Educational Therapy
The Benefits of Zoom Teletherapy
Zoom Teletherapy: An Educational Therapist’s Perspective
A series of articles by Ann B. – Educational Therapist
In these uncertain, and sometimes bleak days the Corona virus has imposed upon us, I am going to admit to something surprising, and perhaps controversial: I enjoy, and actually benefit from, treating my educational therapy clients using Zoom. I know, I agree – it has its drawbacks, but its advantages are too numerous to ignore.
I’ve been using Zoom to conduct my 50-minute educational teletherapy sessions since the shutdown, and it was surprisingly easy to transition from “in-person” to “in-camera,” even though I had limited experience with Zoom prior to the pandemic. My clients range from age 6-17 – some have special needs, while others have some identified learning difficulty such as dyslexia or ADD. My overall experience these past 4 months (is that all it’s been?) with distance learning has been unquestionably positive. Zoom is, hands-down, a helpful tool that aids me in keeping my clients’ skills from becoming rusty, and much more. I am even using Zoom to teach clients to read, to write, and to actually create and use a schedule! I profess, even I am a little surprised at this!
The Zoom Benefits
The benefits of using Zoom are both personal and professional. Personally, I sure don’t miss those pre-Covid early morning wake-ups, followed by a quick dog walk, then making breakfast, which I drank on my drive to work. Nor do I miss the responsibility of keeping up appearances by dressing up for work. I find I use less make-up now, due to how well Zoom’s “touch up my appearance” feature works. No commute means the expense of time and money are now erased, and I get to sleep in a little.
Professionally, the benefits of Zoom teletherapy are even broader. It definitely makes sharing digital resources with students a more direct experience. It’s ironic – we call it “distance learning,” but it’s really the opposite. In fact, when you think about it, the distance between my lips and my students’ ears actually decreases in the Zoom environment. Same with the digital document and my students’ eyes. Being this “close” enhances both the educational and the therapeutic relationship, and I still feel connected when I see my students’ faces. That is, when I can see their face, which, at times, can be a challenge. Imagine what it looks like if your view is being controlled by a youngster holding an iPad (i.e., your head) between their two hands. I usually end up getting queasy at the sight of bouncing unintelligible objects that appear upside down and this way and that. Often I get to admire the ceiling, but sometimes I am rewarded by the sight of my student’s quizzical face, because s/he needs to “check in.” Those can be the best moments, because it usually happens when they just learned something – sigh.
Here’s a recent example of what I mean by ease of using resources. I had to get creative to get my 1st grade client with special needs back to our session (she thinks it’s hilarious to pretend to shut the laptop, saying, “OK, ‘bye!”). Once, she walked away, but I felt she must be nearby, so I Googled the first thing I could think of – an armadillo. The educational video that I was playing for her, less than 10 seconds later, brought her back with eyes wide and mouth closed. Then we continued with the session, and later rolled up like an armadillo for a body break. And that’s just one resource – I could have pulled up an eternal supply of relevant and effective material. It’s virtually unlimited!
I have two adult children of my own, and I really feel for the parents out there who have young children in school in 2020. Let’s face it – it’s scary to send your child to school these days! I am glad we have teletherapy, now at CSC, so that I can continue to deliver vital educational therapy to the fabulous kids I work with.
Reimagining Learning in the Time of Covid-19
Learning – it’s fundamental. Teaching – a job parents and caregivers gladly shared with teachers and others trained in child development and education. Until now.
During the time of Covid-19 school closures, the role of “teacher” now falls much heavier on parents at home, and as a result, a “reimagining of learning” is having to occur.
How to Help your Child Thrive this Summer and Beyond.
You’ve heard it before; we are living in challenging times. As we move through this summer, you may be wondering what challenges your child will face when they return to school/if they return to school, in the fall. You may feel lost and have many questions that seem to have no easy answers. How will I make sure my child keeps learning the academic skills they’ll need for success? How can I support my child while keeping them safe? While we don’t know exactly what schools will look like in the fall, we can use this opportunity to reimagine what education can be for our kids over the summer as they shore up important skills they will need in the new school year.
Creating a Micro Learning Pod
One option for your child may be to partner with other families to create a “micro learning pod.” Unlike a typical homeschool, in which parents can be left to fend for themselves, this setup is integrated with teachers and other professionals to lessen the load on the family and increase positive learning outcomes.
One or more educators are hired to work with a small group of children (typically 2-4 works best) to facilitate learning. An educational specialist helps develop a curriculum based on the specific needs and interests of the students in the group, and also consults with teachers to make sure progress is occurring.
Children experience the first critical window of brain development between the ages of 2 and 7. Research indicates that some skills cannot be learned nearly as well after this time. For example, research also shows that this is the best time for children to learn the patterns of language development, even master a second language! The same can be true for the acquisition of musical abilities, which in turn can set the path for the enjoyment of math learning. Special classes such as foreign language or music class could be added as well.
Classes could be held outdoors and with social distancing to promote both safety and learning. Online learning could also be incorporated. Parents could rotate during instructional time, if necessary, to provide support without feeling overwhelmed by the academics.
If you are interested in setting up a micro learning pod for your child, we are currently offering consultations with our Lead Educational Therapist, Jennifer, who is creating and coordinating our learning programs here at Child Success Center. She is available to discuss educational options to reimagine learning and support you and your child, this summer and beyond. Call our office to set up your consultation today.
Sensory Motor Activities Help Kids Learn at Home
The weather is perfect for some time outdoors engaging your child in fun sensory motor activities!
The 4 videos below demonstrate easy, fun and engaging ways to use sensory motor activities to advance academic learning. The kids will have a great time as they are motivated and challenged, both physically and mentally.
Practicing math, spelling and handwriting has never been so much fun!
Sensory motor play with shaving cream is a great way for kids to practice letter and number formation.
How to use fun, engaging sensory motor learning to advance academic learning at home.
Fun and engaging “at home” activities for kids use balance and core work while practicing math and spelling.
Listening, thinking, matching, moving – sensory motor learning at home.
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Why Your Child May Need Educational Therapy
How Educational Therapy Helps a Child That is Struggling to Learn?
We all expect and hope that our child will have a love of reading and learning. It is heartbreaking for a parent to see their child struggling to learn. Often, however, a parent is uncertain what is getting in the way of their child’s ability to learn. After all, children are natural learners, right? Yes…and no.
In the very early years from birth to 3 years old, a child’s learning rate is the fastest of their lifetime. As a child grows older, however, he may find himself in a learning environment that doesn’t necessarily suit the way he learns best. While it may be natural to learn, not every child learns in the same way. If a child’s learning style is not recognized and difficulties in learning are not addressed, as he falls behind his peers the child can lose confidence and self-esteem, which will in turn further decrease his desire to pursue learning and may result in behavior issues. Early intervention is key and it is vital that the child be given access to a safe space to gain insight into their own particular way of learning and develop the skills needed for successful learning.
Educational therapy provides personalized remedial instruction to a child with learning and attention challenges that may be connected to root causes such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, ADHD, executive function deficit, and language, visual and auditory processing issues. Other circumstances to take into consideration might be a child’s regulatory system, sensory experience, emotional involvement, social connectedness and reciprocity, executive functioning, attention, and frustration tolerance. Educational therapy demystifies learning problems, enables a child to build underlying learning skills and stimulates a child’s self-awareness of his strengths so he can use them to his best advantage to overcome or compensate for areas of weakness.
We continue to learn our entire lives. Learning and attention issues don’t go away, but educational therapy will teach your child new learning strategies that will help him improve concentration, memory and attention, and be a more successful, self-confident and efficient learner in school and all through his life.
Is Kindergarten Camp a Fit For Your Child?
Kindergarten Camp will help your child discover his love for learning!
Kindergarten Camp is for any child that has one (1) of the following needs:
- Support in the transition to kindergarten
- Skills when adapting to a new environment
- Creation of meaning and enjoyment while learning
- Development of handwriting and fine motor activities
- Identification of phonological awareness and early reading processes
- Focus on academics while being at a developmental preschool
By taking an educational therapy approach and incorporating research-based programs, the Child Success Center Kindergarten Enrichment Camp offers your child a unique, summer learning experience, while having great fun in our state-of-the-art sensory motor gym in Los Angeles, California.
K-CAMP is an individualized experience, with highly trained learning specialists looking at the “whole child” while meeting the specific needs of each child. Campers will work with a learning specialist to explore their learning journey. During the K-CAMP learning adventure, each child will be helped to develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine and being socially involved. Our approach allows visual and auditory integration, providing the child with a thorough learning experience and understanding from many areas of the brain.
K-CAMP provides a balance of educational, classroom-like experiences and positive social development opportunities. Our team utilizes the hugely effective Social Thinking® (Attributed to Michelle Garcia Winner as creator of the Social Thinking Methodology) curriculum that builds the body & brain awareness that is supportive to learning exploration. Our gymnasium provides a fun, interactive and comfortable learning environment for children. With success comes the joy of seeing your child adapt to new circumstances, thrive socially, develop the necessary skills to succeed in school and learn effectively and happily.
K-CAMP will ignite your child’s learning journey whether the goal is remediation of skills and/or enrichment, all while having great summer fun!
Much of the CSC Kindergarten Camp program is based on the following areas of learning and acquisition of skills.
- Social Thinking® & Whole-Body Listening – develops skills in focusing, listening, auditory cohesion and attending to the body in group and learning situations. Addressing whole-body listening can allow the child to understand the role of their brain in an array of experiences. (this is incorporated in all learning endeavors)
- Auditory Discrimination – increases the understanding and ability to discern between the differences in sounds. Sounds make up words which make up sentences and passages. Discrimination is important in all areas of learning- reading, writing and visual/auditory integration. Understanding discrimination can often bring about comfort and confidence in the reading process.
- Auditory Memory – increases ability to develop phonemes, words and sentences and retain and recall information that is presented orally.
- Phonological Skills – evolve through learning sounds and developing phonological awareness through sound-symbol relationship, blending and segmentation, and incorporating visual, auditory and motion into the learning process.
- Handwriting – includes letter and number formation, sequencing, and development of healthy, adaptive handwriting practices.
EXPECTATIONS OF SCHOOLS
Common Core Standards have clearly upped the stakes when it comes to what skills your child will need to have in his academic and social tool belt upon entering Kindergarten. The expectations for these young children are high and include age appropriate proficiency in reading, writing, listening and collaboration. The CSC Kindergarten Camp program addresses all of these areas while maintaining a fun and stress-free environment your child will look forward to each day.
This program, including its teacher or leader, is not affiliated with, nor has it been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Michelle Garcia Winner and Think Social Publishing, Inc.
“Social Skills” and Early Childhood Development
Social skills plays a significant role in learning development and the educational experience.
One might correctly assume that Social Thinking® (Attributed to Michelle Garcia Winner as creator of the Social Thinking Methodology) is the process by which we interpret the thoughts, beliefs, intentions, emotions, knowledge and actions of another person along with the context of a situation to understand that person’s experience or perspective, and how to react accordingly. But Social Thinking® skills also play a significant role in learning development and the educational experience.
Learning instances can provide a number of potentially challenging “social” situations – group interactions, self-regulatory expectations, knowledge of body awareness, social exchanges and an understanding of listening. By using the social thinking model, we promote growth in areas that are critical for a learning foundation and are vital to successfully managing many life endeavors and day-to-day situations.
If a child is feeling socially uneasy, struggles to verbalize and identify needs, feels disconnected within a group or has trouble self-regulating, that child may find it difficult to learn and derive meaning from learning experiences. These situations arise daily for so many children, and if social skills are left un-addressed, a child can fall further and further behind socially and academically, creating loss of self-esteem and creative potential.
We expect children to enter into a multitude of situations, some new, some routine, and our goal is for them to have the skills to thrive and find themselves successful, comfortable and confident in doing so. Social thinking development provides this opportunity for success.
Child Success Center’s Friendship Club is designed for the child, ages 5-8, who is having a difficult time navigating the social landscape of the classroom or group setting and/or building friendships. The program is designed to use a multimodal approach of positive reinforcement, flexible behavior systems, floor time aspects, mindfulness practices, and the Social Thinking®curriculum, “We Thinkers – Social Explorers™” for early learners.
This program, including its teacher or leader, is not affiliated with, nor has it been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Michelle Garcia Winner and Think Social Publishing, Inc.
Is Your Child Struggling in School?
One in five young children are struggling in school right now. If this includes your child, early assistance can have her or him back on track this school year.
Now that we are half way through the school year and at, what should be, a steady pace for your child, this is a great time to address concerns that may have come to light regarding his or her development or learning journey. If you or your child’s teacher has growing concerns about your child’s progress at school, now is the time to seek information or get an assessment to have him or her back on track to finish the school year at their maximum potential.
It is not uncommon for a preschool or elementary school teacher to identify challenges that your child may be experiencing at school and for you not to see those challenges at home. The school environment is a multi-sensory setting with many challenges that the home setting does not have. Children need to keep themselves calm to focus and attend to friends and teachers over a long period of time. They use their motor and language skills in a more complex manner while being challenged cognitively.
For our preschool aged children it is our role as parents to help them play and learn, and as such, we often don’t realize the amount of influence we offer to help keep them calm, happy and successful. Many times children who need a certain level of support away from home, struggle to actively engage in preschool and at times, this happens in higher grades too. Whatever the grade or age of your child, and as hard as it is listen to what your school and teachers have to say, it is valuable information that you should use in seeking additional support from either a developmental specialist (often a speech therapist and/or occupational therapist) or a tutor.
Parents and educators should take note of how well the kids in their care are progressing and look for signs and symptoms that might signal the need for some extra attention and/or educational and therapeutic support. Addressing concerns, whether they are related to learning, motor skills, speech, sensory, behavior, or development are most successfully resolved when caught early on to prevent them from becoming a much more difficult issue to treat. Additionally, when parents and teachers intervene with the right support at the right time, it is far more likely that challenges will be corrected quickly so as not to strongly impact a child’s overall educational focus, or more importantly, their self-concept and self-esteem.
For some parents, it can be very difficult to realize that their child is experiencing a challenge, but it’s important to know that ALL children develop at different rates. Therefore, it’s not uncommon for many children to need assistance of one type or another at some point during their essential growth years. The Center For Disease Control, which documents neurological and developmental disorder rates, estimates that 16.7% of children have diagnosed developmental and/or learning challenges, and further estimates that when adding those who are undiagnosed, the figure could be up to one in five children struggling with development and the learning process.
In addition to inquiring with teachers and other caregivers, observe your child closely and ask yourself key questions that may indicate a need for help. To offer a better understanding of what to look for, we’ve assembled some key questions to assist you in identifying the types of markers that can indicate a potential issue that needs attention:
- Has your preschooler experienced a stalled improvement in vocabulary or pronunciation – or has he or she developed an unusual speech pattern?
- Does your child have difficulty properly holding a pencil, using scissors or other routine instrument?
- Is your child unusually clumsy, or having trouble running, climbing or even sitting still?
- Does your preschooler have difficulty playing with other children or sharing with classmates in an age-appropriate way?
- For Kindergarten or grade school aged children: Have their writing penmanship skills plateaued and/or stopped improving in ability from earlier in the school year?
- Is your child struggling with attention and/or following directions?
- Is your child struggling with any areas of academic achievement?
- Is your child avoiding table top play that involves coloring, cutting, drawing or writing?
- Is reading overwhelming for your child and causing anxiety?
For children who need help in any of the areas noted above, parents are encouraged to confer with their child’s teacher for more insight regarding what may be going on, or what can be done to assist the child. Sometimes the parent may see things at home that a teacher does not see. Many children hold it together throughout the school day and are a different child at home. If you, as the parent see this, seek help. Sometimes the observations at school and home are the same and sometimes they are very different. If a child is stressed and struggling, get help early.
If necessary, do not hesitate to seek a qualified professional therapist who can identify the challenge and suggest a treatment or tutoring strategy that can get your child back in the “groove” before the challenge becomes a greater issue. The most important thing is to identify the problem and institute a strategy to help them glide over the speed bump as soon as possible. If you would like additional counsel, Child Success Center has a team of qualified occupational, speech/language and educational therapists who can assist in assessing any difficulties your child might be experiencing and help to keep your little one flying high for the remainder of the school year.
Identifying a Child’s Learning Style
Take a look at your child’s pattern of learning. Are his learning skills comparable to other children in his class? Has your child been working with a tutor without measurable improvement?
All children learn differently. Each child has his or her own unique learning and processing style. Some children learn better when they hear information, others when they see it. Still others learn best when they hear and see information simultaneously. In addition, some children face learning challenges that make it difficult to learn the foundational skills necessary to read, write or calculate.
It is the Educational Therapist who helps identify how your child learns best and determine the stumbling blocks that may be preventing your child from reaching his/her potential. The Educational Therapist works in partnership with parents and other professionals working with your child, to ensure that your child gets the right start and continues to grow as a life-long, independent learner.
The educational therapeutic process includes individual interventions designed to remediate areas of challenge in regard to learning, as well as help the child begin to learn about his or her unique learning style. As the child becomes aware of his strengths, he can begin to utilize them in strengthening areas of challenge.
This is an ongoing process which can last anywhere from 3 months to several years. Areas of intervention can include, but are not limited to reading, writing, mathematics, communication and language skills, processing skills, and executive functioning skills. Following the assessment or records review, a program will be recommended if appropriate. For many students the program will be designed in 2 phases.
Learn more about the Educational Therapeutic Process.
Your child may benefit from Educational Therapeutic Services if you recognize any of these Common Signs and Indicators.
