My Child Can Read but Can’t Spell. How Is That Possible?
One of the most confusing things for parents is watching their child read a word correctly and then spell that same word three different ways a few minutes later. If your child can read the word, it seems reasonable to assume they should also be able to spell it. When they cannot, it may look […]
Why Education Trauma Needs to be Addressed BEFORE Addressing Learning Difficulties
Everyone talks about learning disabilities & the best intervention but no one is talking about how the first thing you need to address is Education Trauma So let’s talk about how education trauma relates to back to school, school refusal and success with overcoming learning disabilities whether you homeschool or have your child in school. […]
Why Your Child Knows the Phonics Rules and Still Reads Every Word Like It’s the First Time
Knowing a rule and being able to use it automatically are two different things in the brain. Most kids with dyslexia and learning difficulties can eventually do the first. They can decode a word or a sentence but ask them to read paragraphs fluently? Very few can do the second. And as long as the […]
Why Your Child Keeps Forgetting: How Processing Speed Is Linked to Memory
You have watched it happen more times than you can count. You give a simple set of instructions and by the time you finish speaking, the first one is already gone. She studies her math facts and they are there – until the next morning, when they have disappeared completely. He sits in class, pays […]
Why Your Child’s Brain Cannot Learn Its Way Out of a Nutritional Gap
Educational therapy will not work if the brain does not have what it needs to learn. That is not a criticism of educational therapists. It is a biological fact that the mainstream approach to learning difficulties almost never accounts for – and it is one of the most common reasons families spend years doing the […]
Why Primitive Reflex Integration Is Not Enough to Turn Learning Challenges Around
Primitive reflex integration has gone mainstream – and I am genuinely glad. For years, those of us working in functional neurology and integrative educational therapy have understood that retained primitive reflexes are a foundational piece of the learning puzzle. Watching this knowledge reach more parents is a good thing. But with mainstream attention comes oversimplification […]
6 Hills I Will Die On as an Educational Therapist
After years of working with children who have been labeled, assessed, accommodated, and still left behind – I admit – I have developed some strong opinions. Not opinions based on theory. Opinions based on science and what I have seen happen when we stop managing learning challenges and start actually addressing them. 1. Learning Challenges […]
Visual Memory: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Strengthen It
Your child has read the same word a hundred times. They sounded it out yesterday, they got it right on the practice test and yet this morning it is gone. If that scene is familiar, the instinct is usually to do more – more practice, flashcards and repetition, but when a child keeps losing what […]
Auditory Working Memory: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Strengthen It
What is Auditory Memory? Your child looks like they are paying attention when you give them instructions. Two minutes later they are asking what they are supposed to do again. It can look like inattention, defiance or absent-mindedness. One of the first things I look at when a parent comes to me worried about their […]
A Mom’s Guide to Busting the ‘Fixed Brain’ Myth
A couple of weeks ago I got a message from a mom. She had just walked out of her son’s IEP meeting. He struggles with reading, math, attention, and learning. She had gone into that meeting hopeful and she knew her research and her options in cognitive and educational therapies. …And she was told, by […]