Who We Are

Opening horizons with brain growth.

Neugrowth

Who We Are

NeuGrowth was founded by Kathy Kitts in 2005. She has been tutoring, creating programs of stimulation, and teaching a variety of classes since 1981.

Ms. Kitts graduated from University of Maryland with a degree in Behavioral and Social Sciences, and Microbiology. She received a full semester’s worth of credit for her unique work with children birth to age six. This body of work included 15 years of creating and implementing programs of stimulation children of this age group.

Ms. Kitts has also received training in Philadelphia, PA, at the world-renown Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP). The folks at the IAHP have been doing research and practical application of their theories for over 40 years, and slowly, the rest of the world seems to be catching up to what it has discovered.

At the IAHP Ms. Kitts began her studies of how the brain develops, takes in new information, stores it and recalls it. This includes the many ways the brain takes in information: physically, visually, auditorially, through smell, taste, and through the kinesthetic sense and the tactile sense. These last two methods are actually sub-groups of physical intake, but many are not familiar with them. At IAHP, Ms. Kitts became familiar with how the brain directs the output, and how the brain can recover from many types of injuries, depending on the circumstances.

After her training concluded at the IAHP, Ms. Kitts continued for over a decade to increase her understanding of the brain by reviewing scientific literature, including books, journals, and papers.

At the same time, Ms. Kitts implemented her knowledge by setting up and practicing her skills with her first son, Ryan.

Ryan’s stimulation programs began with very large reading cards containing words written in boldface type, large pictures of famous works of art, and pieces of poster board with different amounts of red dot stickers affixed. This last category describes the beginning of a “math” program, because she was identifying different quantities to her son. Research has shown that babies as young as six months can do simple adding and subtracting if actual quantities are shown instead of a numeral (which is way too abstract a concept for a small baby to grasp).

An important concept to keep in mind, is that throughout the first six years of applying a stimulation program to her son, the length of a single “session” never lasted more than 5 minutes. On a superb day, she may have accomplished 3 “sessions” spread throughout the entire day. This was tucked in-between the walks to the park, in the neighborhood and to the zoo, visits to the grocery store and nature centers, time spent with relatives and other visitors, and travel to all sorts of places in the DC-metro area, New York City, etc.

Fast forward to the present, and Ms. Kitts is very proud of her son Ryan, now 18 and poised to graduate from college, and her second son, Dylan, just entering high school and already fluent in Mandarin Chinese with a completely native accent. Each child is very different, yet Ms. Kitts and her husband have consciously guided their children throughout endeavors based on what they know is possible for a child to absorb from birth to six and beyond.

You can see where this knowledge would be most helpful when tutoring any subject, prepping a high scholar for the SAT or ACT, giving a child some enrichment so he/she won’t be bored, or teaching some concepts for remediation. And putting programs of stimulation together for very little ones is second nature to Ms Kitts.

Ms. Kitts’ level of creativity has been noted by the Smith-sonian Associates, the educational arm of the Smithsonian Institution. There, for the past 9 summers, she has been teaching highly successful summer cultural camps that she has conceived, including a Folklife Festival summer camp for the past 5 years.

Ms. Kitts has been in the Washington DC area for several decades, which has given her a wealth of experiences, and a depth of knowledge about all sorts of subjects.

She continues to develop new ideas to reach more students. Her latest area of experience is working with adults individually, in small groups, or within companies or communities, to talk about her favorite subjects: the brain and effective ways of learning. She works with several topics in her presentations, seminars, and workshops.

For the past few years, Ms. Kitts has given presentations to Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, Mom’s Clubs, community groups, local businesses and business development groups. She hopes to begin giving workshops and seminars to more areas in the country, as well as internationally.

Ms. Kitts is currently working on her Master’s Degree at Georgetown University, and would like to write a book one day on this subject.

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