No Cure For Failure To Thrive

Failure To Thrive (FTT) in children is a diagnosis which indicates that a child is not moving through developmental steps. So, the child has little or no maturation physically, emotionally, behaviorally, socially, or intellectually. There are varying versions of this diagnosis.

Various Examples Of  Failure To Thrive

Some children with Failure To Thrive are 3, 4, or 5 years old and are still infants. Some children with FTT are physically growing and playing, but maybe they are not talking or walking by 5 or 6. Some children with Failure To Thrive are talking and walking at 7 or 8 but not yet developed enough to start the first grade in school.

Failure To Thrive is one of many labels of developmental issues. For most of these developmental issues, the medical professional communities have all agreed that there is no cure.

How Come Is There No Cure For Failure To Thrive?

Mostly, there is no cure for Failure To Thrive because the researchers who examine their conditions and the clinicians who work with these children do not know why the developmental process got blocked or became sluggish. And, because they do not know about what drives the developmental process and what might interfere with that process, they only have the scope (frame of reference) of training or treating symptoms.

Research Funds Are Being Disbursed

I recently visited a graduate psychology program at a large university. I talked with the program director about their understanding of developmental issues. He talked with me about one of his recent research projects. He had received funding to investigate precisely the difference between the conditions of Asperger’s and the HFA. He was working to make the diagnosis of these two conditions more precise.

I believe that was an interesting situation, because money was being spent on making the diagnostic process more clear-cut, but there was no clear-cut treatment for either condition. I could understand spending money to develop more clear-cut diagnostic definitions for something where that difference in diagnosis would result in people receiving the appropriate treatment for their condition. Clearly, there is funding available for research in developmental issues, but it seems to be channeled into minor applications.

For Failure To Thrive, many medical practitioners are still focusing on a parental problem and are not yet addressing the real issues of the Failure To Thrive child.

There Seems To Be Little Hope That A Cure Will Ever Be Found

We see conspicuous signs of this in many ways. There is a faction called Neurodiversity. In this faction, people have given up any hope for the possibility of a cure for developmental issues and have started looking at these issues as a new angle in human evolution. They see developmental issues as the next step in our evolution as a species. They resist the idea of a cure and refuse to have their children or themselves considered for treatment, because they think that nothing is wrong.

In our work we do not work with any of the symptoms of Failure To Thrive, but we monitor when symptoms fade away. One common symptom for severe developmental issues is the inability to maintain eye-contact. In our work, this is one of the symptoms which disappears early in the protocols.

I recently talked with the Director of an ABA center to find out the technical name of this symptom of not having eye contact so that in in creating articles I could use the correct technical name. I didn’t receive the technical name I was looking for, because I was so interested in the initial response from the Director. He told me they no longer try to have their clients make and maintain eye contact, because their clients would never need to. They were obviously preparing their clients to be adults with severe developmental issues. They were not working in any way to help their clients overcome their problems. They do not have any hope that there is a cure, or seemingly they think, that there will ever be a cure.

What We Are Convinced Is Transpiring In Children With Failure To Thrive

Developmental issues (such as Failure To Thrive) represent a problem in the normal developmental process. The symptoms (including the behaviors) of children with developmental issues are only symptoms. These symptoms are not the problem.

Treatments for Failure To Thrive should focus on what blocked or bogged down the developmental process. Restarting the developmental process should be the essential outcome. If the developmental process gets restarted, the child “matures out of” the symptoms.

When the developmental process is blocked or stopped or sluggish, there are certain brain facilities which are not permitted to grow and develop. After the blockages are eliminated, there are physical exercises which needs to be performed so that these facilities can develop appropriately. These circuits push forward the developmental process. As these circuits are rebuilt, the developmental process moves forward and your Failure To Thrive child starts developing normally.

The reason that there is no cure for Failure To Thrive is a paradigm issue. Developmental issues are not medical, yet we continue to treat them as if they were medical. I think the most appropriate explanation is that they are a cultural problem. Our modern cultural evolution has taken us away from the environment in which we evolved as a species. These sensitive children are reacting to things in this new cultural environment. But the medical fields are stuck in their paradigms and are not yet able to recognize that their approach does not work for solving these Failure To Thrive issues.

Researchers Are Focusing Their Attention In The Wrong Direction

Everyone is looking outside the child for the causes (mercury, vaccinations, etc. .). By looking outside the child, they are not seeing the most significant issues.

The most recent information from research institutions is telling us that developmental issues come from a genetic susceptibility and its interaction with environmental factors. The genetic susceptibility of these children is that they are hypersensitive and because of this hypersensitivity they are reacting to some things in their environment. This reaction blocks their developmental process. Investigation needs to focus on the susceptibility, that interaction, and those responses.

Now, many parents are focusing their attention on those possible environmental factors which seems to start the problem. Mercury and vaccinations are some of the current targets. I’m sure that many children are being affected by these kinds of substances. But, these outside things in the environment are not the “cause” of the developmental issues. The cause is the response that these hypersensitive children have to these things. It is important to understand that these sensitive children can have a similar response to wheat, corn, milk, chocolate, laundry detergent or thousands of other environmental factors.

If we focus our attention on those multiple offending things out there in our environment, we will get lost in an labyrinth which does not lead to a cure. If we focus on the thousands of factors to which these sensitive children are reacting, we will spend all our attention, focus, and money on legislating all those things. If we do this, we will not be able to work on the real Failure To Thrive issue.

What Should We Focus On?

We need to be researching the sensitivities and the reactions which these sensitive Failure To Thrive children naturally have to the kinds of things to which they react. There are treatments available which temporarily neutralize the sensitivity to a specific thing for a specific exposure for a specific child. This temporary treatment can be done to stop the immediate response. Then a precise plan of action can be established for this Failure To Thrive child. This program would identify all of the things to which this specific child is sensitive and eliminate those factors from this child’s environment. With this kind of program, the Failure To Thrive child will stop having responses and the child’s developmental maturation will proceed without interruption.

This is what we do in our programs with Failure To Thrive children. Sign up for our newsletter and learn much more about our program for Failure To Thrive children.

The Get My Child Back On Track™ program we have created is not a cure. It works to reactivate the developmental process for a specific child with Failure To Thrive and encourages that process to catch-up. To be successful, it requires active participation by the client and client’s family. When parents of Failure To Thrive children actively follow the program, their child consistently gets back on track.