My work with people with learning difficulties.

Why I love what I do:

In my job I assess people for learning difficulties and help them overcome the negative effects. Each person is unique, even if they are identified as having the same difficulty.

For example, I have seen people with dyslexia who have real difficulty putting their thoughts into words when speaking: sometimes they can’t think of the right word, and sometimes they use a word that is nearly the same. Then there are others who are very articulate and can speak fluently and at length about their ideas, but can’t write them down.

I have also seen dyslexics who are great at maths; although words are a problem, they just love the patterns and problem-solving that are such a big part of maths. Then there are others who have the same problems with numbers as they have with words. They may have a deep maths anxiety that is just as limiting as their anxiety about reading or writing.

In my job I help people to understand their difficulties, but also point out their strengths. There are lots of little “lightbulb moments” when people realise why some things have been so hard for them, and other things have been easy. This is often a time when parents gain insights into their child’s way of thinking. So often there are struggles and tensions between parent and child, particularly over things like homework, forgotten instructions and lack of concentration.

If a person is identified as having a learning difficulty such as dyslexia they have several options for getting help: New Zealand school teachers are gradually learning better teaching techniques to help dyslexic students – you can ask your child’s teacher about this. Schools also have access to specialist teachers who can help in the area of literacy and learning and behaviour (RT:Lit, RTLB). Out of school tuition is an option for those who live close to a provider. Check that the programme offered is making a difference for your child after a few weeks – it may be doing more of what already hasn’t worked.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got!”

If you think your child is frustrated by their inability to learn and the school or tutor doesn’t seem to understand their particular needs, it’s time to consider a completely different approach. The Davis programmes cover a range of learning difficulties, including dyslexia, AD(H)D, dyspraxia, Maths difficulty etc. The methods used suit visual and kinaesthetic (hands-on) learners.

Most of the people who come to me for a Davis Dyslexia Correction programme have ‘improved spelling’ as one of their goals. It is delightful to watch as they master the spelling of a long word, not only knowing which letters go together to spell the word, but also knowing the meaning of the word. This fits beautifully with what is written about spelling here.

Then the person with dyslexia comes to grips with some of those nasty little words like ‘a’, ‘from’, ‘in’ and ‘of’ that have tripped them up for years. Have you noticed this in your/your child’s reading? They may be able to read the word ‘escalator’ just fine, but stumble over ‘on’. This is because word meanings are so important, as the article above explained. You can picture an escalator in your mind, but you may not be able to clearly picture the meaning for the word ‘on’.

If you prefer to think with pictures, and those little words don’t bring a picture to your mind, it’s like being at the movies and the operator turns off the projector every few seconds – you try to piece the story together, but there are lots of missing bits. That’s just how dyslexia affects many people. No wonder their reading comprehension is usually poor!

Mastering reading and spelling in a visual and hands-on way is not only fun, it gets around the short-term memory issues that make learning difficult for many people. Even those who may not be dyslexic, but have trouble learning in a traditional way, benefit from these methods.

It is so empowering for the person to learn that they can spell any word they want to, when they go about it the right way.

It’s not all about academic progress, though. The thing that gives me the biggest buzz in my work is when I have the opportunity to show someone how to focus their perceptions using the Davis ® techniques. If someone who has always struggled with messy handwriting, or misunderstanding instructions, or remembering their phone number suddenly finds they can do those things easily when they are focused, it’s like witnessing a miracle.

How to Help Kids with ADHD Without Medication

How can you help your ADHD child without medication?

Parents may feel obligated to consider medications for their ADHD child, because they are concerned about their lack of academic progress. All parents want their kids to do well at school. Children who have difficulty sitting still or staying on task don’t fit well in the classroom, where the expectation is often that they must sit quietly and work without disturbing others.

Do ADHD medications make a difference? There is some evidence that drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall do help improve attention, focus and self-control. However, this doesn’t always translate into better learning in the classroom, particularly in the long term.*

Living with an ADHD child can be very stressful. Exhausted and misunderstood parents can feel guilty about their ADHD child’s behaviour. Observers may put it down to bad parenting or lack of discipline in the home. “Children with ADHD do mostly what ‘normal’ children do, except it is louder, longer, more often and to the extreme.” (L. Timms, 2014)

Attention Deficit??

How does ADHD look in everyday life? Disorganisation, lateness, forgetfulness, fidgeting, inability to follow instructions, boisterousness… all of these and more are familiar to parents of the ADHD child. Parents often find it hard to understand that the child who can’t pay attention for a few seconds when they’re being talked to can sit for hours totally absorbed in a video game. The difficulty is not a lack of attention, but paying too much attention to things in the wider environment. The person with ADHD seems unable to filter out things of lesser importance when they are involved in a task, so the bee buzzing at the window or the siren outside demand their attention as much as the maths problem they are working on, or getting ready for school.

The child with ADHD is a bored, but curious, child – their internal clock is going faster than the world around them, so for them the world seems to be going in slow motion. That makes them feel like they have more time to fill and they develop strategies to do so, like daydreaming or moving from one activity to another.

Is there a way that these energetic, enthusiastic, creative and intelligent individuals can be helped to curb their impulsive and over-active behaviours without taking away the positive aspects of their personality? Is there an effective alternative to medications to help the ADHD child?

The Davis® Attention Mastery Programme enables a person to take control of their behaviour and their learning, without the use of medication.

The programme addresses the underlying components of ADHD – the developmental aspect and the disorientation aspect.

Just as children with ADHD have missed out on important classroom learning, perhaps because they were distracted or daydreaming at the time, they have usually missed out on learning many of life’s important lessons and concepts, too; concepts such as change, consequence, time, sequence, cause/effect, order/disorder can be a mystery to the person with ADHD. Has your ADHD child ever been in trouble at school and you’ve asked “What did you do?” only to be told “I didn’t do anything!” That seems like the truth to a child who has no concept of consequence.

The Davis Attention Mastery programme gives people the tools to relax, focus, and adjust their own energy level to suit the task or circumstances and to better fit in to social situations. Instead of relying on drugs to improve self-control, the person learns to take responsibility for their own behaviour.

To be able to take responsibility the person needs to experience the basic concepts of change, consequence, time, etc. From this experience they can develop a new model of behaviour, based on the way the world actually works, rather than their previously incomplete or inaccurate understanding.

In a Davis Attention Mastery programme the ADHD child is involved in active, hands-on learning using real-life experiences to learn the basic concepts and put them into practice.

The success of the programme depends on the motivation of the child to use the techniques and the motivation of the family to support them as they put their new learning into everyday situations. Many children are happy to be free of the side-effects of ADHD medications, and parents enjoy having their child’s personality back again with this drug-free approach. The Davis facilitator guides and supports the family after the programme to help with this.

If you’re looking for help for your ADHD child without medications you can contact me today to find out more.

* From the Wall Street Journal, July 8 2013. http://tinyurl.com/ormjydg

Where do you get a diagnosis of dyslexia? | Clarity Assessments

A diagnosis of dyslexia is just the starting point. 

 How do you go about getting a diagnosis of dyslexia? There is no one test for dyslexia, because the symptoms of dyslexia vary from person to person. An online test or a screening test will tell you if you have a likelihood of dyslexia, but to get a formal diagnosis of dyslexia in New Zealand you will need to see either an Educational Psychologist or a NZCER registered Level C Assessor.

How early can dyslexia be diagnosed?

It used to be thought that dyslexia could not be diagnosed in children under 8 years of age. Current thinking is that the earlier a child is tested, the sooner they can be helped. Many of the symptoms of dyslexia (slow reading, poor spelling, letter reversals) are common to young children so it can be difficult to determine if the child really does have a learning difficulty, or whether they are just taking a little longer to get a grip on reading and writing. Dyslexia runs in families, so if a parent or relative has had a diagnosis of dyslexia, or if they had similar struggles in school, that is taken into account, too. The methods that help dyslexic children also help other children, so even if the assessor is unable to give a definite diagnosis of dyslexia they can recommend things that will help in the classroom.

The ‘dyslexic’ label.

Some parents worry that a diagnosis of dyslexia will be labelling their child. However, a child who sees others learning to read and write easily can be quick to give themselves harmful labels, such as ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’. Being diagnosed with dyslexia is usually a tremendous relief to a person, as they realise that they are not stupid, but their brain is wired differently. Even the word diagnosis implies that something is wrong. I prefer to talk about identifying dyslexia.

Current research into dyslexia.

There has been a lot of research into dyslexia, especially over the past 15 years or so. Using fMRI scanners scientists can see just what happens in a person’s brain as they read. More and more researchers are acknowledging the positive side of dyslexia – that people with dyslexia are often creative, out-of-the-box thinkers and problem solvers. The person making a diagnosis of dyslexia should explain the person’s areas of strength and not just focus on their areas of weakness.

Advantages and disadvantages of dyslexia.

Yes, having dyslexia may mean that you find reading, spelling or writing difficult. You may take longer than others to process information. You may find it hard to remember names, phone numbers, or a long list of instructions. But when you find and work with your gift of dyslexia you can learn more easily and efficiently. People like Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson, Whoopi Goldberg and Albert Einstein all struggled with reading and writing at school. Many of them didn’t have a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, but the indicators were sure there. The reason that these people were all successful is not despite their dyslexia, but because of it: they used their creative thinking abilities to achieve in their chosen field. A diagnosis of dyslexia is not an excuse for lack of effort, or a reason to give up. As Thomas Edison (another famous dyslexic) said “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

If you suspect that your child has dyslexia or some other learning difficulty, a formal evaluation can lead to a better understanding of any problems. An educational assessment will identify particular strengths and weaknesses. Contact me on 03 317 9072 for a FREE, no obligation consultation.