I am Riana's Fourth Grade teacher. I knew Riana before she was my student because her brother had been a student of mine also. In addition, I have also been friends with Riana's mom for a few years. While I knew of Riana's diagnosis, I had not interacted with her for any length of time before the school year started this past September.
This school year got off to a very rough start for Riana. It was a new school building, with new teachers, and some new students. In addition, Fourth Grade means a different schedule which means she has to rotate among three classrooms with three different teachers. It was a lot of change and a lot of stress for Riana. During the first two weeks of school Riana had two major outbursts. When she became upset she would yell at the top of her lungs. She would scream at me and throw things that might be on her desk. I admit now I was afraid, not only for myself, but for the other children also. I was worried she could hurt herself or someone else. It seemed nothing I said would be helpful to calming her down. She would take several minutes (almost 20 minutes one time) to calm down to the point where she could join the other students. I was constantly worried something would "set her off". It was scary for us, but mostly for Riana.
Sometime in November Riana's mom, told me that Dr. Dennis was working with Riana on some (MindSoul Brain Technologies) brain entrainment techniques. I saw changes almost immediately. When I noticed Riana becoming upset, I would say, "Picture the bars (brain frequency bars on the computer screen) and watch them go down. Remember what Dr. Dennis said." Riana would close her eyes to picture the bars slowing down and moving down. I would then instruct her to breathe deeply, which she would do. Soon, very soon, she would be totally calmed and ready to resume her work.
Perhaps the most glaring example of how Riana is able to use the techniques introduced by Dr. Dennis, is when the fire alarm goes off at school. Now usually Riana is told ahead of time when there is going to be a fire drill, so she's prepared with her ear plugs and anticipates the loud bell which normally would cause her to go into a screaming rage, so she is able to minimize the anxiety somewhat. However, the building we are in has some structural flaws. Not only does the roof leak when it rains, but when it rains the fire alarms are triggered! Luckily, Riana was in my classroom when this happened for the first time. As is typical, she began screaming in terror as soon as the bells tripped. I of course, did not know of the structural issue with the alarms, so the students started to evacuate immediately. However, I needed to calm Riana as quickly as possible, she was not going to be able to evacuate in that state. I wrapped my arms around her in bear hug and kept whispering in her ear to ‘watch the bars, breathe deep, it will be just fine." I was amazed at how quickly she calmed. Fortunately she was just quiet enough so that I could hear the announcement that it was not a real alarm and there was no need to evacuate. This was great because only minutes after the first alarm stopped, a second one sounded. She again became upset, but was able to calm down very quickly.
Since working with Dr. Dennis, Riana has not had one single incident of out-of-control behavior. In fact, the few times when she has become agitated, she has been able to self-regulate very well. She appears to be a happy, confident student. Many of her classmates congratulate her on how calm she has become and how long it has been since she's been upset in class. She has friends in the classroom and is enjoying being at school. I truly believe the (HealthWalk MindSoul) Brain Entrainment has helped Riana.