- Educational Therapy offers children and adults with learning disabilities and other learning challenges a wide range of intensive, individualized interventions designed to remediate learning problems.

- Educational therapy demystifies learning problems and stimulates clients’ awareness of their strengths so they can use those strengths to best advantage to overcome or compensate for areas of weakness.

- Educational therapists create and implement a treatment plan that utilizes information from a variety of sources including the client’s social, emotional, psycho educational, and neuropsychological context.

The need for educational therapy may be identified in a number of ways. If your child or adolescent has never been identified by specialists or school personnel

• You may have had early indicators when your child was very young, such as early ear infections, difficulty with maintaining concentration on a task, problems remembering, delay in learning language, or problems paying attention.

• Your child or adolescent may come home from school and tell you, “I’m stupid. I hate school! I don’t get what I am supposed to do.” You see a loss of self esteem regarding school performance.

• Your child or adolescent may resist going to school, or participating in the normal childhood activities.

• You may have concerns based on observation of your child or adolescent that all is not right with his or her ability to learn, or to benefit from school.

• Your child or adolescent may take an extreme amount of time and parent support to get homework tasks done.

• You see ongoing struggles with homework and school assignments that may increase as schoolwork becomes harder.

• You see a sudden onset of struggles with school work and homework.

• You see discouragement and withdrawal.

If your child or adolescent has been identified by a specialist or school personnel:

• Your child or adolescent may already have been identified as a struggling learner by school personnel such as a classroom teacher, the school psychologist, or the speech and language specialist. However, he or she may require additional individualized interventions beyond those now received.

• Your child or adolescent is receiving services from multiple specialists, and you need assistance in coordinating services.

• You need assistance in interpreting reports and recommendations from various specialists who work with your child.

An Educational Therapist (ET) helps the learner to grasp concepts and skills in academic subjects. ETs are not deterred by poor motivation or resistance because we understand how emotions, learning challenges and negative school experiences can block learning. We focus on helping the individual to become a hopeful, motivated, and strategic learner with the independent learning habits necessary to succeed academically and beyond.

A tutor narrowly focuses on helping the student acquire specific subject matter content in order to succeed with tests and grades, and this is an essential tool in helping children succeed in their classrooms. However, an ET takes on the task of going beyond the specific subject matter and helps learners to understand how they learn and how to use strategies to succeed not only in a specific subject, but with competence, perseverance and a willing heart in an academic environment. An ET seeks to optimize the way the learner experiences learning and the learner’s self-perceptions.

An ET is a clinically trained educator who is sensitively attuned to the interplay of emotions, cognition and learning.

• We are expert at helping clients gain the self-understanding needed to manage their learning challenges.

• We are trained for evaluation, remediation and case management.

• We are skilled at developing assessment-guided interventions.

• We are effective communicators with family, school personnel and other professionals.

• We belong to an organization that holds us to the highest degree of professionalism through their Code of Ethics.

When an educational therapist works with children or adolescents, the individual attention your child will receive will be more effective than what the school system can offer.

Educational therapy provides a comprehensive approach to your child’s needs. I strive to build a warm, trusting and supportive relationship with the child as well as the parents. Parents are always encouraged to share their knowledge and observations of their child and participate in the goal-setting for therapy. I will identify and address the child’s individual learning style, seek out the root causes of the learning difficulty, teach new skills and/or strategies, as well as pay attention to the emotional and social issues which may be interfering with the child’s efforts to learn. I will offer guidance for school meetings and suggest referrals to other professionals when needed. Caution: Educational Therapy is not a quick fix; it takes time to give a struggling learner the tools needed to succeed independently.

Educational therapy is a different kind of intense intervention: an alliance with student, parents and school to remediate academics, change attitudes, adjust learning environments and communicate needs all for the benefit of your child.

Confidentiality is a very important aspect of all educational therapy.

Reading/Spelling/Writing disabilities, including dyslexia

• ADD/ADHD

• Asperger’s Disorder or High Functioning Autism

• Executive Function weaknesses

• Language or Math disabilities

• Poor motivation

• Underachievers

Fees for Professional ET’s range from $100 to $180 per hour. Unfortunately, I do not take insurance. Private educational therapy is an investment in the future of your child.

LDs are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing, or math. They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, and abstract reasoning. People with Learning Disabilities tend to have average to above average intelligence.

The types of LD are identified by the specific processing problem. They might relate to getting information into the brain (Input, such as Auditory or Visual Perception), making sense of this information (Organization, such as Sequencing, Abstraction, and Organization), storing and later retrieving this information (Memory, such as short-term, long-term, and working memory), or getting this information back out (Output, such as language and motor disabilities). Thus, the specific types of processing problems that result in LD might be in one or more of these four areas.

Each individual will have his or her unique pattern of LD. This pattern might cluster around specific common difficulties. For example, the pattern might primarily reflect a problem with language processing: auditory perception, auditory sequencing/abstraction/organization, auditory memory, and a language disability. Or the problem might be more in the visual input to motor output areas. Some people with LD will have a mixture of both.

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person’s life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special education, special accommodations, or extra support services.

Other learning disabilities besides Dyslexia include:

Dyscalculia - a mathematical disability in which a person has unusual difficulty solving arithmetic problems and grasping math concepts.

Dysgraphia - a neurological-based writing disability in which a person finds it hard to form letters or write within a defined space.