Children who have dyslexia or attention deficit disorder should be treated with brain exercises and not with drugs, says a Toronto educator and lecturer.

"When you give medications (to children), it doesn't deal with what's really going on," says Jennifer Lynne Dorfman, who has developed a series of mental and physical exercises intended to overcome so-called brain disabilities.

Dorfman lectures on learning disorders, and the potential through her "Brainwave Programs," of overcoming them. The whole field has become contentious recently as result of ongoing brain research, the development of labels such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) to describe learning difficulties, and the increasing use of drugs to treat them.

In Alberta, for example, the number of prescriptions for Ritalin - used to treat forms of hyperactivity - increased tenfold between 1986 and 1993 to about 23,000 prescriptions a year, leading to fears it is being over-prescribed.

Dorfman, who heads a Toronto-based learning institute called Brainworks, said in an interview that learning disorders can be treated by exercises and mental activity based upon the brain's "amazing and elastic" potential for growth.

But first it's necessary to do away with any negative labels that children are often stuck with for life. Her approach, based upon recent brain and physiological research, involves complex testing to determine an individual's learning difficulties and talents. If a label is to be used, "we identify where the person is gifted and go from there. We apply a 'genius' label, not a negative label.

The inner ear plays a critical role in Dorfman's testing, because she views it as a type of arbiter and transmitter of signals between the outer world and the inner world of the brain.

If the inner ear is functioning improperly - from an infection, for example - the brain will not be able to concentrate or process information adequately.

At the base of ear problems are several stresses ranging from pollutants to overly refined foods and even fluorescent lighting that serve to reduce an individual's immune response system, she believes. Other factors - such as physical and emotional abuse and even a teacher's teaching style - can also have an impact. She cited as an example a study that found higher prescription levels for Ritalin in classrooms run by teachers with a "more rigid, pedantic style."

Jolene Lets, program co-ordinator for the Cognitive Re-regulation Program at the University of Alberta, said in an interview she is unfamiliar with Dorfman's methods and couldn't comment directly. But she noted the U of A program bears some similarities in that it seeks solutions to learning problems by delving into brain activity.

The U of A program, carried on in the educational psychology department, has determined that people with learning difficulties often show higher levels of slow-wave brain activity, which is required for sleep or relaxation but reduces the brain focusing that is required for learning. As a practical application, the program seeks to increase fast-wave activity when it is needed in children diagnosed with ADD.

Lets agreed that negative labels can have a harmful effect, because "if you're given a label, that's what sticks." Often, children diagnosed with a problem label are in fact bright individuals who can't, for physiological reasons, focus long enough to pick up all the information given them. "So they feel stupid and people say they're stupid."

Dorfman said her own methods are based on the observation that people generally make far too little use of their brains, and that the brain can create new circuits and expand its range of activity through exercise. She noted that Albert Einstein's brain was incredibly dense, suggested concentrated neural activity.

Dorfman's Toronto institute works with people from across North America, the young to the elderly. If there is interest during her tour of several western cities, she will offer a full program in western Canada.

The program, developed at her Toronto institute, begins with an intelligence test that takes about 3 1/2 hours and measures 26 different intellectual processing abilities. She then designs an individual program of exercises that she described as a mix of balance and sensory and motor exercises.