work hard, and still wondered:
Is there something more? Something gentler? Something that honors who my child really is?
There is.
And it could be described as the “Easter egg” parents never knew existed.
It’s the Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement®. A gentle, brain-based learning approach that supports children with disabilities of all kinds, including CP, genetic differences, autism, birth injury, brain injury, prematurity, developmental delay, rare conditions, and children whose challenges don’t fit neatly into any diagnostic box.
This blog answers the question I’m asked most often:
How does NeuroMovement® actually work for children with disabilities?
Let me walk you through what I see every day in real families, real sessions, and with real transformations.
NeuroMovement® Works by Helping the Brain Do What It’s Designed to Do: Learn
Parents often arrive with a very understandable idea of learning which is based on external teaching.
It’s the ABCs, 123’s, repetition, instruction, drills, “try harder,” “do it again”
But NeuroMovement® is education in the truest, most natural sense.
It’s rooted in the kind of learning all humans do from birth:
noticing
sensing
differentiating
discovering
exploring
making meaning
In this work, the child isn’t being “taught” from the outside.
Instead, the brain is supported to notice more so it can learn more, then self-organize better.
I often use this analogy:
If the brain is like a Photo, some children simply don’t have enough pixels.
Traditional approaches may ask them to solve a puzzle, but the picture is too blurry to see.
NeuroMovement® adds pixels — more information, more clarity, more internal organization.
And when the picture becomes clearer, function emerges.
Children begin to move, think, and feel in ways that were previously unavailable.
Case Study: How “Aubrey” Found Her Voice, Her Calm, and Her Capacity to Learn
One of the children I still think about often is Aubrey (name changed).
[Read more about this child here]
When her family found me, Aubrey was overwhelmed — by movement, by sensations, by the world itself.
She had gone to traditional therapy her entire life: OT, PT, speech.
None of it had helped her nervous system become more organized.
She screamed constantly — not because she was “misbehaving,” but because she had no other way to regulate or communicate.
In her first six NeuroMovement® lessons, everything changed.
She began forming functional, spontaneous sentences.
The constant screaming stopped.
She started playing with dolls — talking to them, imagining their feelings, creating stories.
She began connecting experiences from one place to another, noticing details she had never integrated before.
She developed the capacity to “turn off” unnecessary muscular effort — something even adults struggle with.
She gained emotional and cognitive regulation that had previously been unavailable to her.
Her parents kept saying:
“We’ve never seen her do this. No one ever told us she could.”
This is not a miracle. This is what happens when a child’s brain finally has the conditions it needs to learn and make sense of the world.
Case Study: The 18-Month-Old Who Didn't Know She Had Legs
Not long ago I happened to work with a cluster of toddlers around 18 months, all with very low tone.
One stood out.
When she first came to me:
She had remarkable hypermobility in her legs
But almost no functional use of them
She moved around creatively, but her legs were not part of the picture
Her brain simply had not mapped her legs as “useful” parts of herself
In our lessons together, we gently awakened her awareness:
“These are legs.”
“These are your legs.”
“They move like this.”
“They can help you.”
“They belong to the whole you.”
“They have functions you will find fun and useful!”
Within a short time, she began to:
use her legs to push and move
find more speed and efficiency
come up onto her knees
eventually stand
and then walk
Not through drills.
Not through strengthening.
Not through forcing.
But by giving her brain the information it needed to organize movement for function.
So What Actually Shifts First?
Every child is different, but the first thing that usually changes is:
Safety and trust.
Your child’s nervous system must feel safe enough to learn.
Sometimes this happens in seconds.
Sometimes it takes several lessons.
Either way, I follow the child — not an agenda.
After that, parents often report:
increased calm
more curiosity
better attention
smoother, easier movement
new emotional regulation
more and different spontaneous play
more connection
and yes — sudden hunger
That hunger is real.
A learning brain burns calories like a cookie monster.
Many parents laugh when we have to pause mid-lesson for snacks even when they “just had a snack” before the lesson.
It’s a good sign.
The need for calories means their child’s brain is active, alive, and integrating new information.
What Happens in a First Lesson?
The first lesson (and all of the subsequent lessons!) is about connection — not performance.
Your child may:
sit in your lap the entire time
watch from a distance
come close and go away
explore toys
lie on the table
or stay curled into you
All of it is perfect.
I watch:
how they breathe
how they orient
the sounds they make
how their muscles organize
what brings them interest
what brings them safety
what brings them into connection with me
I meet them with my gentle touch that helps them to feel themselves and to understand their relationship with gravity.
I may meet them through sound. Maybe mirroring vocalizations, cooing, or sharing a rhythm.
Or I may sing.
My Work Includes a Musical Element That’s Uniquely Mine
Second to my NeuroMovement® training MUSIC is one of my most powerful tools.
Often I sing spontaneously.
Sometimes I use familiar songs a child already loves.
I might gently shift the words to help them:
map their body
find new movement options
locate themselves in space
or follow a pattern with a new twist
The melody is familiar, but the experience is fresh.
This wakes up the brain.
It creates novelty — the fuel of learning.
And if a child isn’t responding to music?
I don’t use it.
Everything is responsive.
Everything is about them, not me.
Parents Play a Central Role: From Fixing to Connecting
One of the most beautiful parts of this work is the transformation parents have alongside their children.
Traditional therapy often asks parents to:
correct
fix
reposition
encourage more effort
or cue endlessly
NeuroMovement® invites something different.
It invites parents to:
slow down
notice more
reduce effort
respect their child’s experience
reconnect with curiosity
create safety instead of pressure
support learning instead of performance
This shift alone often transforms the entire family.
And yes — I offer online home coaching so parents can learn to weave these principles into daily life:
mealtimes, diapering, play, transitions, and ordinary moments where learning naturally happens.
[contact me for a link for Online @HOME coaching!]
In-Home LESSON Clusters:
A Powerful Option for Medically Fragile or Highly Sensitive Children
I am one of the few practitioners in the Portland OR area who regularly offers in-home clusters designed for:
medically fragile children
children who associate clinics with trauma
children who struggle with car rides or sensory overload
families needing continuity and comfort
These clusters allow the child to learn in the environment where they feel safest.
I bring my voice, my sensitivity, and my full presence — and together we create new possibilities.
So, How Does NeuroMovement® Actually Work in the Brain?
Here’s the simplest version:
NeuroMovement® increases the amount and quality of information the brain receives from the senses.
More information = more options
More options = clearer organization
Clearer organization = better movement, thinking, feeling, and relating
It’s not magic.
It’s neuroplasticity. It’s the brain’s ability to change and grow connections at any age.
If you’d like a beautiful introduction to these ideas, I highly recommend reading Kids Beyond Limits® by Anat Baniel.
What Parents Usually Say After Finding ABM®NM®
They say:
“This feels like the thing we’ve been looking for — but never knew existed.”
Maybe this is what is happening for you now.
Now that you’ve found me and ABM®NM® I anticipate you will start to feel
relief
hope
curiosity
permission to breathe
excitement about what might be possible
and grounded confidence that your child’s brain can learn
If you’d like to explore this work for your child, I warmly invite you to:
Book a free 20-minute conversation with me
so we can talk about your child’s unique strengths, challenges, and possibilities.
It would be an honor to support your family.