Learning disability

Using the Hands-on Approach for Kids with ADHD

July 12, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

playdoh

Image by zalo via Flickr

If you’ve ever taught a child with ADHD, then you know how their hands never stop. They’re touching their neighbor, they’re moving all around, and they can’t sit still. That’s why using a hands-on approach to learning can be very beneficial.

The Play dough Technique

Play dough is a fun toy because it allows the user to create and mold and then mold and create something new. If you’re in a classroom teaching something that doesn’t lend itself to a hands-on lesson plan, consider giving the children some play dough. Let anyone who wants some to have some not singling any one child out. You’ll likely find that everyone will take a container, but the interesting thing is that most kids are done with it after about 10 or 15 minutes. Kids with ADHD, however, will continue to play with the play dough throughout the whole lesson.

Hands-on Lesson Plan

The better choice, however, is to use lessons that are hands on. You can use apples to represent fractions, have the students draw pictures to represent what they’re reading, or have the students act out scenes from history. Whatever your lesson is, look for ways into involve the students instead of just talking to them while they sit in their seats. Engaged learning is more effective than disengaged learning.

The main thing to remember when teaching kids with ADHD is to be understanding. Although it may seem like the kids are acting out on purpose, most of the time they really want to “be good,” but can’t seem to control themselves.

Filed Under: Family Support, Teaching Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Learning disability, Parent

Helping Your Child Succeed

June 12, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

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If your child is diagnosed with a learning disability, you may feel apprehensive about ensuring they receive the education they need and deserve. The way you act and react has the greatest affect on your child. Parenting children with disabilities can be frustrating at times, but if you approach the situation with understanding and a sense of humor, your child is not likely to view their disability as an insurmountable obstacle either.

Take Charge
Do your own research. Learn about new developments as well as programs or techniques that could help your child. Don’t necessarily rely on schools or doctors for all the solutions. You need to become an expert for yourself to help your child learn.

Advocate for Your Child
Likewise, you may have to speak up constantly to get the special help your child needs. Be proactive when it comes to your child’s education. Your voice might be the difference in getting the services your child deserves.

Gain Perspective
Although it’s easy to be intimidated by parenting a child with a disability, keep in mind that everyone learns differently. Remember that challenges can always be conquered. Be there to support your child, and don’t let tests and paperwork keep you away from this important task.

Remember Your Influence
Your child is going to pick up on how you deal with the challenges he or she faces. If you don’t look at the learning disability as a barrier to success, your child isn’t likely to look at it that way either. Keep up your optimism and instill a sense of hard work. Your child will follow your lead.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: Disability, Learning disability, Parent

Categories of Learning Disabilities

June 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

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Types of learning disabilities are often grouped by areas of education. Recognizing the signs of each area will make it possible for you to pinpoint a problem and tailor your child’s education appropriately. Early intervention is often very helpful in assisting a child with a learning disability, so making yourself aware of the different signs and symptoms will allow you to help your child.

Math Difficulties/Disabilities
Your child’s difficulty with math can be affected by other disabilities, such as a language disability. If your child’s learning disability falls into the category of math difficulties or disabilities, he or she might struggle with memorizing facts. Your child also might struggle with counting principles or telling time.

Language Difficulties/Disabilities
Language difficulties and disabilities encompass the ability to understand and produce spoken language. Signs of these types of disabilities include the inability to retell a story and the inability to understand the meaning of parts of speech or directions.

Reading Difficulties/Disabilities
Your child may experience different varieties of reading problems. Disabilities dealing with reading can lead to a difficulty in understanding meaning. Your son or daughter could show a lack of ability to recognize letters or words.

Writing Difficulties/Disabilities
These disabilities deal with physically writing and/or understanding information. A writing disability can involve physical difficulty writing words or letters or a struggle to organize thoughts in writing. Symptoms, like writing coherence, revolve around the actual act of writing.

If your child has a learning disability, he or she can still get the education they deserve. Learn what to watch out for so you can get your child needed assistance.

Filed Under: Learning Theories Tagged With: Disability, Education, Learning disability

Teaching Children with Dyslexia

March 24, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Dyslexia is a learning disability and, while it cannot be cured, early diagnosis and treatment can be integral in helping children become successful in school and in life. Most dyslexics benefit from help from a teacher, therapist or tutor specially trained to teach using methods that utilize multi-sensory techniques.

Modifications to a student’s academic program can help dyslexics succeed. Using teaching methods that involve different senses such as hearing, touch and sight simultaneously help children with dyslexia to better understand and recall the material they learn. At school, allowing students with dyslexia additional time to complete assignments, providing help with note taking and even giving taped tests can provide students the help they need in order to succeed.

Dyslexic children often have difficulty with auditory processing, visual processing, or both. They might also have difficulty understanding how sound functions in the way words are put together. Rhyming, blending sounds and segmenting words can be difficult. Dyslexic children often have problems learning the sight words taught in early elementary grades.

Effective Instruction for Children with Dyslexia

Dyslexia cannot be cured, but proper teaching methods can improve a student’s success and minimizes many of the problems associated with dyslexia. For example:

Teaching skills explicitly using techniques that might be considered “old school” but directly instruct students on reading, writing and spelling.

Using logical systems for introducing new concepts so that information builds on what is learned before.

Following step-by-step methods for introducing, reviewing and practicing concepts.

Simultaneously engaging visual, kinesthetic and auditory channels when teaching concepts. This kind of teaching links these pathways enhancing memory and learning.

Filed Under: Children With Learning Disabilities Tagged With: Dyslexia, Education, Learning disability

Assistive Technology for Students with Learning Disabilities

March 20, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Children with learning disabilities often have difficulty functioning in a traditional classroom. Given a reading assignment when it is a struggle to read or writing a report when your hand doesn’t do what you want it to do can make a ten-minute assignment take hours. By using assistive technology, students can work around these difficulties and become a successful learner.

Assistive technology, which can be learning tools both high- and low-tech, enable people with learning disabilities to reach their potential by working around their deficit. These tools can be as simple as books on tape, calculators and color coding files. More high-tech devices include computers with speech-recognition or print-recognition software that turn oral language into written text or written text into oral language, respectively, and talking calculators.

Through the use of assistive technology, students with learning disabilities can improve their speed and accuracy, thereby cutting hours offer of laborious assignments. Students also may require less help and be able to fit in better with the rest of the classroom’s learning and routines. A student’s success will also help to motivate him to set higher goals for himself and to stick with his work.

It is important to note that assistive technology isn’t the end all, be all for learning disabilities. It does not make learning disabilities suddenly disappear and it will not make up for poor teaching. Assistive technology also will not instantly make a student become a motivated learner or benefit each user in the same way.

A major benefit of assistive technology for the learning disabled student is the reduction in stress the student experiences. These additional learning supports can empower a student and raise his self-image.

Filed Under: Teaching Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Assistive technology, Learning disability, Student

Hidden Teaching Resources

March 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Many parents of children, tweens, or teens with disabilities are active with schoolwork. Parental involvement throughout college can be the difference between barely passing or excelling in academics. Here are some ways to find hidden teaching resources.

Finding all of the available programs to support students may be challenging. Creating a positive learning environment involves making one or several resources readily available. Changing schools or going from middle to high school or college is often a time of great changes in the students daily routine.

Thoroughly read the school website, and look for any offered services. If there are no resources clearly listed take time to contact the school directly. Making phone calls is a great start. Ask specifically for programs that offer additional help or any ongoing support groups. Many educators love to see parental involvement and will share the information. However, many public schools may these programs but they are not always talked about. Contacting the districts main office sometime yields better results. There may be a tutoring program, computer loan program, free online access to software, and a host of other resources available. Testing for learning disabilities may be offered for free or at a discount if you go through the schools referral. Another great alternative is distance learning. Seek the help of online educational systems like earnmydegree.com and inquire on practical methods applied to make learning easier for your child.

Many districts may offer programs at different schools throughout the month. There may be programs available that simply have to be signed up for. Some of these programs may need a certain number of students who are interested for particiaption at your child’s school. Some state and government sponsored programs do not have income restrictions to qualify.

Tapping into these hidden resources is easy once you find a knowledgeable person within the schools offices. Many colleges offer a variety of resources for students. Finding the best resources for your child involves being proactive about all current avenues for additional help.

Filed Under: Teaching Tips & Tricks Tagged With: High school, Learning disability

Math Learning Disabilities

March 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Math learning differences are often overlooked and children with math learning disabilities frequently don’t receive the assessment or remediation they need. About 6 percent of school-aged children have serious math difficulties.

Like reading difficulties, disabilities relating to learning math range from mild or moderate to severe. In addition to different intensities, there are also different types which require different kinds of emphasis in the classroom, adaptations and methods.

Basic Math Facts

Some children have a problem memorizing their basic math facts even though they put a great deal of effort into learning them. These children continue to use their fingers or pencil marks to count because they do not readily know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. For some children, this is their only difficulty and allowing them to use a calculator or facts chart will allow them to proceed to more difficult computations.

Arithmetic Weakness/Math Talent

Some children have no problem understanding math concepts but do have a problem reliably calculating in math. They tend to make mistakes when it comes to paying attention to operational signs, sequencing steps and borrowing or carrying correctly. While these difficulties might place them in remedial math classes early on, they shouldn’t be held back from higher-level math because of their inconsistent computational skills.

Informal Math Skills versus Formal Procedures

Many young children beginning elementary school actually have a strong understanding of informal math but they have trouble connecting this knowledge to the more formal procedures used in school. Learning the language, symbolic notation and system of school math collides with their informal skills. At this stage, using structured, concrete materials students can move and hold can be a much better teaching tool than pictorial representations.

Filed Under: Children With Learning Disabilities Tagged With: Child, Learning disability, Mathematics

Learning Difficulties

February 10, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Learning difficulties can be manifested in many different ways. There are approximately 25 areas that are identified for students, and the struggle is that many of the issues tend to be combined with other difficulties. For instance, many children that tend to have reading disabilities also tend to have behavioral issues. This is probably the most common combination and mostly due to the fact that the student is frustrated with their lack of production and normalcy. The idea behind inclusion classrooms was to eliminate much of this frustration by allowing a student to be in a normal classroom setting with his or her peers. This has been very effective in the last decade, and many students are maintaining healthy behavioral habits as a result.

The biggest problem with learning difficulties is not so much the identification of the issue, but rather the reception in which the student receives help for that issue. Many times students tend to fight the help because they feel out of place or stupid. This is a tragic scenario as it can take years before a student realizes that the intervention is not intended to harm, rather help. For some, this can mean that learned things can be missed, and students fall even more behind. This cycle can create an ugly situation for students and their families, and many times can result in being held back in a grade, or more one on one intervention to get the student caught up with the key concepts.

ADD/ADHD is not considered a diagnosable disability at this time in school, and there are efforts to try and change that. The problem with this difficulty is that many believe it to be strictly environmental and therefore highly preventable. The age old argument of Nature vs. Nurture is hot on this topic, and many educators hope to see a change in the near future regarding this particular aspect of noticeable difficulties that students face.

Filed Under: Learning Theories Tagged With: Education, Learning disability, Student

Sucsessful Adults with Learning Disabilities

January 29, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Many parents are looking for inspirational stories about adults who have worked through their disability to complete their education and become a productive adult. Having your child connect on some level with a role model who has some of their same problems can help them to not feel that their problem is non existent in the world. Becoming more familiar with other people even if it is through a newspaper clipping, helps to bring this success into their world. Here are some ways to share stories of learning disabled persons.

There are probably numerous people with learning disabilities in your local area. Having a learning challenge is not something is widely discussed in social circles. Adults that are holding down great jobs or are business owners may have adopted several techniques for making the learning process a daily part of their life. Many of these adults do not reveal their disability to anyone they know professionally. Some fear this knowledge may be used against them in the workplace. It may be challenging to find someone locally who is willing to talk and open up about their experiences.

Examples of famous people with learning disabilities are Billy Blanks, Jackie Stewart, and Robert Thoth. Billy Blanks is an actor and entrepreneur. He has created several fitness related products and is known for motivating people to improve themselves through fitness.

Jackie Stewart is an inductee into the Grand Prix Hall of fame for her wins as a race car champion. Famous sculptor Robert Thoth has famous works displayed at museums around the world including the Smithsonian.

Research celebrities that have a common interest with your child. There may be television or online video interviews where they talk about the problems encountered because of their disability. Introducing one or two of these role models can help to keep them inspired to peruse their dreams.

Filed Under: Children With Learning Disabilities Tagged With: Learning disability

Step One: Believe in Yourself

January 25, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

If there is no other gift we can give to a person labeled as “learning disabled” then it should be the opportunity to believe in them self. If you are labeled as “learning disabled” there is no better time to start choosing to believe in yourself. The content of this message is to work toward your goals in the best way you can.

Many people may be concerned about the message they send to their loved one or anyone for that matter that they set them up for failure. One may be concerned that if a learning disabled person is allowed to have expectations they will only be let down and nobody wants to see anyone suffer. The message here is not to set up expectations but just to allow a person to set some goals, like anyone else is taught to do. The best strategy for dealing with any hardship or for attaining a goal is to accept where you are, but not to see it as all you will ever achieve. There are many possibilities for a person labeled as “learning disabled” and many ways to feel empowered that you are contributing to the world.

It is too bad that there is an all encompassing term like “learning disabled” for such a wide range of people, with a wide variety of opportunity and circumstances. So many people labeled as “learning disabled” are wonderfully contributing to society. Yet, society still likes to label the “learning disabled” as a burden to it’s growth. The strategy is simple. Believe in yourself regardless of the limits that others try to make sure you know. Don’t hesitate to take on a task nobody believes you an do and don’t hesitate to try again if you really want it. The only real limit, the only lack of success is never trying to achieve your dreams. Everyone contributes who tries.

Filed Under: Treatment Tagged With: Education, Learning disability

The Play dough Technique

Hands-on Lesson Plan

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