Up North Progressive

Dr. Mark Noss is Dr. Steve Ingersoll’s business partner. They developed Integrated Visual Learning and train people how to be specialists in IVL therapy. People as far as away as Denmark have come to Michigan for training in this therapy. Did the Danish trainees find Excel Institute through a Facebook ad like this one? Dr. Noss now operates the management company for Grand Traverse Academy, and also manages the Excel Institute in Traverse City. The specialists who work at GTA will be trained at the institute co-founded by Drs Noss and Ingersoll.

Steve Ingersoll opened the first charter school in Livingston County just for the purpose of using the students for a study on the effects of IVL with students with disabilities. The Brighton Study is a non peer-reviewed study where Ingersoll claims he cured 90% of the students who were on Ritalin using IVL in the charter school. He went on to open charter schools in Traverse City, California, and Bay City before being indicted on felony fraud charges. This hasn’t stopped him from still managing some of his charter schools. In fact, starting this year, three year olds will have the opportunity to experience IVL in the new pre-school program. It’s a sure thing these preschoolers will get eye exams, because it’s the single most important thing you need to do before sending your child to school.

Fortunately, all of Ingersoll’s schools have full eye clinics in them, so it’s a sure thing they will get their before-school eye exam.

IVL is such a miracle breakthrough therapy, it’s even good for people who go to chiropractors. In Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, Dr. Amy Spoelstra owns a practice called Spoelstra Family Chiropractic. She offers traditional chiropractic treatment, and a new program called FOCUS.

“The FOCUS program is a drugless approach to neurodevelopment disorders such as ADD/ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, or undiagnosed problems with hyperactivity, impulsivity, or an unexplained lack of productivity. FOCUS provides children, teens, and adults a way to manage and improve these traits without the use of medication.

A Non-medication treatment for ADD/ADHD and autism spectrum disorders using chiropractic? There’s more to it than that. The FOCUS program has three components:

FOCUS joins three of the most powerful, drugless tools available today in the management and correction of these disorders. Those tools are chiropractic, nutrition, and brain/body exercises know as Neurological Integrated Movements (NIMS).

Have you ever tried to get an autistic child to eat something they’re not interested in eating? Two of these things are familiar, but the third, NIMS, that is new. What is NIMS? To get a better idea of what this might be, let’s get a little background on Dr. Spoelstra.

Dr. Amy Spoelstra’s maiden name is Ingersoll. This is Steve Ingersoll’s daughter, married and living in Idaho where she and her husband have opened and work as partners in a chiropractic practice. Knowing this helps us get a better idea of NIMS.

Dr. Spoelstra began pursuing qualifications in chiropractic pediatric care. Currently, Dr. Spoelstra is finishing a diplomat in chiropractic pediatrics through the ICPA (International Chiropractic Pediatric Association), is a SHINE certified doctor (neurodevelopmental disorders), is a student of Intersect for Kids (Dr. Monika Buerger), is thoroughly studied in Integrated Visual Learning(Dr. Steven Ingersoll), and is pursuing a fellowship through the Carrick Institute of Graduate Studies in Childhood Developmental Disorders.

Could NIMS be another name for IVL, and being used as part of a treatment that is meant to correct ADD/ADHD and autism?

Dr. Amy Spoelstra is a pediatric Chiropractor practicing in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. In collaboration with her father Dr. Steven Ingersoll, a Developmental Optometrist from Michigan, she created the FOCUS program that addresses the needs of children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. FOCUS incorporates Integrated Visual Learning (IVL) with movement based techniques, nutrition, and chiropractic to improve underlying function in children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders.

NIMS appears to be another acronym meaning IVL.

The Spoelstras have heavily advertised the FOCUS program in the local Idaho newspapers and offered workshops where they teach specific techniques as a sample of what FOCUS can do for them. This program is still new, so the chances of any study of their results is unlikely any time soon. What are the chances however they will claim the same miraculous results that Dr. Steve Ingersoll claimed in his Brighton Study, where his first charter school doubled as a laboratory?

Steve Ingersoll, Mark Noss, and Ingersoll’s daughter Amy Ingersoll Spoelstra all peddle IVL as a miracle cure for ADD/ADHD, Austism, Asperger’s, and every other learning disorder. In Michigan, Dr. Steve Ingersoll and Dr. Mark Noss through their corporations manage schools with optometry clinics and the tax payers are paying for it because it’s part of a “public” charter school academy. As the Michigan Department of Education cracks down on charter school authorizers and looks at the for-profit charter schools they allow to operate, they need to also consider what these schools are using to treat special education students, and whether they’re providing services specified in their IEP, or doing something else because the state of Michigan is their proverbial cash cow. Stay tuned for more fascinating things happening in Michigan in the name of school choice.