Walter Solomon
The Waldon Center, Israel
Biography
Walter G Solomon, is Parent of child with Early Childhood Autism who is now working, married and a parent himself. In 2012 he was trained as Waldon Facilitator. He also has organized three one day Waldon Approach workshops at Bishopswood Special School. From, 2013-2017. He has worked as Waldon Practitioner and gave training sessions for staff at Feuerstein Institute and Princess Basma School for Disabled Children Jerusalem. He also organized and participated in a two day Waldon Approach workshop at Imparole, Milan and Autismus Deutschland in Berlin. He is Speaker and Workshop organizer Young Child: Early Learning conference in New York. In, 2017 Opened Waldon Center in Jerusalem. He also organized and ran two day Waldon Approach workshops in Rome and Amsterdam and one day workshops at Bishopswood Special School and Arbour Vale Special School in the UK.
Abstract
The role of movement in the development of cognitive, emotional and social development was relatively neglected until recently. Only recently have psychologists come to appreciate that acting and knowing are inseparable. The young child’s motivation to reach is at the foundation of a perception action cycle, which creates new skills and hence new opportunities for cognitive development. Failure to move in a typical manner in early childhood is a predictor of difficulties later in life. Infants who were more motorically mature and who explored more actively at 5 months of age achieved higher academic levels as 14-year-olds. The developmental cascade arising from the child’s movements, leads to perceptual, cognitive and social development. A research topic Autism: The Movement Perspective opened up in Frontiers in Integrative Science (2013) and was followed by over 30 scientific research articles on the topic from research institutions around the world. An editorial for the research topic: ‘Autism: The Movement Perspective’ wrote that movement could be our best ally in autism, at all fronts. Studies of human movement demonstrate the intentionality of movement even as early as the second trimester in utero. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has its origin in early prenatal failure of movement, timing and coordination. Foetuses that move in an atypical manner may, post-partum, display a problem in qualitative and temporal-dynamic control, i.e. flexibility in affective response and precision in motor timing. This is associated with delay in cognitive development and language, which in turn is associated with a diagnosis of ASD.