by Erin McKenney, Stern Center Evaluation Department
You have made the decision to have your child evaluated. Maybe your child has a learning style difference, which includes being a gifted learner; maybe a learning disability is suspected; perhaps your child has attention difficulties; concerns around adaptive behavioral problems, including autism, may be the issue, or maybe your child is struggling with a neurological handicapping condition. Whatever the case may be, evaluations are a great way to get the full picture of how your child's brain works. It will show your child’s strengths as well as any challenges, and provide a pathway for educators and parents to create individualized instruction plans to best help your child learn.
While this is an exciting time because the evaluation will help you figure out how your child learns best, it can also be very overwhelming, especially for your child. Here are a few thoughts on how you can prepare your child before evaluation day so that everyone involved has a good experience:
Leading up to the Evaluation
- Prepare your child for the appointment to help reduce stress and anxiety, as well as increase cooperation. You can do this by talking with your child beforehand so he or she knows what to expect. Your child is most likely aware of his or her difficulties and if you explain that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses it may help your child feel relieved.
by Ed Wilkens
Depending on family dynamics, you might become aware of any academic difficulties your child is experiencing over family dinner, while driving to soccer practice or in those quiet conversations just before bed. Or, you might be totally surprised to learn from your child's teacher or through a formal written progress report that things are not going as well as you had assumed.
Regardless of how you discover the challenges, what you do next is crucial and it's all about communication and relationships. The essential players include you, your child and the teacher or teachers relevant to the challenge. Potential additional partners might include a counselor, coach or administrator depending on the specifics of the challenge.
by Dr. Blanche Podhajski
October is Learning Disabilities Month. For me, it is a time to
celebrate all we have learned from brain
science over almost half a
century. It is also a time to honor all of the successes of students
with learning disabilities and their teachers.
What is a learning disability?
A learning disability is a brain based difference in learning that makes some academic skills harder to acquire than others. A recent report, Don’t “Dys” Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency,
commissioned by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and the Emily Hall
Tremaine Foundation, indicates that about 2.4 million children and
youth in this country have been diagnosed with learning disabilities.
Most people are familiar with the term dyslexia, a neurobiological
condition that is not the result of poverty, culture or developmental
delays (Fiester, 2012). Other learning disabilities are dysgraphia,
difficulty writing and expressing ideas through written language, and
dyscalculia, difficulty with math.
