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

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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.

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

Accessibility Apps Help Students With Dyslexia

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We need to remind ourselves that ‘Accessibility’ needn’t be a term reserved just for physically disabled. Those with dyslexia or other learning disabilities face real challenges navigating the world of printed words. It’s largely inaccessible to them because it’s often incomprehensible. However, new accessibility apps from Apple and others, are beginning to give these people the access that most of the rest of us tend to take for granted. While they may not have been the targeted market or driving force behind the design, it’s clear these apps benefit those with dyslexia and related disabilities.

Accessibility Apps help students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities overcome their learning problemsFor someone with Dyslexia, reading a simple paragraph or even a couple lines of instructions is a tedious and frustrating process. This makes everyday activities difficult and learning from textbooks or other dense, voluminous material is nearly impossible. Spelling and written expression can also be very difficult.

 Dyslexia does not impact intellectual ability but it will prevent these bright people from acquiring information as others do in the typical learning environment.

 So what do people who have dyslexia do when they encounter printed text? Sadly enough, some simply avoid it or give up. Others find or create methods to help them succeed.

Thanks to accessibility technologies built into Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and Mac, more and more people with dyslexia and other disabilities are finding they can readily access the information in books, newspapers, websites, email, and more. Using devices to help people adapt the world to their needs is not a new paradigm, but having inexpensive, easy to use, readily available tools (these apps!) is what success is all about these days. Below I’ll highlight a few of my favorite apps for use on Apple devices. Visit iMore to find out about these and others from Apple. Of course there are plenty of more universally applicable educational tools and resources out there that have been around for years. I’ll mention some of them as well because of their proven positive impact.

Speak Selection
Speak Selection reads aloud any text highlighted on the iPhone or iPad. Having the words spoken really improves understanding of students. The app can even be set to highlight words as they’re read to help the reader follow along. We also use it to highlight text so the highlighted part can be read back again to the reader to aid in comprehension.

Dictation
The Dictation feature allows students to get their ideas out so they can freely and fully express themselves; returning later to work on fine-tuning the written script. Writing can be painfully frustrating for students with dyslexia since they often end up forgetting their overarching thought or stream of consciousness as they struggle with the task of spelling and writing individual words.

QuickType
iOS 8 brings with it the option to activate this feature — a predictive keyboard that gets smarter as you use it. It helps with poor spelling by suggesting words based on the first few characters.
With these types of integrated technologies and apps, people with disabilities can have access so they can readily use their creative and intellectual abilities rather than being held back by their disabilities.

Apple device users can also enjoy services offered by third-party apps developed with the Apple devices as the foundation.

One of these services, Bookshare, offers over 280,000 books that can be downloaded directly and read with text-to-speech. The combination of text-to-speech and highlighting greatly improves readability and comprehension for qualifying students. Thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Education Bookshare is free to U.S. students.

Voice Dream Reader is a super-cool text-to-speech app for iOS. It allows students to input text from a variety of sources (Bookshare, web, clipboard, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, Project Gutenberg, etc.) Once the text is loaded, it can even be read with a number of different text-to-speech voices (albeit at additional cost). The app includes highlighting, note taking features, and students can customize the look of their text as well. This app is a great pairing with Bookshare for reading books on the go.

Another service, called Learning Ally provides human-narrated audio books that can also be downloaded to a wide variety of devices such as Android, not just Apple. Learning Ally is a national nonprofit with resources designed to support students with learning disabilities and their families. Of note, the highlighting of feature of this service is not word by word as in Bookshare and Kurzweil (see below), but rather is paragraph by paragraph.

Prizmo is an especially powerful app that uses optical character recognition (OCR) to recognize and read back text in a matter of seconds from a picture of a text document. So if a student is having a tough time reading through something, they can take a picture and have Prizmo read it back to them. Though not the strongest OCR engine in the industry, it is ideal for use with mobile devices.

Individuals with dyslexia and other learning disabilities have already given these apps and services positive reviews – explaining that these apps level the playing field for them, and encouraging developers to come up with even more life-enabling tools. Hopefully, the increased focus on accessibility from sites such as iMore will help push innovation even further.

All the above are apps and services oriented to mobile users and more specifically Apple devices. With the school year already in swing, I’ll mention a number of other powerful applications and sites that are available for the home, office, and school and can be accessed and used across just about any platform, Mac or PC.

Kurzweil 3000
Kurzweil 3000 is a reading and writing program for scanned and digital documents so students can benefit from high quality text-to-speech and synchronized highlighting. Mrs. Kurzweil was actually the name of my sweet and wonderful teacher in first grade so I’m more than just partial to this one. Students can annotate documents with text notes, audio notes, highlighting and circle functions. Even test taking is simplified since students can fill in the blanks on documents – answering directly on the digital document. This powerful tool has additional writing help such as mapping and word prediction features mentioned above.

Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a fantastic free service providing video tutorials for students in just about any subject. Enthusiastic scientists and teachers walk students through difficult concepts step-by-step in a way that is easy to understand and follow. The video tutorials cover an enormous range of content ranging from algebra to zoology and is helpful for learning new subjects as well as reinforcing material that may not have been fully grasped in the classroom. And at the end of many lessons students can even take a short quiz to reassure themselves that they have understood the content. Visit Khan Academy at khanacademy.org.

The last items I want to share are devices that once again, help level the playing field for those with learning or hearing disorders.

Phones and tablets are convenient tools for recording classes and lectures but unless the speaker is consistently close to the device, the built-in microphone may do a poor job of isolating the speaker from surrounding noise. The resulting recording may be filled with background noice making it difficult to hear and virtually useless for those with hearing disorders. MightyMic from Ampridge is a discreet, compact microphone that plugs into the headphone jack on any portable device and then angled toward the part of the room that has the most important sounds to be captured. When recording in a classroom or lecture hall environment, it has the effect of reducing the nearby background noise resulting in capture of ideal recordings of the speaker.

The Sky Wifi Smartpen from Livescribe is a computerized pen for note taking. The way it works is that students take notes on special notebook paper their written notes are synchronized with an audio recorded from class. Revisiting this synchronized audio and written material helps students review and fill in gaps of information they may have missed. Many students within the spectrum of learning disabilities find it’s frustratingly easy to miss important content while trying to focus on writing everything down. Amazingly, the Sky Smartpen can also wirelessly synchronize notes to Evernote or even to other students who need audio and digital notes provided.

It bears repeating that while these tools and apps may not have been created specifically for those with dyslexia and related disabilities, the benefits for them are clear. What’s your experience? We hope you’ll share with us any discoveries you’ve made about technologies or resources that you’ve found helpful (or not!) for students facing learning challenges due to dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, or any other learning disability.

So your child is becoming a reader!

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As your child is becoming a reader – you want to be prepared for the changes so you can make it a positive experience for child and family.

It might never occur to some families to prepare themselves for their child becoming a reader.  What happens to a family when a non-reader becomes a reader?  The answer to this question seemed so obvious!  The family is overjoyed, proud, delighted. Of course!  But when a non-reader becomes a reader, it’s important to understand that the dynamics and relationships in the family may undergo changes — and to be prepared for those changes.As your child is becoming a reader - you want to be prepared for the changes so you can make it a positive experience for child and family.

At the Therapeutic Literacy Center, we work with children and adults with a variety of learning disabilities and a varying degree of severity. Our goal for students is always that they will leave us comfortable, independent learners.

For students with more severe reading disabilities, the road from being a dependent learner to an independent learner may bring with it some unexpected emotions or challenges. The following is a summary of some of the emotional issues that can challenge a child becoming a reader; the process of going from non-reader to reader. If families are aware of these, it may help make the way smoother and more efficient.

1.  Growing Independence
An individual who is a non-reader (or very poor reader) may, by necessity, become dependent on parents, siblings, or spouse to negotiate the world of print for him/her. As reading becomes easier, the help sometimes feels hurt by the new reader’s growing independence. Being aware that this may occur, helps the family to celebrate the changes instead of feeling threatened by them.

When a child is a non-reader, parents often do the reading for them or get books on tape for them so that they can still continue to participate in grade level curriculum at school. As these children begin to read, they must be encouraged to gradually take over more and more of the reading themselves, at the same time keeping in mind that reading will require a great deal of energy for awhile.

2.  Fear of success
An issue that we sometimes see with students either at the very beginning of their program, or as they are becoming more capable with reading and writing, is the fear of success. We have had students, both children and adults, who, while they truly desire to become independent readers, are fearful of the changes they might bring.

One very bright nine year-old non-reader expressed that he was afraid to learn to read because it would change him into somebody else. He might not be himself anymore. Maybe people wouldn’t like him or be willing to help him anymore. We took things very slowly. We encouraged him that we would never want to take away his thinking style; only give him tools that would make things easier. Gradually, he was able to get over that barrier and began to read.

Another, more common fear of success that we have seen with children and adults seems to happen a little later in the program when they actually have gotten to the point that they have some fairly solid tools for reading and writing. These students have expressed the concern that if they can read or write, people won’t help them anymore. They might be expected to do things that are too hard or too long. Just saying they can’t is often a more comfortable solution than facing the possibility of being overwhelmed.

To help students to begin to use their skills without becoming completely overwhelmed, it is helpful for parents to “share” the reading with them. Parameters can be set up such as: The child has to start reading at the top of each page or the beginning of each section, but is allowed to stop and switch with the parent when he gets tired.In this way, the student is using his skills, but the parent is still doing the bulk of the reading. As the child becomes more competent, the parameter could be changed so that the child reads a paragraph and the parent reads two, or the child and the parent alternate reading paragraphs or pages. As they become more comfortable and reading takes less energy, children become more willing to take over more and more of the reading.

3. Changing Expectations

Some students are so used to being non-readers or dependent readers that they continue to view themselves that way, even as their reading begins to develop and they’re becoming a reader. Family members, also, are used to thinking of the student in this way and may help perpetuate the low expectations. When an individual in a family has traditionally not been able to read or write, other members of the family take over those functions for him/her. The family members learn that they need to read menus, write checks, read signs, and/or give a tremendous amount of assistance on reading and writing homework. It is not uncommon for family members to continue performing these functions, and for the individual to continue to expect that, even after he has begun to develop tools that will allow him to do these things for himself.

We see this issue most often in the area of homework. Children are used to having a great deal of help and having someone “right there” with them while they do it. They may be used to using their reading or writing difficulties as an excuse not to do homework at all. Using their new skills can be time and energy consuming at first, and because working independently is a change, many children rebel against it. The students may continue to use “old habits” to get out of their work, or get someone else to do it for them. Old habits die hard for family members, too.

Parents are used to protecting their children from failure and poor self-esteem related to homework. The coping strategies that families develop are important and valuable, but must be let go of as the child’s academic abilities increase.We find that that is hard sometimes for parents to shift their view of their child from being severely reading disabled to being able to do some parts of their homework on their own. This is especially true because children often rebel most about becoming independent and doing their work at home. It is critical that as individuals are able to do more, they be allowed and expected to do so. This is the only way that their skills will really become independent tools for them, and even more importantly, that they will begin to view themselves as competent learners.

Turning Homework Over To The Student: Encouraging Independence
Adopt the motto that Homework is not an Option. It is not a personal issue. It is not a relationship issue. It is simply what school children do. It is not an option, so whether or not to do it does not bear argument or discussion.

  • Make homework as routine as possible. Have a specific time and place for homework to be done.
  • Find out from the teacher exactly what your child can be expected to do independently. Help your child get started if needed but have him complete the assignment on his own. Be available to help, but work with your child on asking you very specific questions as opposed to saying, “I don’t get this.”
  • Reinforce your child’s attempts at independence with praise and social or tangible rewards if necessary.
  • Calmly but firmly insist that the homework be completed. (If the amount or difficulty is reasonable, work with the teacher to make daily homework appropriate to your child’s independence level). Help your child understand that if he is procrastinating on his homework, he is choosing to give up play or TV time. However, parents do not need to choose for their own time to be wasted as well.
  • If your child is very dependent on your presence in order to work, wean him/her away from this by setting a timer and coming in to check on him every 5 minutes at first; then gradually increase the time. Or, have the child do one item with you, then complete the section on his own. He may come to you to get started on each new section as needed.

What happens to a family when a non-reader becomes a reader?
…With patience, firmness and encouragement, the parents get out from the homework burden.

…The individual becomes a more productive and confident student or worker.

…The relationship between the past non-reader and his/her family becomes less dependency-based, perhaps opening the door to some exciting new ways of relating.

As your child is becoming a reader be prepared for the changes in your family

How Children with APD Become Masters of their Own Ears

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For many families, raising a child with APD or CAPD means coping, understanding, and finding the right accommodations to help the child throughout the day. No medication has been found to help, and so far cognitive research has not produced any promising treatments. However, for families that do not take “no” as an answer, there is still one course of treatment that carries promise.

Therapeutic Literacy Center is a small educational therapy center located in Solana Beach, California. The focuses is on addressing the root of an individual’s struggles and developing the building blocks of learning. Instead of providing an educational Band-Aid to get students through the day, we seek to help students develop the executive function, processing skills, and core learning skills they need to excel in life.

There is currently no one-size-fits-all approach to helping children with APD to improve their symptoms. For this reason, Therapeutic Literacy Center works individually with each child to create a step-by-step program of learning activities and games.

We help with:

  • Understanding speech in noisy environments
  • Discerning different sounds in speech
  • Learning to spell
  • Developing active listening skills
  • Enhancing executive function
  • Building memory for different sounds

A child’s brain is more elastic than that of an adult, meaning it is easier and more natural to learn unattained skills. As of now, Therapeutic Literacy Center has successfully brought 20 children out of special education and into the regular classroom. TLC also provides support for children enrolled in homeschool.

TLC is ideal for children who would otherwise require speech therapy, tutoring, and a variety of other treatments from multiple locations. The specialized one-on-one program approach covers every aspect of your child’s learning. If your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, or struggles in school, but has not been diagnosed, or if your child suffers from multiple disorders, TLC may be the ideal space to seek treatment.

We would love to sit down with you and discuss hopes, expectations, struggles, and successes. Your story can help to illuminate your child’s strengths as well as areas in which we may focus our efforts. We are interested in the best outcome, whether that means developing valuable new skills or leaving special education behind. If you believe we could be of help to your child and family, we would love to meet you and talk further about how we can help you reach your goals.

The Role of Sleep in Learning, Memory, and Health

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“I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.” ― David Benioff, City of Thieves

Recent findings in research studies related to sleep and learning lend support to some long-held hypotheses about why we sleep, what happens in the brain during sleep, and why it’s important; especially for learning. In one area of research, the findings provide evidence for a long-held hypothesis that during sleep, the brain cleans itself (1).  Another series of reports illustrate why sleep is so much more important for a child’s learning than it is for an adult.  The findings add a compelling new dimension to our current understanding of how sleep helps the brain reprocess newly learned information thus securing memories and learning (2).

Seminal studies about sleep and learning have shown unequivocally that people trained to complete a procedural memory-based task showed improved performance when a period of sleep followed the training (3).  Even a nap in the middle of the day could benefit some learning.  But to understand what is actually happening in the brain when we sleep we’ve had to wait on the right technological applications to allow us to peer into the brain and accurately measure activities and events during sleep.

Sleep is critically important to a child's learningIn the most recent report, regarding the brain’s self-cleaning mechanism, the research group provides direct evidence of specific cells active in clearing the brain of toxic metabolic byproducts – but only during sleep. Earlier work by the same group showed that the brain anatomy included a network of microscopic, fluid-filled channels that removed toxins from the brain; much like a waste-transport system for the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Many questions remained about how and when these channels were regulated.  The most recent studies showed quite elegantly that during sleep, the channels increased in size and flow of CSF.  Relatively large amounts of CSF were flowing through the brain during sleep, but not when awake.   They even demonstrated that certain waste product proteins, known to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease were cleared twice as quickly during sleep.  Although these studies were performed in mice, they results certainly fit with the long-standing view that sleep is for recovery.  The results are tantalizing for their possible implications for sleep disorders as related to Alzheimer’s or other neurological or neuro-developmental diseases in humans.

The other series of reports from behavioral neurobiology labs present exciting and compelling data regarding just how important sleep is for your child.   We all know that children are happier tend to behave better when they’re well-rested.  And the relationship between neurodevelopmental disorders and sleep-related problems has long been recognized.   Specifically, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD) or combined ADHD/LD, have a much higher rate of sleep-related difficulties and it is likely that the sleep difficulties contribute to and/or exacerbate the behavioral manifestation of these disorders (4).  But what about children not specifically diagnosed with a neuro-developmental disorder or a sleep-related problem?  How important is sleep beyond just resting the body for the next busy day of school and play?

Recent studies are showing that sleep is even more important for children than it is for adults when it comes to learning.  Dr. Ines Wilhelm at the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology has shown that when sleep followed training, children showed greater gains in the specific training knowledge than adults. The studies indicate that there is enhanced processing of memory during sleep in children compared to adults.  The children benefitted more from sleep when challenged with recall of specific learned tasks.

This may come as no surprise when one considers that during development of humans, as with most species, most of the basic lessons of life and survival need to occur in childhood.  Children sleep longer and deeper, and they must take on enormous amounts of information every day. And the children’s ability to excel at recall of specific learned information is linked with the large amount of deep sleep they get at night. In other types of memory, the children benefitted only as much as the adults; not more so.

If your child/student is not performing to his potential academically, you really need to look at the whole picture: healthy eating, positive social experiences, and quality, deep, undisturbed sleep at night.  If they are having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, this could be undermining all the other measures you’re taking to try to help them and ensure their success in school and beyond.

Therapeutic Literacy Center in Solana Beach offers assessments for learning disabilities as well programs and exercises using state of the art methods and technologies for developing underlying “mental tools” needed for success.

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

(1) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373  Science 18 October 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6156 pp. 373-377
(2) http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n4/abs/nn.3343.html Nature Neuroscience 16 391–393 (2013)
(3) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5544/1048.full Science 294, 1048 (2001); Pierre Maquet, et al.
(4) http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1998-04437-005   Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Vol 19(3), Jun 1998, 178-186.

Is there a difference between hearing and listening?

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I spent Easter weekend with my parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. It was a crazy time full of fun and laughter. As the Easter egg hunting came to an end, the excitement over the yummy treats they had just received was overwhelming. Candy wrappers were being opened, sticky fingers were everywhere and sugar began to take its toll as it replaced the sweet smiling faces with grumpy faces.

“No more candy until after dinner…” rang in my ears as I saw my niece lunge for another piece. She stopped for a second and then proceeded to place the chocolate egg in her mouth. She had heard the instruction, but didn’t really listen to what was asked of her. The temptation of the creamy chocolate was just too much and she let herself indulge in it despite the repercussions.

There is a distinct difference between being able to hear and being able to listen. Sometimes it has to do with whether or not we want to listen and follow directions, other times it may deal with an auditory processing issue. Hearing and listening are two very distinct abilities.

Hearing is a passive process wherein the ear is able to hear incoming sounds at a normal threshold. It is a process that is based on one’s biology. The ear is complicated and in order to function properly it needs all of its pieces. Hearing is based on having all the pieces and having them work together. When a sound enters the ear, it is considered hearing. Just because a sound enters the ear does not mean that it is understood. This understanding deals more with an individual’s listening skills.

Listening on the other hand is an active process. An individual has to be able to focus on the sound entering the ear while tuning out any distractions. It is a focusing activity that requires an individual to tune out distractions and tune in to relevant sounds. It deals with one’s ability and motivation to listen. If something is not working properly for hearing, it will affect an individual’s listening skills. Being able to hear sounds is the precursor to being able to listen.

Listening requires concentration and an individual has to focus on certain sounds in order to understand words. If a child is sitting in class, surrounded by other kids making noise, and has an auditory processing issue, they are unable to pick out what the teacher is saying. It is no wonder that they would struggle in a class full of distractions and sounds. Being able to identify a child’s auditory issues can change the way that they perform in class and in every other environment.

Ideal listening occurs when the ear is able to lessen the lower frequencies and background sounds while being sensitive to higher frequencies that are associated with language. Due to this it is so important to understand that an individuals ability to listen is affected by their ability to discriminate and distinguish sounds in different contexts. When a child cannot discriminate sounds, it leads to difficulties in class with following directions, reading, spelling, attention, concentration, and cognitive overload.

The difference between being able to hear and listening is so important because it transfers to every area of a person’s life. The good news is that there are ways to help with any auditory issues that a child may have. Here at TLC we have different listening programs and therapies to help a child deal with any deficits that they may have.

Give us a call today to learn more about our programs and how we can help your child deal with listening issues!

Understanding the Difference between Hearing and Learning