inspiring and challenging today as it was when first published in 1974.
  Program two is the Tomatis Method, first developed 50 years ago by French physician, psychologist and educator Dr. Alfred Tomatis. The method uses filtered and unfiltered sound to "re-educate" the ability to listen and process sounds, both through the intricate mechanisms of the inner ear and through the body. The Tomatis method is used in more than 200 centers worldwide. Some of its results are outstanding, not merely to improve listing ability, but to develop superior skills in speaking, reading, writing, sports, social interaction,motor development and music.
  Program three covers the natural alternatives, developed by Thomas Armstrong, to the medical treatment of the so-called Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome - a malady that is claimed to inflict about two million American children.
  A.D.D.S. is supposedly characterized by three main features: hyper-activity (fidgeting, excessive running and climbing, leaving one's classroom seat), impulsivity (blurting out answers in class, interrupting others, having problems waiting turns) and inattention (forgetfulness, disorganization, losing things, careless mistakes).
  In recent years psychiatrists across America have prescribed, for so-called A.D.D.S., millions of doses of Ritalin, a drug originally approved to control mild depression and senility in adults.
  Now no one would deny that many children regularly display the three characteristics of being hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive.
  But Dr. Thomas Armstrong, who has spent years researching different learning styles, puts clearly the viewpoint the current authors have come to share: "A.D.D.S. does not exist," he writes in The Myth of the A.D.D.S. Child. "These children are not disordered. They may have a different style of thinking, attending, and behaving, but it's the broader social and educational influences that create the disorder, not the children."
  Dr. Armstrong's book outlines "50 ways to improve your child's behavior and attention span without drugs, labels or coercion". Those ways range from changing eating habits to physical education programs, from martial arts classes to the use of relaxing background music, from channelling energy into creative arts to computer training.
  All are the kind of sensible, common-sense activities highly recommended to all parents and schools, not just to help underachieving children to catch up early in their life but to avoid the dropout dilemma later.

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