Kids in the House - Special Needs https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/articles/special-needs en Your Brain Is a Ferrari https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/add-and-adhd/your-brain-is-a-ferrari <div class="field field-name-field-article-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-725w/public/bicycle_brakes.jpg?itok=EObwq9HX" width="500" height="334" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Jeremy, age 12, sits in my office flanked by his mother and father. We have concluded our intake stage of his ADHD evaluation — meaning that we have pinpointed Jeremy's symptoms, struggles, and triumphs through his words, and we have noted the observations of his parents and teachers. We are gathered for the all-important diagnostic feedback session, in which I will tell Jeremy and his parents what my team and I have gleaned from these "history lessons."</p> <p>Jeremy and his parents seem tense. Jeremy, his baseball cap on backward, stares at a spot on the floor, as if he wants to be somewhere else. Mom and Dad lean forward, looking at me with anticipation and fear written on their faces.</p> <p>I get to the point. "I have great news for you. We've learned a lot about you, Jeremy, and guess what? You have an amazing brain. Your brain is incredible."</p> <p>Jeremy looks up, and Mom and Dad lean back a bit. "Your brain is like a Ferrari. Do you know what a Ferrari is?" Jeremy nods, smiling. "Well, your brain is like a Ferrari race-car engine. It is very powerful. With the right care, you will win many races in your life."</p> <p>I pause. “But there is one problem.” Parents and son shoot looks at me. “You have bicycle brakes. Your brakes are not strong enough to control the powerful brain you’ve got. So, sometimes, you race past places where you mean to stop, or you ignore instructions you mean to hear. But don’t worry. I am a brake specialist. I will help you strengthen your brakes, so you can become the champion you are.” For the next 15 minutes, we discuss the race-car brain outfitted with bicycle brakes.</p> <p>Russell Barkley, Ph.D., has described the neurological underpinning of ADHD as a relative state of disinhibition, giving rise to three negative symptoms: distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. A person with ADHD can't inhibit incoming stimuli, which causes him to be distractible, and he can’t inhibit outgoing impulses, which causes him to be impulsive or hyperactive.</p> <p>In other words, a child with ADHD has weak brakes. The aim of treatment is to strengthen those brakes. While Jeremy, his parents, and I discuss this idea, the fear in the room subsides, as if an approaching high pushes a nasty storm out to sea.</p> <p>Gradually, the sun shines through, filling the room. Worry and fear melt into relief and enthusiasm. Jeremy’s parents start sharing stories. "Let me tell you about when Jeremy's brakes failed him last week," says Jeremy's dad, and all three of them start to laugh. A potentially tense meeting turns into a fear-free discussion, as we brainstorm strategies for winning life's races.</p> </div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-article-categories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Article Categories:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/articles/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Special Needs</a> </li> </ul> </section> <section class="field field-name-field-video-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">SPECIAL NEEDS</a> </li> <li class="field-item odd"> <a href="/special-needs/add-and-adhd" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ADD and ADHD</a> </li> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs/add-and-adhd/parenting-tips" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ADHD Parenting Tips</a> </li> </ul> </section> Thu, 18 Jul 2013 16:42:10 +0000 WebAdminKith 34371 at https://www.kidsinthehouse.com https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/add-and-adhd/your-brain-is-a-ferrari#comments Why Dyslexia? https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/dyslexia/why-dyslexia <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>People often ask us how we decided to focus our work on dyslexia. The answer is simple: Because dyslexic people are amazing!</p> <p>When we graduated from medical school in the late 1980s, neither of us intended to work on dyslexia or learning differences. Ten years later our first child began to struggle in ways that the specialists couldn’t seem to explain. That’s when life made the decision for us. To help our son we explored the research literature on learning and development. As we began to find the answers we were looking for, we realized we’d found a new mission for our lives.</p> <p>For the last 15 years we’ve worked entirely with children and adults facing learning challenges. We initially opened our doors to individuals with all kinds of learning challenges, but each time we saw a child with dyslexia and talked with the child’s parents, we noticed something interesting. We weren’t just encountering the same patterns of problems or challenges, we were also finding the same patterns of strengths.</p> <p>Most of the time, at least one of the child’s parents was dyslexic or had parents or siblings who were. When we spoke with these parents we found that over four times as many of them were engineers or architects compared with college graduates in general. We also noticed that three times as many of them were philosophy majors—classic big picture thinkers.</p> <p>The creativity of this group was simply amazing. We were astonished how many had patents or copyrights—often not just one or two but dozens. Ditto for the number who’d started not just one business but many, or were artists, or architects, or creative in other ways. Few of these individuals had just one career: they were musician/inventors; or software architect/chefs; or salesman/sculptors. And often, very often, we heard the same story: “Oh, I was really a late bloomer in school. My third grade teacher actually told my parents that I’d never go to college or hold anything more than a menial job.”</p> <p>Now, years later, they were being told the same thing about their children.</p> <p>When we examined these children we saw all the usual dyslexic challenges: problems processing word sounds, low short-term memory, problems finding words, difficulty learning by rote, and so on. Yet we also noticed something else. Although they stumbled through their “reading readiness” tasks like albatrosses wobbling across a beach, when we asked them questions that required creative connections these children suddenly took flight, making connections that eluded many students who’d exceled at the basic processing tasks. For example, on conceptual grouping tasks they so easily made compelling connections between seemingly any set of pictures that it made scoring essentially impossible. They also often excelled at tasks like “ambiguous sentences”, where they had to spot two or more meanings to a sentence like, “The chickens are too hot to eat,” or “The woman saw a man eating fish.”</p> <p>Over time, these dyslexic individuals began to look to us less and less like people who had a true disability, and more and more like people whose brains were wire to give them a different set of strengths and challenges. While they struggled when their brains were asked to work like safety deposit boxes—to take in some piece of information then return it later in perfect “condition”—they excelled at making new connections or seeing things in new ways.</p> <p>In 2011 we wrote The Dyslexic Advantage, which describes why we think the traditional deficit-centered perspective on dyslexia misses the most important truths about dyslexic people:<br />• that their minds work differently not just with reading and spelling, but with almost all functions<br />• that these differences make it possible for them to have many important abilities and strengths, not just challenges<br />• that one-sixth of us are dyslexic because nature has judged the benefits of dyslexic minds more important than their challenges<br />• that dyslexia is better thought of as a trade-off than a deficit<br />• that most of the “disability” experienced by individuals with dyslexia is caused by our failures to understand and educate dyslexic minds.</p> <p>While we fully support traditional goals like early identification of dyslexic individuals and appropriate reading training, we also think they’re only half the answer to helping dyslexic individuals reach their potential and enjoy their lives. It’s equally important to help them understand, build, and use their strengths. That’s the focus of our work, and of our nonprofit organization, Dyslexic Advantage. You can learn more about Dyslexic Advantage at <a href="http://www.dyslexicadvantage.org">www.dyslexicadvantage.org</a>, or by joining (for free) with other dyslexic individuals and families at <a href="http://community.dyslexicadvantage.org">http://community.dyslexicadvantage.org</a>.</p> </div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-article-categories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Article Categories:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/articles/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Special Needs</a> </li> </ul> </section> <section class="field field-name-field-video-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">SPECIAL NEEDS</a> </li> <li class="field-item odd"> <a href="/special-needs/dyslexia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Dyslexia</a> </li> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs/dyslexia/symptoms-and-treatment" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Symptoms and Treatment</a> </li> </ul> </section> Tue, 31 Mar 2015 19:57:14 +0000 WebAdminKith 48440 at https://www.kidsinthehouse.com https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/dyslexia/why-dyslexia#comments Finding Success With Learning Disabilities https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/dyslexia/finding-success-with-learning-disabilities <div class="field field-name-field-article-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-725w/public/shutterstock_151305863.jpg?itok=tFRCGwqQ" width="500" height="385" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, currently 2.4 million students are diagnosed with a learning disability and receive special education services in school each year. Learning disabilities can become very frustrating for children and their parents as they try to support them. As part of Learning Disability Awareness Month, Kids In The House experts share important insights on aiding children with learning disabilities to succeed by reminding them to remain patient in their studies and by helping them gain a better understanding of their disability.</p> <p>Neuropsychologist Dr. Jerry Schultz is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry and is the Chair of the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning Disabilities Association of America. Dr. Schultz has created an eight-step model to help children with learning disabilities avoid stress. The model is explained below, using the <a href="http://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/learning-disabilities/de-stress-method-help-kids-succeed">DE-STRESS</a> acronym:</p> <p><strong>Define</strong>: Decide on a diagnosis for the child.<br /><strong>Educate</strong>: Educate the child about his or her condition.<br /><strong>Speculate</strong>: Sit down with the child and discuss their learning.<br /><strong>Teach</strong>: Show the child the skills that he or she needs to be successful.<br /><strong>Reduce</strong>: Limit any deterrents to your child’s learning.<br /><strong>Exercise</strong>: Keep your child active to help their brain be more efficient.<br /><strong>Success</strong>: Build a sense of confidence within your child.<br /><strong>Strategize</strong>: Help your child plan to use the skills they have learned.</p> <p><span style="font-size: 13.3333339691162px; line-height: 1.538em;">One of the hardest steps of this model is educating a child about his/her disability. Psychiatrist Dr. Ned Hallowell explains how important it is to talk to children in a way they will understand. Dr. Hallowell specifically works with </span><a href="http://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/add-and-adhd/parenting-tips/explaining-adhd-child"><span style="font-size: 13.3333339691162px; line-height: 1.538em;">children struggling with ADHD</span></a><span style="font-size: 13.3333339691162px; line-height: 1.538em;"> and explains their diagnosis by saying they have a “Ferrari engine for a brain” but with “bicycle breaks” for stopping. He says he is a “break specialist” who will help them strengthen their breaks throughout the years. In the end, instead of saying, “I have some deficit disorder that needs to get treated,” the child will say, “I’ve got a race car brain and I need to strengthen my breaks, so I can be a champion.”</span></p> <p>Clinical psychologist Karen Schiltz echoes both Dr. Schultz and Hallowell in explaining how important it is to see beyond the <a href="http://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/support/getting-a-diagnosis/strengths-of-children-with-dyslexia">label of a learning disability</a>. By showing kids their strengths and building their confidence, you will enable them to truly understand how they can succeed. She explains that while “labels are important and do help us understand the child… we all look at what’s underneath the label to really help your child.”</p> </div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-article-categories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Article Categories:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/articles/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Special Needs</a> </li> </ul> </section> <section class="field field-name-field-video-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"> <h2 class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="field-items"> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">SPECIAL NEEDS</a> </li> <li class="field-item odd"> <a href="/special-needs/dyslexia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Dyslexia</a> </li> <li class="field-item even"> <a href="/special-needs/learning-disabilities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Learning Disabilities</a> </li> </ul> </section> Thu, 30 Oct 2014 19:24:04 +0000 katiekith 47856 at https://www.kidsinthehouse.com https://www.kidsinthehouse.com/special-needs/dyslexia/finding-success-with-learning-disabilities#comments