I'm chatting today with a psychologist who specializes in giftedness, Andrea Lein. She and I really nerded out... for a while. We talk about what giftedness is, what twice exceptional is (when a gifted personal has a learning or emotional disability in school), and how parents can approach supporting twice exceptional children. Enjoy!! (I know we did!)
Read MoreTreating Dyslexia | Expert Interview with Casey Harrison from The Dyslexia Classroom
Dyslexia is the topic for this week! This is also known as a Specific Learning Disorder/disability where the deficits are in basic reading skills, namely phonological processing.
Casey Harrison, an expert dyslexia specialist, will go into much greater detail about the ins-and-outs of what this means and other terms you may have heard used with dyslexia. Casey is an internationally sought after dyslexia treatment expert with over 25 years of experience in education.
We discuss what you should look for in a reading specialist if your child needs support and what a good therapeutic reading program entails. We also talk about learning to read more generally, so if your child is a bit younger and you are wondering about the approach to take, this is a great video to watch.
Casey works with children …more
Read MoreWriting IEP Goals that Work
Today I'm continuing my series of expert chats with Brandie Rosen, a 25-year veteran of special education and teacher training. She's worked on over 5,000 IEPs! She shares with us valuable insight into writing good IEP goals.
IEP goals are the meat of any special education child's services. They provide the road map for what the school, his teachers, and the child will be accomplishing as part of the special education programming for the next calendar year. Brandie helps me to understand how this individualized map fits in with the general education curriculum and how it pulls services, like speech and language, to support meeting the IEP goals. We also dive into Brandie's work in training teachers, specifically with addressing anxiety in students. Brandie provides a framework for how she promotes a collaborative, expertise driven working style so that teachers can do their best work with students while students are getting all of their needs met.
Have a great day!
Dr. Blevins
Resources
Brandie's parent website: https://brandierosenconsulting.com/
Brandie's teacher website: http://learn2teachwithbrandie.com/
Here is a link to Brandie's resource page for parents; lots of good IEP content! :) https://brandierosenconsulting.com/faq-and-resources/
Read MoreFunding College: Info for special needs and traditional students
Dr. Blevins chats with Katrina Roy and Peter Tassoni, both employed with the state of Washington, about considerations for college financial planning. Planning for both special needs and typically developing children are covered.
Download the presentation here: https://teachdirections.enildaclinic.com/funding-college
Questions covered include:
1. What might be additional factors to consider, financial opportunities, or hurdles to overcome when planning for college if a child has special needs?
2. What if your child is considered disabled and won’t get a traditional college credential. Is funding available for them?
3. For typically developing kids, what’s the ideal planning path?
4. For typically developing kids, if I haven’t planned and my kid is now in high school, what should I be doing to best prepare for a good financial situation with them in college?
5. What is my child’s responsibility (at various ages) that I can encourage them to do to contribute to their college financial health?
Read MoreGiftedness and Specific Learning Disability... Can a kid have both?
Can you be gifted and have a specific learning disorder, like dyslexia or dyscalculia, or even ADHD? Sure can! This is often called "Twice Exceptional." The symptoms look different for children who are gifted, and parents and teachers will still want to identify and support these children. You can reduce imbalanced school-life activity, inefficient work and study habits, and promote positive self-esteem by helping gifted children to understand how to self-advocate and to show themselves compassion.
Read MoreWhat is Educational Therapy?
Dr. Blevins is discussing educational therapy. Specifically she focuses on ed therapy to help with executive dysfunction, or managing time, space, and mental resources to be successful in academics. She talks about how this can help your child love learning again, build and keep your relationship with them strong, and help them to be more efficient so they can live life.
Read MoreSpelling Intervention Review: Cover Copy Compare
Dr. Blevins shows you how to help your child with spelling words by using the intervention Cover-Copy-Compare. Dr. Blevins does therapy with young children and provides psychological and neuropsychological assessments for children through young adults (ages 2 to 22 years old).
Read MoreWhy It Is Important to Talk to Your Baby!
Dr. Blevins discusses how your everyday talk increases your baby, toddler, and preschooler's understanding of cause-and-effect and helps them build emotional awareness. Learn more about child development and behavior at EnildaClinic.com.
Read MoreReading Tutorial Book Review: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Dr. Blevins reviews the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which has good research evidence for helping children to learn to read. Learn more about Dr. Blevins child therapy, assessment, behavior, and parent support services at EnildaClinic.com.
Read More
