Welcome to the ND Brain Trust!

Thank you for joining us here at the ND Brain Trust! This is a community of people who believe that every neurodivergent kid deserves instruction that works with their brain, not against it. The ND Brain Trust was born as an outlet to share the resources and tools we work to identify and develop for all readers, especially neurodivergent learners. These learners may be classified using the terms autistic, ADHD, or dyslexic to name a few; however, many students with these differences are never formally diagnosed and are known simply as “struggling readers.”

In 2022, I set out in search of a way to reach these learners - the ones who’ve sat in literacy intervention year after year with little or no progress. They’re giving their all. Their teachers are giving their all. Their families are giving their all. But because the programs that work for most readers still aren’t enough to fully engage the neural circuitry needed to process written language for these students, even all of these collective best efforts result in frustration and struggle day after day, year after year. My theory was that if I could engage parts of the brain that have roles in different but shared processing, I could find an alternate pathway to constructing their reading circuit, or the “superhighway” of brain connections that facilitate skilled reading. My framework, Musical-Phonetic Intervention, is the result of that theory, and it has shown promise in increasing decoding ability in neurodivergent readers.

Why are our neurodivergent students continuing to struggle year after year in interventions that don’t effectively match their unique neurological needs? Why can’t we reach them?

A lifetime of illiteracy is a clear and present danger for these learners. When students experience extreme difficulty or failure in reaching reading proficiency, a cascade of negative impacts are set in motion that will affect these students throughout their lives.

Students who struggled to learn to read are more likely to drop out of school, and without literacy, these students often find themselves in difficult and often hopeless situations. A 2021 analysis of incarcerated men and women in the state of Louisiana revealed that 87% of participating inmates classified themselves as school dropouts, some of them dropping out while still in middle school.

Even among students who gain enough skills to become functionally literate, negative life outcomes still stack up. Their lack of comprehension ability impacts their ability to access vital health information, financial resources, and continuing education. As these students later become parents, they are unable to foster literacy within the home, continuing the cycle of literacy struggles throughout generations.

Structured literacy (explicit, systematic, cumulative literacy instruction) is a tried and true literacy method backed by decades of replicated research. But even structured literacy fails to reach 3-5% of students. We cannot give up on these students. The cost is just too high.

We must keep asking ourselves—how do we reach them? How can we maintain adherence to the evidence-based principles of structured literacy while also bringing other pathways and neural hubs online for our neurodivergent students?

That’s what the ND Brain Trust is all about.

We are a network of people who will not stop asking the questions and pursuing the solutions for our neurodivergent students.

We don’t stop asking.

We don’t stop talking.

We don’t give up.

Welcome to the club.

References: 

 Barrett-Tatum, J., Ashworth, K., & Scales, D. (2019). Gateway Literacy Retention Policies: Perspectives and implications from the field. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 15(10). https://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2019v15n10a845

Cassidy, L., Reggio, K., Shaywitz, B., Holahan, J., & Shaywitz, S. (2021). Dyslexia in incarcerated men and women: A new perspective on reading disability in the prison population. The Journal of Correctional Education, 72(2). https://www.jstor.org/journal/jcorreduc

Cree, A., Kay, A., & Steward, J. (2022). (rep.). The economic and social cost of illiteracy: A snapshot of illiteracy in a global context. World Literacy Foundation. https://issuelab.org/resources/41814/41814.pdf

Henderson, G. R. (2025). Examining the Effect of a Musical-Phonetic Literacy Intervention on the Decoding Ability of Neurodivergent Students in a Rural Alabama School District: A Quantitative Quasi-Experimental Study (dissertation). ProQuest.

Moats, L. (2020). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do. American Educator, 44(2), 4–11. https://www.aft.org/ae/summer2020/moats

Parker, P. D., Sanders, T., Anders, J., Parker, R. B., & Duineveld, J. J. (2021). Maternal judgments of child numeracy and reading ability predict gains in academic achievement and interest. Child Development, 92(5), 2020–2034. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13573

Pollock, S. (2019). Literacy difficulties: What are learners’ experiences? Educational and Child Psychology, 36(1), 101–114. https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsecp.2019.36.1.101

Zhang, Q. (2020). The cost of illiteracy: A causal inference study on how illiteracy affects physical and mental health. Health Education Journal, 80(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896920949894