How NeuroToggle® Relates to Existing Behavior/Skill Development Frameworks
“Traditional frameworks focus on teaching the skill or behavior. The NeuroToggle Framework focuses on building and expanding the neural circuits that make that skill or behavior possible.”
- Kimberly Kitzerow
Essentially, NeuroToggle® shifts the focus from practicing the outcome to developing the neural circuitry that produces it
Kitzerow’s NeuroToggle Framework is the first model to formally integrate neural circuit development, biological timing, and regulation into a unified framework for understanding learning and behavior. It explicitly targets the construction, strengthening, timing, and expansion of neural circuits as the core mechanism underlying learning and skill acquisition.
How the NeuroToggle Framework Relates to Existing Behavior/Skill Development Frameworks
Many parents and professionals ask how the NeuroToggle Framework relates to established therapies such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical Therapy (PT), and Speech-Language Therapy (SLP). These therapies play important roles in supporting development by helping individuals build communication, motor, sensory, and behavioral skills.
The NeuroToggle Framework is an educational instructional framework based on the principle that every skill or behavior is produced by a neural circuit shaped through neuroplasticity. Within this model, learning occurs as neural circuits are intentionally expanded, grown, strengthened, and timed through structured experience and practice.
Rather than beginning with observable behaviors or isolated skills, the NeuroToggle Framework focuses on the development of the neural circuits that make those skills possible. Instructional strategies are therefore designed to support how the brain encodes, stabilizes, and retrieves the neural pathways underlying learning and behavior.
NeuroToggle exists within the broader conceptual context of Neurodivergent Biochemistry, which examines biological systems that may influence development. Within this context, development can be understood as the interaction of physiological regulation (BioToggles), biological timing (BioDials), and neuroplastic neural circuit formation (NeuroToggles).
Together, these systems influence how neural circuits expand, grow, strengthen, and are timed as skills and behaviors emerge.
Existing therapies primarily focus on teaching and reinforcing specific skills. The NeuroToggle Framework instead provides a neuroplasticity-based model for understanding how the neural circuits underlying those skills form and develop, and how regulation and biological timing can influence that process.
Disclaimer: While the broader Neurodivergent Biochemistry Framework raises awareness of how physiological regulation may influence development, the NeuroToggle® Framework is an education-based instructional strategies framework designed to support learning and skill development through neuroplasticity-informed teaching methods. It is not a medical treatment, diagnostic tool, or substitute for professional medical care. Any concerns related to physiological regulation, health conditions, or medical factors that may disrupt development should be addressed under the guidance of a qualified physician or licensed healthcare professional.
Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)
What the method is
A behavioral intervention that modifies observable behavior through reinforcement, prompting, and repetition.
What it targets
External behaviors and the environmental factors influencing them.
What it’s useful for
Teaching and reinforcing specific behaviors and increasing behavioral consistency through structured practice.
What it’s missing
The model does not account for autonomic nervous system states (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) or whether the neural circuitry required for the behavior exists.
How NeuroToggle closes the gap
NeuroToggle focuses on building the neural circuits that produce behavior, integrating nervous system regulation and neuroplastic learning strategies.
Comparison With Existing Behavior/Skill Development Frameworks
Occupational Therapy (OT)
What the method is
A therapeutic approach that helps individuals develop functional skills needed for daily activities.
What it targets
Motor coordination, sensory integration, and task performance.
What it’s useful for
Improving physical coordination, sensory processing, and independence in everyday tasks.
What it’s missing
It focuses on performing skills, but does not explicitly target the neural processes responsible for encoding, consolidating, and stabilizing those skills in memory networks.
How NeuroToggle closes the gap
NeuroToggle focuses on building and strengthening the neural circuits underlying skill acquisition, helping skills become more stable and transferable.
Speech Therapy (ST)
What the method is
A therapy designed to improve communication through language development, articulation, and speech production practice.
What it targets
Linguistic pathways involved in understanding and producing language.
What it’s useful for
Developing communication skills, vocabulary, articulation, and language comprehension.
What it’s missing
Speech production also depends on motor planning, neural timing, sensory feedback, and nervous system regulation, which may not always be the central focus of language-based interventions.
How NeuroToggle closes the gap
NeuroToggle focuses on strengthening the neural circuits required for speech motor coordination, integrating motor, sensory, timing, and regulatory systems.
Photobiomodulation (Light Therapy)
What the method is
A therapy that exposes tissue to specific lights to stimulate mitochondrial activity and cellular signaling.
What it targets
The molecular conditions that support neural circuitry, including gene expression, inflammation, and cellular energy (ATP).
What it’s useful for
Supporting neuronal health, improving cellular energy production, and reducing inflammation that may affect brain function.
What it’s missing
Neural circuit development is primarily experience-driven, and photobiomodulation does not guide which circuits form or which skills and behaviors are targeted.
How NeuroToggle closes the gap
NeuroToggle provides structured, experience-driven learning that builds and strengthens the neural circuits required for specific skills and behaviors.