How do we deal with our child’s learning challenges?

/in , , /by

He was 2 years old when his speech began to decline. Fear enveloped my cousin as she realized that one of her twin boys was not developing as planned. A parent places their hopes and dreams into their children and when their child struggles, it hurts. One doesn’t want their child to struggle but to be happy, successful and content in life. Being able to accept the fact that one’s child is struggling academically or socially is very difficult and will often take a long time. It is okay to feel discouraged, or to cry, but there is hope.

Every child deserves hope for the future - overcome dyslexia and learning disorders at Therapeutic Literacy CenterAccepting and acknowledging that one’s child is struggling is the first step towards understanding and seeking help. The goal is not to diagnose one’s child, but to see the multifaceted issues that may be affecting your child’s self-esteem and confidence. Behaviors are often seen as an issue with a child’s motivation or how hard they try when these behaviors are more likely attributed to a learning challenge. People like to succeed. Have you ever met anyone that loved to fail? It is the same with our kids. No kid truly wants to fail at something, but when they do fail and can’t seem to get it no matter how hard they try, they may give up. The challenges they face are more than just motivation or bad behavior, they stem from actual learning deficits.

We have to accept that our children are not perfect, that sometimes they have real learning difficulties, and that there are resources and interventions that can help. From here we can tackle whatever challenges may come. A child knows when they are falling behind in class. They often wonder why it is taking them so much longer to complete assignments in class. “Why does everyone else get it and I don’t?” “It is too difficult. I am trying hard but it just isn’t working. I know that I am in the group that is not ‘smart.’” Confronting this head on and getting to the root of these feelings and learning challenges is so important. It is not about providing a label but rather figuring out the root of the problems. Labels can help to provide a child with an understanding of the challenges that they face. With that, it is very important that the negative stigmas attached to labels are eliminated.

Breaking through the stigmas that are attached to labels can be very beneficial for parents and children. Letting a child know that the reasons that they are struggling in class is due to a specific learning challenge that they have allows the child to move forward. It is more the way in which we deal and view the labels that matters. Diagnosing a child with dyslexia does not mean that they are incapable or unable to do everything that everyone else does. While giving your child a diagnosis of dyslexia seems scary, it can be helpful and beneficial. They can begin to understand their challenges more and learn about others who have overcome their difficulties. In fact, children and adults with dyslexia are very creative and have amazing talents. When a child is able to own the term and understand that they are amazing and so talented because they are dyslexic, and not the other way around, change happens.

When we acknowledge and identify the child’s challenge and we create a plan we create hope. A hope that your child will no longer view himself/herself negatively, they will embrace their differences and they will pursue their dreams!Your child deserves hope for the future - overcome dyslexia and learning disorders at Therapeutic Literacy Center

Education needs practice and good coaches too.

/in , /by

I TRY and TRY, but I just DON’T get it…

Sweat was dripping down his face, as he worked on getting the rickety little boat out of the dock. But, it wasn’t moving. The man who let us take the fishing boat out began to laugh with the realization that the anchor was still in place. We weren’t going anywhere until it was released.

We had never taken a rowboat out on water and the motion was very different from a kayak. Getting the paddles to move at the same fluid pace was far more difficult than it looked. Others made it look so easy, why was it so hard?

Then we realized that it was something that we had to practice and to learn. It was a new motion, a new challenge, and it would take time to develop. As parents and educators we often expect our kids or students to get it and get on with their education without realizing the steps involved to get to that place of understanding or skill. The brain needs to be trained. It is an amazing organ that continues to grow as you build more connections and try new things.  As you practice, observe and try new things, your brain is expanding and being challenged.

When a child struggles in school, they often wonder why it is so hard for them and not for others? The brain develops at different rates and needs to be trained. Here at the Therapeutic Literacy Center we work on retraining the brain and creating new pathways that will allow your child to develop auditory, visual, and even attention skills that they may not have.

The amazing thing about our brain is that it changes and can be retrained.  Albert Einstein’s quote “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” reveals the importance of understanding that we have a brilliant mind that can be trained. In schools, the focus is on content and academic learning, and basic academic skills and not on developing skills in executive function, processing, or core learning. We work to figure out what is going on behind the scenes and how we can make it better.

If your child feels like they are struggling in school and can’t keep up with the other kids, it is something that we can work on and improve. Building confidence toward their education and training the brain to process quicker is something that we do here. Our programs are specifically tailored to meet your child where he/she is at and allow them to grow.

Call or contact us today to talk about your child’s needs and how we can help them overcome the challenges they are facing!

No matter how hard you work, you still need good coaching

What is Dyslexia?

/in , /by

So What Is Dyslexia Anyway?  – Two “Classic” Symptoms Explored

We often wonder: Is my child dyslexic? or, Am I? and, What is Dyslexia exactly? However, in our experience, and in that of most people working in the field, not everyone who has difficulty with language or reading has “dyslexia.”

When you hear the word “cheese,” what comes to mind?
Some people picture a slice of yellow American cheese in its own individual wrapper. Others see a “wedge” of white cheese just cut from a “wheel.” Still others picture Swiss or blue cheese.
What about products with cheese – cheeseburgers, cheese danish, cheese pizza, cheese puffs. How about cheese concepts – “How Cheesy” or smile and say ‘Cheese!’”
They all contain cheese, but what exactly is cheese?

The same can be said of “dyslexia.”
Everyone has different ideas about what dyslexia means. The word “dyslexia” is actually a medical term meaning “difficulty with words.” That’s a pretty broad concept.
Let’s narrow this down just a bit.

There is current brain research indicating that people with dyslexia probably have physiological differences in the brain structure and how it processes, or thinks about, information.
At the Learning Center, we look at dyslexia from an educational standpoint. In other words, what can we do to overcome any limitations dyslexia might place on students’ ability to learn. We have worked with students with reading disabilities for over 13 years, and in that time we have come to recognize a couple of major symptoms that we would call “classic dyslexic symptoms.” These are: A significant phonemic awareness deficit, and a strong visual spatial thinking style.

What Is Phonemic Awareness and How Does It Affect Reading?
Phonemic awareness is a person’s ability to think about the number, order, and identity of individual sounds within words. It is the underlying thinking process that allows a person to make sense out of phonics, the sound system of our language.

The basic reading process is made up of three parts: Auditory (phonics), Visual (sight word recognition), and Language (the ability to use context clues and learn and apply new vocabulary).
In order to be an automatic, comfortable reader, all three of these processes need to be working efficiently together. If they are not, reading can be a frustrating struggle.
Current research and our clinical experience strongly indicate that weaknesses in the auditory part of the basic reading process, or inability to easily understand and use the phonetic code of the language, is a key factor in reading and spelling disorders.

A phonemic awareness deficit almost always keeps a person from being an efficient reader and speller. It usually causes individuals to be “disabled readers” in spite of the best efforts of parents and teachers.

For the second grader, it can mean being diagnosed as “developmentally delayed.” For the bright and creative seventh grader, it can mean spending countless frustrating hours doing homework and still failing. For the adult professional, it can mean making a “career” out of hiding the inability to read and write on the job.
Individuals with a phonemic awareness deficit find it terribly difficult to use phonics for reading and spelling. It has been said that these people simply cannot ever learn phonics. However, ongoing research in the field of auditory processing has shown us that this is not true. These individuals can be trained to develop their phonemic awareness and become effective readers.People with phonemic awareness deficit may experience the following:

  • Not accurate beyond their memorized vocabulary
  • Low level of sight vocabulary
  • Virtually no ability to sound out and/or blend words
  • Many times bright and motivated
  • Having to work “too hard” to read, spell, etc.
  • Poor grades
  • Written work is inaccurate
  • Confuse words in reading that look similar (such as quietly and quality)
  • Confuse words that sound similar (such as consonant and continent)

The Visual Spatial Thinking Style
The second “classic dyslexic symptom” is a strong visual spatial thinking style. People who have an auditory conceptualization deficit may or may not have the visual spatial thinking style.
Generally, these people tend to be bright, creative, “right-brained” thinkers, who think in concepts and pictures. They have the unique ability to see “in dimension,” or mentally “see” objects from all sideswithout actually moving their eyes or the objects . This talent lends itself to drawing, building, putting things together, and recalling concrete or visual information.

Many times, when “right-brained” children try to learn with the traditional “left-brain modes,” they are labeled as “attention deficit” because they mentally “leave” the classroom and create highly entertaining “movies” in their heads that are far more fulfilling and less disorienting than the symbolic ABCs and 123s.  Many times these individuals suffer from episodes that have come to be labeled simply “disorientation.” It is the uncontrolled loss of focus triggered by confusion, and it almost always occurs when working with symbols or when listening.

When the person experiences confusion about symbols (such as numbers and letters) his or her brain tries to understand. However, these individuals will usually go to their most comfortable thinking style, which is “seeing” in dimension. This can cause them to perceive the letter or word from different angles, recording different images of the word or letter in their mind. This makes it very hard to retrieve the symbols and often results in number and letter reversals or words “moving” on the page.

Small pieces of the language such as punctuation marks and small non-conceptual sight words such as the, of , and if may also be difficult for the visual-spatial thinker to pay attention to because it is hard to attach a concept or mental image to them. Disorientation may occur when the individual is overwhelmed with too much information, particularly with language.  When disoriented, the person often loses track of what’s going on around him as well as losing track of time.

We don’t ever want to take away a person’s thinking style. It is a wonderful creative style that was and is shared by important individuals in our society such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Bruce Jenner, Greg Louganis and many more.

Our goal is to help students develop other learning styles in addition to their own so they don’t have to suffer from confusion with language. “Dyslexic” symptoms, triggered by confusion about flat, linear symbols and small pieces of the language do not have to become a way of life.

There is help!
At the Therapeutic Literacy Center we help clients to develop control over their thinking processes to make sense out of reading, spelling, written language and math.  Through carefully researched and consistently effective methods, both of these most common and classic dyslexic symptoms can be overcome so that children and adults with average or above intellectual ability can become efficient learners.  Dyslexia and other learning disabilities are not diseases. They are simply differences in thinking or processing information that can be changed permanently . For some learners, the traditional methods of reading have not been successful. These individuals must be taught in a different way.

*Note: There are many other centers. Lindamood Bell and Banyan Tree are some of them in our area. Yet, once you enter our office, you will FEEL the difference. Our clinicians are all college graduates with degrees in psychology. They aren’t part time people working a “job” while they look for something else. They are all full-time clinicians dedicated to all of our clients. Working full-time allows us to go deeper in training and expertise in your child. We promise that there will never be “only two eyes” on your child. The level of collaboration and team work in studying your child along their growth accelerates their progress. That is our commitment to you.

Back to School Brain-Boosters

/in /by

It might be hard to believe, but school will be here before you know it (or maybe your kids have gone back to school already!). In any case, here are a few brain-friendly tips to keep in mind as everyone heads back to the classroom.

Back to school learning tips from Therapeutic Literacy Center1. Use a pencil! In our digital age, it’s often easier to grab a keyboard than an old-fashioned #2 pencil. Even more so because tablets, laptops, and other e-devices are becoming central to the curriculum in many classrooms these days. But research shows that writing by hand is important for brain development in the younger population and continues to help commit new information to memory for the older students.

For the young developing brain, it’s very clear that the benefit of handwriting in comes simply from the act of drawing letters. Research has found that when writing, the brain develops important connections as it integrates sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of the brain become co-activated during the learning of writing and the act of writing, as opposed to typing or just visually observing the practice. (1)

For older students, current research findings show that “Verbatim note-taking, as opposed to more selective strategies, signals less encoding of content,” (2) In normal talk, that means people with keyboards were more inclined to mindlessly transcribe everything they’re hearing as they type in their notes, instead of using their own words to formulate and record meaningful concepts. However voluminous the typed notes may be, the additional content isn’t necessarily more helpful when it comes to recalling facts and relating concepts.

2. Playgrounds before paragraphs (and in between too!).  A little time playing before diving into homework can do the brain some good! Studies show that aerobic exercise increases activity in the bilateral frontal cortex, which is linked with concentration and decision making. Exercise also increases blood flow to the brain, which promotes the growth of new neural pathways for learning!

As your child heads back to school, it’s important to understand and remember that even though they’re another year older, they might not be able to complete everything in one sitting. Most people’s attention spans aren’t very long, so it’s important to take breaks while doing homework. For younger children, they may find that 15-20 minutes is as much as they can take before they’re ‘tired’ or wanting to move on to something else. Take a mind and body break for a few minutes and then come back. For older kids and grownups, sitting for too long without stretching or relaxing will make you less productive than if you take a break every so often. So unless you’re in deep concentration, or ‘on a roll’, then taking a 15-minute break every hour is a good rule of thumb.

3. Get your dream on.  We all know that children are happier tend to behave better when they’re well-rested.   Children 3-6 years old need 10-12 hours and 7-12 years need 10-11 hours on average.  Sleep gives kids the energy they need to make it through the school day, but it’s also the crucial time when memories are reinforced.  Recent studies are showing that sleep is even more important for children than it is for adults when it comes to learning. One study showed that children who were taught a new skill and then slept 12 hours made additional improvements overnight, while kids who slept 6 hours or less made no improvements overnight. This and other recent reports have provided a better understanding for why sleep is so important. Not only does the brain ‘cleanse’ itself during sleep by clearing toxic metabolic byproducts (3) but it is becoming clear why sleep is so much more important for a child’s learning than it is for an adult. (4,5)

4. Strawberries and Cream instead of Soda and Chips. A child’s body needs nutrition, not just food. And children have a higher metabolic rate, requiring more caloric intake than adults, so it’s vital that the calories they consume be nutritious. When nutritional needs are unmet because too many sugary and high-fat foods are replacing nutritious food, children will be unable to perform at age-appropriate levels. Their appetites may be sated but their bodies and brains are starved for essential nutrients. The best way to ensure they get the nutrition they need at home and as they head back to school is to provide them with readily accessible snack choices such as fruits, whole grain snacks, and dairy such as greek yogurt, cheeses and other whole foods – INSTEAD of the processed snack foods.  (6)

References
(1) Kersey AJ1, James KH. Brain activation patterns resulting from learning letter forms through active self-production and passive observation in young children.
Frontiers in Psycholgy. 2013 Sep 23;4:567: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24069007
(2) Ink on Paper: Some Notes on Note Taking: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/were-only-human/ink-on-paper-some-notes-on-note-taking.html
(3) Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain
Science 18 October 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6156 pp. 373-377: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373
(4) The sleeping child outplays the adult’s capacity to convert implicit into explicit knowledge
Nature Neuroscience 16 391–393 (2013): http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n4/abs/nn.3343.html
(5) The Role of Sleep in Memory, Learning, and Health
(6) Nutrition for Children and Teens: http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_eating_children_teens.htm

Do Attention Problems mean my Child has ADHD?

/in , /by

5 Reasons Why Your Child’s Attention Problems Might NOT be ADHD.

Meet 5  different Students with one common story.

  • Attention Challenges, Attention Focus, ADHDJeremy wiggles constantly in his chair. It keeps him from getting his work done and is very distracting to the students sitting near him.
  • Manny talks to his neighbors all the time instead of doing his work. He’s always interested in what everyone else is doing, but he can’t seem to pay attention to his own work.
  • Sara tries really hard to be “good.†She sits up tall and looks right at the teacher. But pretty soon, she’s fiddling with things on her desk or staring straight through the teacher. When it’s time to start working, Sara always has to ask, “What were we supposed to do?â€
  • Rachel never knows what she’s supposed to do for homework. She uses her planner, but what she’s written is incomplete and doesn’t make a lot of sense. If she does do her homework, she usually can’t find it when it’s time to turn it in.
  • Jessica is getting Ds and Fs in high school. She can read, write, spell, and do math but she doesn’t pay attention in class, does poorly on tests, and doesn’t get her work done.

What do these students have in common? Each of these children has trouble paying attention in class, yet  Not one of them has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Good attention and efficient learning depend upon a solid foundation of underlying learning skills
The vast majority of students who come to our learning center have some challenges with attention, but only a small minority are truly ADHD. Successful, easy learning depends upon a solid foundation of underlying learning skills. These skills include the following:

  • Developmental Learning Skills: These are basic visual and motor skills that help children develop a sense of self, internal organization, and body and attention awareness and control.
  • Processing Skills: These are skills such as attention, memory, auditory and visual processing (how we think about and understand things that we see or hear), processing speed, language comprehension, and phonemic awareness (the thinking process critical to reading that supports learning and using phonics).
  • Executive Function: This is our personal manager that guides and directs our attention and behavior. It helps us reason, problem solve, organize, and make decisions.

Poor attention in class may be a symptom, not the real problem
If a child has problems with any of the underlying learning skills, his attention system will also be stressed. While attention may become a problem in school or with homework, it may not actually be the real problem.

5 Students ~ Five Different Learning Challenges Affecting Attention
Jeremy, our wiggly, distracting student can’t sit still in his chair because of a retained primitive reflex called the Spinal Galant.

Primitive reflexes are involuntary movements that are present in infants to help with the birth process and adaptation as a newborn. If these reflexes don’t “disappear†within about the first year of life, they will continue to fire and cause neurological interference that inhibits efficient development and easy learning.

Jeremy’s retained Spinal Gallant reflex causes him to wiggle in his chair when he doesn’t mean to.When he tries hard to sit still, it takes all of his attention, so he can’t really think about what the teacher is saying or what he’s supposed to be doing on his assignments.

Manny is dyslexic. He’s very smart and very clever. He has memorized some words, but he can’t sound out new words and sometimes when he looks at the page, it seems like the words and letters are moving around. At nine-years-old, he’s already figured out that getting in trouble for “entertaining†his neighbors is better than anyone knowing he can’t read.

Sara has an auditory processing problem. She tries so hard to listen, but what she’s hearing is spotty and inconsistent, like a bad cell phone connection. She tries to fill-in the gaps, but pretty soon, it just doesn’t make sense and she can’t keep her attention on it anymore.

Rachel has poor visual memory skills. When she tries to copy down assignments, she has to look back and forth so many times between the board and her planner, that she often loses her place and misses part of the information. It takes her longer than the other students, so she often doesn’t finish because its embarrassing to have to stay after class copying the assignment.

When Rachel does her homework, she sticks it in her backpack. The problem is, she can’t hold a picture in her mind of exactly where it is, so when it’s time to turn it in the next day, she can’t remember where she put it. Well-meaning teachers and family have suggested that maybe Ritalin would help her pay better attention. They don’t realize that Rachel is paying attention, but her visual memory is not supporting her well enough to remember the information.

Jessica has weak processing and executive function skills. She’s pretty sure her parents and teacher are right when they say she’s lazy and unmotivated because she just can’t seem to pay attention and get her work done.

Weak underlying processing and executive function skills can keep a capable student from being able to pull it altogether to perform as expected. They struggle to keep up and have inconsistent homework grades and test scores.

Addressing the root cause of the poor attention symptom can eliminate the problem. All five of these students were able to solve their attention and learning challenges by developing the underlying learning skills that were not supporting them well enough.

Jeremy went through Core Learning Skills Training to integrate his retained reflexes and improve his body awareness and control. He no longer stands out in class.

Manny went through a specialized auditory stimulation and reading program to develop his phonemic awareness and ability to look at the words on the page without getting disoriented. He can now understand how the sounds in words work and has learned to read and spell. He’s putting his strong verbal abilities and humor to use in the school play.

Sara went through a program of Auditory Stimulation and Training to increase her auditory processing skills. She is able to listen to her teacher and her friends now without getting exhausted and missing information. She no longer feels lost and anxious and is able to be the good student she always tried to be.

Rachel received training in various visual processing, visual memory, and organization skills. She can now copy from the board and use her planner accurately most of the time. She is more organized and can remember where her homework is in her folder.

Jessica did an intensive processing skills program called PACE and before she finished the 12-week program, she had brought her grades up to As and Bs.

Don’t ignore attention problems in school
Problems paying attention in class can be a sign to parents that their child is struggling in school. This should not be ignored.

But parents and teachers should be aware that whenever an area of underlying processing or learning skills is inefficient, extra energy will be needed to perform. This stresses the person’s attention. It is important to look very carefully to determine if the attention challenges seen in class are the cause of the learning problem or the symptom.

At Therapeutic Literacy Center, we focus on enhancing and developing those processing skills that bring about the biggest impact on learning: Auditory Processing, Auditory-Visual Association, Comprehension, Processing Speed, Divided Attention, Selective Attention, Memory, Visualization, and dozens of other skill sets that many of us take for granted.  We address the cause, not merely the symptom.  Give us a call today to learn more about our programs and how we can help your child deal with Attention issues!

Dyslexia diagnosis

/in /by

Term “Dyslexia” Not Used In Schools Per Federal Guideline Adopted by Florida

Nov 05, 2013

Panama City- Dyslexia makes it very difficult for children to read, write, and spell. According to the National Institutes of Health, it’s the most common learning disability in our country, so it might surprise you to learn that Florida Public Schools don’t use the term at all.

Just a few months ago 8-year-old Jakob Nelson couldn’t identify letters or numbers. “His problem was so huge he could not take pictures and keep them in his head of letters and numbers,” said Paula Nelson, Jakob’s mom. Now he’s reading. But the journey to get here hasn’t been easy.Why won't schools use the term dyslexia?

“After his Pre-K experience 13 people were ready to put him on a different track rather than regular ed. We stopped it and said not yet, we have much more to offer him and research before that happens. We found someone to test him and identify his major problem being dyslexia with a normal IQ,” said Paula.

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook that healthcare professionals use to diagnose patients, dropped the term dyslexia when they published a revised edition in May. Now it includes the same title school districts use, “Specific Learning Disorder with Reading Impairment.” Dyslexia is noted as an alternative term, but does not have it’s own heading. “We never use that word in the school system,” said Bay District School Psychologist Dr. Mimi Bozarth. “Dyslexia is a medical term, a medical diagnosis. In the school system we use educational categories. The child has the same problem, we call it something different,” she explained.

The state says the terms are interchangeable. The Nelson family disagrees. Failing to recognize or regard a dyslexia diagnosis has dire consequences for the child’s future.  “Specific testing and intervention therefore is not complete and not individualized at times for those students,” said Paula. “C’s are the goal standard. If the child is making at least C’s then the teacher, and we have excellent teachers in the district, we’d most likely accommodate that child’s needs but that child would not qualify for an individualized education plan,” said Dr. Bozarth.

The Nelson’s would like to see the district use different curriculum to address a dyslexia diagnosis specifically and are trying to rally other parents for change. “It’s just like the parents of kids with autism. That is how they made a breakthrough and had a difference made for specialized intervention for their children,” said Paula.

In the meantime, they’ve hired a retired teacher to teach Jakob at home. They hope to one day return him to a normal classroom.

If you think your child might be dyslexic there are many resources on the web to help identify symptoms and how to address them, we’ve created a list for you.

And if you think your child might have a learning disability, you can request they be evaluated by the district. After they complete the response to intervention process, if the child is eligible, an individual educational plan will be developed.

http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/Living-with-Dylexia-230720031.html

 

Breakthroughs in Auditory Processing: Retraining the Auditory System through Music and Sound

/in , , /by

The learning environment for the average student today is bursting with distracting, everyday noise. Overhead lights emit low buzzing sounds. Air conditioners, computers, traffic and construction noise, and voices in the cafeteria or gym classes bombard students’ brains and compete for their attention.  Many of us take for granted that we can filter out or otherwise ignore these distractions but many are simply unable to accomplish this sort of noise filtering.  Imagine what the world would be like if all that you perceived as ‘background’ noise was actually just as loud and just as commanding of your attention?The learning environment for the average student today is bursting with distracting, everyday noise.

Sound has a profound effect on living systems. Because sound goes directly into the body, it has the ability to nourish or depress the system. The vagus nerve, which connects the ear to the brain, also connects the ear to nearly every organ in the body . Have you ever gone into a teenager’s room, and felt like the music rattled you from head to toe? It did! Literally, inside and out.

The environment today is brimming with noise. This seemingly continuous barrage of environmental noise is a constant source of stress in an already stress-filled society.  Many studies have been done to understand the effect of noise on people and nature. In 1975, a study done by researcher Ariline Bronzaft found that children on the train track side of a New York public school lagged a year behind in learning to read when compared to their classmates on the other side of the building. Other studies have found the same learning difficulties for children living near airports.

Yet, the brain needs sound . A diet of healthy sound can have amazing effects on our learning, communication, emotions, relationships, sleep, coordination, creativity, organization and general sense of well-being.

How Does The Auditory System Work?
In order to think about and understand language, an auditory stimulus (sound) has to be received by the outer ear and channeled through the middle and inner ear to the auditory nerve. The ear’s job at this point is hearing.

Once the signal is transferred from the inner ear to the auditory nerve, it goes on a journey through the brainstem and the brain on its way to the cortex where language is processed. The Central Auditory Nervous System (CANS), where this journey takes place, is an intricate system dedicated to dealing with auditory information.

When the signal gets to an area of the brain called Heschl’s Gyrus the transition from auditory processing to language processing begins. It is at this point that the brain begins to process the auditory signal as language.

The final leg of the journey sends the language signals to the cortex where the information is coded, organized, interpreted, and understood.

A central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) occurs when the auditory signal is received accurately by the ear, but becomes distorted, confused, or compromised in some way before it is received by the language area of the brain.

Common Symptoms of Central Auditory Processing Disorder

In more clinical terms, here are some symptoms that most literature on CAPD include:

  • About 75% are male
  • Normal hearing acuity
  • Difficulty following oral directions
  • Inconsistent response to auditory stimuli (the signal isn’t always confused, just sometimes)
  • Short attention span; fatigues easily during auditory tasks
  • Poor long and short term memory
  • May be looking at the speaker, but doesn’t appear to be listening
  • Trouble listening when there is background noise
  • Difficulty knowing where the sound is coming from
  • Difficulty with phonics, reading, or spelling; mild speech-language problems
  • Disruptive behaviors (distracted, impulsive, frustrated)
  • Says “Huh?” or “What?” Often asks for things to be repeated
  • History of ear infections

And even if there has been no professional diagnosis for a struggling child as yet, we both know that something doesn’t  have to be an identified “disorder” for the issue to be a genuine challenge for the student.

It’s Hard to Get the Message When You Have A Bad Connection

Perhaps the best way to understand a central auditory processing disorder in our “modern age” is to think about what it is like to be in an important conversation with a bad cell phone connection. You are having to listen extremely hard, and any extra noise around you (i.e. kids, traffic, etc.) becomes extremely irritating and hard to block out.

Because the signal is not clear, you miss part of what the speaker is saying and you find yourself saying, “What did you say?” and struggling to fill-in the gaps.

You’re not exactly sure what the speaker said, but you don’t want to sound stupid or uninterested, so you make what you think is an appropriate response. Oops! That backfired. Now you have to explain about the bad connection and why you misinterpreted what they said and made an “off-the-wall” response.

You’re not quite understanding the speaker, yet when you have a clear connection, you really don’t have a comprehension problem.

It’s taking so much energy to keep up with this conversation, that you find your attention drifting. You’re feeling distracted and frustrated, and doggone it, important or not, you just want to get off the phone!

Luckily for cell phone users, the way to a better connection is to hang-up and dial again. But for students with CAPD, this is life.

Key Player on the Sensory Team
The auditory system is like the quarterback or the “captain” of the sensory team. It begins to function at 16 weeks in utero and has neuro-connections that allow the sensory team to work efficiently. When the auditory system is weak, it can affect the integration of information being fed to the brain and the nervous system by the other senses.

An inefficient auditory system can inhibit the development of strong listening skills. There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is passive. Listening is active and conscious and has a huge impact on learning . Inadequately developed listening skills can cause problems with information processing, attention, memory, concentration, relationships, motor coordination, language learning and communication.

The ear is tied-in to the vestibular system (balance and movement), so coordination, posture, and sensorimotor integration can be affected by a weak auditory system. Through improved listening, we see improved spatial awareness which supports organization; better body control for sitting in a chair and posture; improved eye-hand coordination for writing and improved motor coordination and performance in sports.

A well-functioning ear is like a battery which changes sound waves into electrical waves. These electrical waves stimulate the cortex (the thinking and learning part of the brain). Healthy sounds are nutrients that can stimulate the middle ear and charge the nervous system .

Because the auditory system has strong interconnections on multiple levels across both sides of the brain and throughout the body, it can impact how energized or de-energized we feel, how well we process information for learning, and how alert and organized we are.

Just as a healthy diet contributes to physical and mental health, a healthy sound environment makes healthier, more available learners.

What if you found a program for students that would result in:

  • Better articulation
  • Improved sleep
  • Better ability to follow directions
  • Improved auditory comprehension
  • Improved vocal quality
  • Better organization
  • Improved social interaction
  • Increased balance and coordination
  • Improved language
  • Increased attention
  • Improved communication
  • Reduced sound sensitivity
  • Increased frustration tolerance
  • Increased learning

Sounds like an Infomercial, doesn’t it? Would you buy?

Believe it or not, these are just a few of the results we are seeing from music and sound stimulation programs that we have added to our “therapy toolbox” over the last few years. Through the work of dedicated pioneers in the field, a whole new world of listening, communication, and success has been opened to our students.

Music and Sound Therapy
Over the years at the Learning Center, we have found that the use of music has been a tremendous tool for opening the door to learning and communication . For students that were shut-down to learning because of constant failure, music was an avenue to renew hope and interest. Our interest in music therapy as a gateway with emotionally-blocked students gradually led us to the use of music and sound stimulation to strengthen and re-train the auditory system for learning, communication, comprehension, and language.

The therapeutic use of music has long been scientifically supported. In the mid-1900s Dr. Alfred Tomatis began his work with the therapeutic application of sound to treat specific symptoms and behaviors.

Auditory stimulation and training has been effective in treating a variety of disorders, including auditory processing disorders, speech and language disorders, learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders, attention deficit disorders, and reading and spelling disorders.

The focus of auditory stimulation and training is on re-educating the ear and auditory pathways.

This is accomplished through the use of specially modified classical music and nature sounds CDs that stimulate the hearing mechanism to take in a full spectrum of sound frequencies. Because sound frequencies literally vibrate through our entire body, auditory re-training can result in positive changes physically, emotionally, and mentally.

As listening skills and the auditory system improve, many positive changes take place (take another look at the list on page one).

A Gentle, Powerful Therapy
Nourishing the auditory system with healthy sound through programs such as Samonas Sound Therapy, The Listening Program , and Advanced Brain Technologies’ Sound Health Series restores and supports the function of the auditory system.

We have found these to be tremendous tools in aiding the development of communication and learning with students of all ages with a variety of learning challenges; however, as one student pointed out, this “would be healthy for anyone, even if they didn’t have a problem.”

Our work with auditory stimulation and training has been exciting and inspiring. With these powerful tools, we are seeing dramatic changes occur in the lives of children, teens, and adults. This is by far the “gentlest” therapy we have ever prescribed, yet changes usually begin to be noticeable within two to three weeks and the impact has been unmistakable. One parent of a young teenager said, “If it wouldn’t embarrass my daughter to death, I’d call Oprah and tell her she needs to do a show on this!”

 

Lazy Is NOT A Diagnosis – Clues To “Lazy” Students

/in , /by

I recently sat down with the parents of a high school student who has managed to barely get by in school. When we finished an in depth testing process we discovered he has a serious learning disorder. His parents told me with aching regret, that in the past, they had punished their son and taken things away because they had been told that his poor performance in school was due to “laziness and a behavior problem.”

Have you ever seen one of these kids that look lazy?

Maybe they always have their head on the desk. Others just never seem to be able to get started. Or maybe they just seem tired all the time, moving slowly, working slowly, barely able to muster any energy until it’s time for recess, P.E., or lunch. When asked about homework, they might say they didn’t have time, or didn’t have the right book, or maybe even say they just didn’t feel like doing it.

When teachers have gone “above and beyond,” done all they can do and the student doesn’t appear to be trying, lazy is often the only obvious conclusion left.

What we know about students is that if they could do the work, they would do it.

Not doing work is really embarrassing, and no student wants to be embarrassed.

So what is it with these lazy-like kids? A Learning Disorder usually has its root in one or more areas of inefficient processing or thinking, which are interrupting expected academic development.

Believe it or not, the developmental foundation for learning begins in utero. There is a developmental continuum that depends on each skill/ability building on the group that develops before it. If there is interference in this development, even at the earliest levels, it can affect school performance.

Let’s take a look at just one of these interferences.

Primitive Reflexes
The Central Nervous System is the control center for all development and learning. Its job is to facilitate a person’s ability to move well, speak fluently, play, and develop skills for living and learning.

Primitive survival reflexes, or automatic movements that occur without thinking, begin as early as 9 weeks in utero and are fully present at birth. These reflexes are necessary to help the baby with the birth process and with survival during the early months of life.

As the nervous system and the brain continue to develop after birth, new neurological connections are made and higher functions in the brain take over. The primitive reflexes are no longer needed and in fact, get in the way of the child’s thinking and learning if they remain active.

Remember, these reflexes are automatic (like a baby becoming startled or grasping your finger). They occur without thought.

Efficient learning depends upon more complex voluntary controlled movements and higher thought processes, so primitive reflexes need to become integrated and inactive. This should occur naturally by about 9-12 months of age.

When primitive reflexes are retained, they can cause neurological interference that affects motor control, sensory perception, eye-hand coordination, and thinking, producing anxiety and causing the person to have to work too hard and with less efficiency than would be expected. This is called neuro-developmental delay.

Dr. Lawrence J. Beuret, M.D., of Palatine, Illinois has developed an NDD checklist, clues that a delay may be occurring, which includes these risk factors:

Pregnancy and Birth:

  • Complications with pregnancy, labor,or delivery
  • Low birth weight (less than 5 pounds)
  • Delivery more than 2 weeks early or late
  • Difficulties for infant at birth: blue baby, difficulties breathing, heavily
  • Difficulties for infant at birth: blue baby, difficulties breathing, heavily bruised, low Apgar scores, distorted skull, jaundice

Infancy:

  • Feeding problems in the first six months
  • Walking or talking began after 18 months
  • Unusual/severe reactions to immunization
  • During first 18 months: Illness involving high fever, delirium, convulsions

Family History:

  • Reading/writing difficulties
  • Learning disorder
  • Motion sickness
  • Underachievers

The following learning challenges can be related to neuro-developmental delay:

  • Dyslexia or Learning Difficulties, especially reading, spelling and comprehension
  • Poor sequencing skills
  • Poor sense of time
  • Poor visual function/processing skills
  • Slow in processing information
  • Attention and concentration problems
  • Inability to sit still/fidgeting
  • Poor organizational skills
  • Easily distracted and/or impulsive
  • Hypersensitivity to sound, light, or touch
  • Poor posture, coordination, balance, or gait
  • Poor handwriting
  • Clumsiness/accident prone
  • Slow at copying tasks
  • Confusion between right and left
  • Reversals of letters/numbers and midline problems
  • Quick temper/easily frustrated/short fuse
  • Can’t cope with change/must have things a certain (their) way
  • School Phobia
  • Poor motivation and/or self esteem
  • Depression, anxiety or stress

Behavioral, self esteem and motivational problems are associated with this list.

Core Learning Skills Training
Movement is an integral part of learning. The kinds of movements needed for learning are intentional and controlled. For example, visually following an object with the eyes, holding a pencil, moving the mouth to form sounds and words, or kicking a ball all require intentional control of the muscles. According to Dr. Samuel Berne, O.D., “when this neurological control of the muscles follows an unconscious reflex instead of following intention, the movement pattern becomes confusing instead of becoming an automatic learned skill.”

In order for comfortable learning to occur, basic physical skills such as balance and being able to use both sides of the body (right-left and upper-lower) together in a coordinated fashion must be in place. With stimulation through specific kinds of movement activities, primitive reflexes can be integrated so that the neurological and motor systems are more available for higher level movement and thinking tasks.

We frequently have students who have great difficulty maintaining good posture while sitting in a chair. At first glance, it looks like a motivation or attitude problem, but our work with reflex integration and core learning skills training has shown us that these students simply don’t have the muscle control to do what is asked with any consistency.

What Can Be Done
In a clinical setting, we have developed a program called Core Learning Skills. It focuses on the integration of five primitive reflexes that are core to efficient learning and functioning. It also includes activities for vestibular stimulation, motor development, visual skills development, attention awareness and control.

As students participate in Core Learning Skills Training, we see that they begin to appear more mature, motivated, and attentive because they are no longer battling inefficient movement patterns and are gaining automatic motor control.

In a classroom setting, there is a series of movements you can use with your students. These can take as little as 5 minutes and help prepare the brain for learning. While these are not specifically for reflex integration, doing these movements will give students greater focus and ability to use the skills they have in a more efficient way.

The program is called Brain Gym by Paul Dennison. You can find this resource at www.braingym.org.

Becoming a Successful Student
Being a successful student involves many skills. When a child is struggling in school and a little extra support isn’t making enough difference, it is likely that there is something in the developmental learning skills or underlying processing skills and such a learning disorder is interfering with academic success. In most cases, these skills can be developed so that efficient and comfortable learning can take place.

Smart but Struggling – How to Help a Child with Weak Learning Skills

/in , , , /by

Smart but Struggling: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense!

Recently, we have had parent after parent calling and saying virtually the same thing:

“My child is bright. He’s a good kid and wants to do well, but he’s struggling in school. He doesn’t qualify for help but he tests below state standards. How can this be?”

What most people don’t know is that about 30% of the children in school today have some degree of difficulty with reading or learning. In spite of caring teachers, supportive parents, good intelligence, and motivation, many students experience academic frustrations as a result of weak or inefficient underlying reading and/or learning skills.

If a child doesn’t qualify for special help at school, does it mean there’s not a problem? Only about 5-9% of children are formally diagnosed with learning disabilities, so that leaves roughly 7 million students who struggle but don’t qualify for help.What to do your child struggles with reading or learning because of weak underlying reading or learning skills.

What does it look like for these kids?

Aaron was a very bright high school senior who wanted to go into pre-med in college. He was at the top of his class in physics and chemistry, but close to failing English and History. He had such weak auditory processing skills that listening in class was exhausting. His teachers reported that he often fell asleep during lectures. Aaron’s poor auditory processing also affected a key skill for sounding out unfamiliar words when reading. He could read, but not well, so he often failed to complete reading-related homework assignments. Because he could do well in some areas, people often misunderstood and thought that he was not trying hard or not motivated.

Mark, at 12 years old, was outgoing, friendly, and confident—that is until it came to school. Mark was a terrific athlete and built fantastic Lego structures. He got As in math except for word problems but was beginning to fall behind in his other classes. Mark was a very poor reader. He’d been able to compensate pretty well up until 7th grade, but the reading and writing demands in junior high were becoming too much to keep up with or talk his way out of.

Kelsey could read well but struggled to completely comprehend what she read so her test scores were inconsistent, making it look like she wasn’t studying. Her biggest challenge was with math, which made very little sense to her and caused her a great deal of anxiety.

How can my bright child have so much trouble in some areas? 


When smart children and teens struggle in school it is perplexing and frustrating to all involved. They often excel in some areas, but do very poorly in others.

  • Sam knows all the baseball stats but can’t memorize his math facts.
  • Keely is a smart and savvy soccer player but gets poor grades on tests.
  • Casey is witty and clever, but can’t follow 3 directions.
  • Michael excels in math but reads slowly and laboriously.
  • Justin can focus on video games for hours, but gets distracted immediately when reading or writing.

Comfortable, easy learning requires strong underlying learning skills. These include such things as:

  • Body and attention awareness and control
  • Memory
  • Auditory and visual processing (how the brain perceives and thinks about things we see and hear)
  • Phonemic awareness (the ability to think about the sounds in words and critical to success reading)
  • Language comprehension
  • Processing speed
  • Logic and reasoning, strategizing, and mental organization and flexibility.

Children who struggle in school typically have real strengths and weaknesses within their underlying learning skills. Since different types of tasks or activities are supported by different sets of learning skills, these students can easily show perplexing inconsistencies in their performance.

Our child is getting tutoring. Why aren’t things changing?

Using the analogy of a tree to represent learning, you can think of academic skills as the top of the tree and underlying learning skills as the roots and trunk. If the root system, or the underlying learning skills are weak the top of the tree, or the academics will be affected.

Traditional tutoring works at the top of the tree with the weak academic skills. This may be helpful to students at the moment but is a bit of a “band aide” approach as it is not addressing the real cause, or root, of the problem and will not provide a permanent solution.

So Does My Smart Child Just Have to Live With this?

The Good News is that the brain can change. While weak or inefficient underlying learning skills are not likely to self-correct with time, discipline, or even tutoring, the brain can be retrained to process information more effectively. Underlying learning skills can be developed through specific and intensive training so that underachieving and struggling learners can gain the success and independence they are capable of and deserve.

Students Who Used To Struggle

  • Aaron went through an intensive summer program to increase his auditory processing and reading skills. His energy, stamina, and confidence for listening, reading, and writing improved greatly. He is now in college with a pre-med major.
  • Mark went through a program to develop his phonemic awareness so that he could learn and use phonics for reading and spelling. His visual skills for reading were also developed so that he didn’t have to feel disoriented and overwhelmed when he looked at a page of text. Mark is now functioning well in a private high school and playing quarterback on the school football team.
  • Developing underlying processing and language comprehension skills has helped Kelsey to become much more consistent in her test scores and much less afraid of math. She can now understand and follow directions in class and do her math homework independently.

Many children cope with their underachievement by putting on an attitude of not caring and resisting help from parents, teachers, and clinicians at a learning or tutoring center. Success can change bad attitudes, though, and gradually, as the foundation of underlying processing/learning skills got stronger, students become more confident and engaged. Here’s one child’s thoughts:

“This has also made me a better person. I am now a more thoughtful person. Before I came I got bad grades. Now I have improved in all subjects. My grades before were Ds. Now they raised to As and Bs. It makes me feel special to be known as a smart kid to other people.”  Brett…5th Grade

Summer Reading Programs, summer tutoring, or summer school?

/in , /by

When your child is struggling to read….

Teaching a child to read requires deep knowledge in cognitive processing. It requires informed observation of every error a student makes. Thanks to neuroscience, we know a lot more about the brain and learning processes involved in reading and writing than we ever have known before.  Neuroscience has given us a view into the brain during reading and  phonological tasks. This brain research is beginning to provide us information about why some students struggle more than others in learning to read and write.

Yet, education hasn’t yet partnered with neuroscience and cognitive psychology to best inform how we instruct students in learning to read. For now, it is up to the most inquisitive educator to continue to ask questions about every error their students make while they are learning to read.

Part of the problem is that most educators received their training before the new insights were available. Additionally, time and resource constraints prevent schools from applying the insights offered through recent research. Even if schools were able to find opportunity to support teachers in developing the deep knowledge necessary for this level of observation and study, class sizes don’t allow even the most informed teachers to take the time with each individual student necessary for this work.  The system of schooling just isn’t prepared to meet the needs of all students.

School curriculum indeed works for 80% of the student population. Another 3-5% qualify for additional services in special education. So what about the 15% of students who are still struggling?  Those students have difficulty getting their needs met in the traditional school model. Even the best teacher has difficulty in knowing what to do and when to help that 15% of students.

How can these students get what they need to succeed?

We can talk about the school year in the coming months. Right now, most families are looking into summer options. As you look at summer school, a summer tutor or summer reading programs for your child, consider these questions: [checklist]

  • Does your child need to maintain skills they already have?
        – If so, traditional summer programs or tutoring may be appropriate.
  • Does your child need to “catch up“ and achieve grade level expectations?
        – If so, a more intensive and research based approach is what they need.

[/checklist]

Stay tuned. In the next few weeks we will discuss how the brain research helps us give students what they need to be successful in the essential skills in:

  • Reading: decoding, fluency and comprehension with critical thinking

  • Writing: spelling, fluency and organization and expression of ideas.