How to Strengthen Attention Skills

Learning Skills 101
How to Strengthen Attention Skills

So far, we have been discussing what learning skills are and how they impact a student on a daily basis. If you recall, we stated that learning skills are the underlying mental skills formally known as attention, visual/auditory processing, memory, processing, word attack and auditory analysis. Most of our children experience these skills through reading, writing, spelling, paying attention, remembering, recalling and how quick we can respond to a request.

Over the last few weeks, we have been discussing the three types of attention and how they impact a student every day. Well, this week I will be giving you a few ideas on how you can strengthen your attention skills. The tips and strategies I discuss will help all three types of attention.

1. Simon Says - Try this free online version of Simon Says - the music one with the different buttons/tones. Remember this game?

2. Colored Shapes/Blocks - Have the child first practice just stating the "color" of the shapes. Next, have the child practice focus only on the type of shape not the color. Do this with many shapes in several rows.

3. Use metronome online to practice having your state answers to the above on every other beat (click on 120 bpm). yellow, "beat", blue, "beat", etc.

4. Play a game of concentration online and see how many matches your child can get on the first try.


If you have not already recognized this, the attention games strengthen other learning skills, too. This is a main factor in a student's ability to learn. If just one learning skill is off, then the rest will not be working at optimal level. The student will not be working up to their potential.


The good news is that attention is just one of many that you are able to strengthen due to the brain's ability to develop and grow. The Enhanced Learning Skills System was designed to strengthen learning skills required to learn and read easier and more efficiently. Call me today for an assessment and let's begin working together to help your child learn easier and more efficiently.

Next time, we will discuss another learning skill and that impacts everyday learning ability and how there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Colleen can be reached at (908) 285-8352.

Copyright © Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids 2008

For more information on the article you just read, you can email or visit my website.

Welcome to Holland

Most parents of children with special needs have already read this great story. It depicts a parent's experience of being dropped off in a foreign country when originally having planned for something entirely different. Parents of children with special needs experience this same type of quandry ... we expect a certain type of child and then are "blessed" with something entirely different.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this . . . When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a wonderful vacation trip to Italy. You get a bunch of guide books and make all your plans. The Colosseum . . . the Michelangelo David . . . the gondolas of Venice. You get a book of handy phrases and learn how to say a few words in Italian. It's all very exciting". "Finally, the time comes for your trip. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says: "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!" you say. "Holland? I signed up for Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy! "I'm sorry," she says. "There's been a change and we've landed in Holland." But I don't know anything about Holland! I never thought of going to Holland! "I have no idea what you do in Holland!" What's important is that they haven't taken you to a terrible, ugly place, full of famine, pestilence and disease. It's just a different place. So you have to go out and buy a whole new set of guide books . . . you have to learn a whole new language . . . and you'll meet a whole new bunch of people you would never have met otherwise. Holland. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy . . . but after you've been there for a while, and you've had a chance to catch your breath, you look around and begin to discover that Holland has windmills and Holland has tulips - Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy . . . and they're all bragging about what a great time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away. And you must accept that pain - because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But . . . if you spend your time mourning the fact that you never got to go to Italy, you may never be available to enjoy the very lovely, very special things about Holland. "Welcome to Holland!" by Emily Perly Kingsley

What is Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids?

Welcome to my group everyone!

First ... here's the scoop on me and why I even have my own business in cognitive training.
I have over 20 years business experience within Corporate America. While in Corporate I was in charge of the entire East Coast relative to information processing. Specifically, I was in charge of Local Area Networks dealing with the processing of information internally and externally to our company. In this role, I held teleseminars, training classes and worked one-on-one with my colleagues, most sales folks. My boss told me I found my Niche! However, i thought my niche was going to be CEO so when he said you should be a teacher! I was a bit taken back. LOL Life went on and I got married and had my daughter, Shannon. When she was 11 months old, she was diagnosed with cancer (neuroblastoma) and a rare autoimmune disorder (Opsoclonus Myoclonus Syndrome). Statistics are like 1 in 100 million kids a year get OMS. The docs chuckled and told me it was like she won the lottery. I wasn't laughing. I was later to find out that the OMS was worse than the Cancer, no joke. The OMS caused her own antibodies to attack her brain. Her cerebellum and brain stem were impacted the most. Her immune system was basically shut down for 3 years to stop any further brain injury. I also had a son during all of this, too. His name is Sean. :-)

Years go by and I ended up leaving Corporate America. At this time, my daughter was now 8 y/o and still not learning in school. She was in a special education self-contained classroom within the public schools and classified with Traumatic Brain Injury. I decided to go back for my Master's degree. I had already started my Master's in Business Administration but given the circumstances of my life at this time, I switched and went into Special Education. I began shifting my life full-time into education and started teaching under a substitute license until I could student teach. During this time, I experienced general education and special education along with inclusive settings. I also decided my student teaching would be based in a private school for students with brain injuries. This meant behavioral issues along with cognitive challenges. I worked with students K - 12 and even those students who had extended high school so they were up to the age of 21. I graduated with top honors and received my license to teach elementary education and children with disabilities within the state of New Jersey.

I was tutoring with families along with substituting and getting frustrated because even thought I would find great research based programs to use with the children, the students weren't gaining independence on their own. They were doing this through workarounds and compensations. Which in the long run did not serve them well because they are not in control of their environments, especially when they look for employment. By chance, one of the parents on the OMS Forum that I help to moderate began talking about a learning center she took her high school son to during the summer. She kept talking about a program they were using and not really going into much detail, per se. About four months later, the same mom was bursting at the seams with all the improvements her son was displaying down to social skills and communication. I quickly requested the name of the specific programs used on her son as learning centers can use a variety of tools. After I found out the names of the programs, I then called up the creators of the programs and began researching the ins/outs of actual components, structure and of course, statistical outcomes with research to support the findings.

Next, I contacted a parent who used the program and was now using the program to help students in her community. I talked with this parent, now one of my closest colleagues, for over 6 months before I was convinced the programs can really provide results. The ultimately test, in my mind, was if my brain injured daughter could show success in any area (that was my hope at the beginning) at all, i was sold. So, off i went and invested a good chunk of change to become licensed, certified and able to "provide" these services to other students in my area.

As soon as I got home, I immediately began using these programs on both of my children. To give you an idea of what I was up against, my daughter who was 10 y/o at the time, had cognitive skills measuring at a 5 yr old level on all 6 skill sets. 5 y/o is lowest they measure so she could have been even lower. My son, on the other hand, was typical LD measuring adult (18 y/o) on several skills but low in one/two areas of skills. However, what happened next surprised all of us.

My son had more difficulty with the programs than my daughter. The programs helped uncover the underlying cause of my son's difficulties during school over the years. We always had the screaming fits for homework, the meltdowns with frustrations, the sensory processing symptoms, etc. Thanks to the programs, we identified that he was seeing double - seriously - and he did not know that no one sees double. He had no clue that letters were not supposed to jump off the page and so on. I called the creators of the program and said I could only get my son through partial pieces because of this issue. The creators stressed if we could get him close to a good portion the better. The reason: my son would have created new pathways that would allow for any intervention to make an impact in considerably less time than without the new pathways in the brain. So, we did what we could and then referred out to vision therapy. Guess what? It took my son only 6 sessions in-office to fix the double vision - no joke. So after the program portion and the vision therapy he began to pick up books and read which was fantastic!

My daughter on the other hand, kept to the programs and worked every day with me and let me tell you how choked up I was when Shannon could demonstrate memory skills. I'm sure there are moms out there that are so lost because their child cannot remember something from yesterday or last week. That was Shannon. She could not learn because on one hand, she had no foundational skills and on the other hand, what the teachers would give to her would be lost. If she learned 1+1=2 then even that afternoon she was clueless to 1+1=2. Well, you can imagine the waterworks when my daughter learned the 43 presidents (at that time 43) forwards and backwards! She still knows them today.

Shannon is my "extreme" example when I talk with parents. At the age of 8 she was unable to decode (read) let alone spell on her own. However, working with the program, she began to not only decode (read) but she started with fluency. This means she did not spend all her time sounding out each code (letter) but could sit back and read the words. I remember going to the movies with her and the screen flashed "Enjoy the Show" before the movie started. Well, Shannon sat there and said "E..N... Joy ... The ...SH... O ... W... " "Enjoy the Show!" Mommy I just read Enjoy the Show ... More tears .... of excitement. After that, when parents of children with special needs would talk with me, Shannon would interrupt and flat out tell them ... you should let my mom work with you ... because of the programs I can finally read. Nothing else helped me.

Shannon's progress is still ongoing because of her disability. We tried moving her into the intermediate public school but the anxiety from self-contained where the teachers prompt and make everything so nice and crystal clear for ya into a full inclusive setting was way too much. The schools do not have a great transition other than "all the kids go through this and she really needs to experience it" for an answer. We, unfortunately, just pulled her from school and began homeschooling her. It amazes me how my daughter has no clue what 2+3 equals yet the schools were moving along doing division and prepping for the standardized tests. Shannon just came out of 8 years of remission from OMS too. All her docs point to the stress from the 5th grade inclusion strategy as the cause. But I digress so lets save that for another topic. We still work Shannon through both programs and she keeps progressing. For example, we first put her through to a point last year. She finished with her skill sets around a 7 y/o level which is great consdering she was at a 5 y/o level. Then, before school started we assessed again and on her own she jumped to a 9 y/o level. You see, the programs help the student to train their brain go grow and develop on their own!

After seeing the positive impact on my own children and working many more students from my area through the programs, I am convinced without a doubt that these programs work and make a life changing difference. Today, I am beginning to spread awareness of these programs to make sure parents and teacher of students with special needs understand their is hope and a solution to your problems. If your child isn't doing as well as you expect and you can't figure out why, its most likely cognitive based. If your child gets easily frustrated with homework, beyond just not wanting to do it, its most likely cognitive based. If your child still can't read or was labeled dyslexic, its most likely cognitive based. Do NOT assume your child is lazy, stupid, dumb, unmotivated, a behavior problem or depressed because they are not learning in school. 80% of all learning problems are cognitive based according to U.S. Dept. of Education.

At ELSK we help parents from around the country and world - yes I've gotten contacted from parents in Europe, Canada and more - become aware of their options and help connect you with local providers in your area. So do not wait to get your child assessed today and begin to help correct the many problems that have been, up until now, compensated or worked around.

More notes to follow to discuss the programs, learning skills , research, studies to support the findings, how you can strengthen learnings skills on your own and much more or just visit http://els4kids.com for more information today. You can sign up for my weekly ezine, too!

Blessings,

Colleen
Recently Awarded Cambridge's Professional of the Year 2009 for Executives and Professionals.

Learning Skills 101- Sustained Attention

Learning Skills 101 - Sustained Attention


So far, we have been discussing what learning skills are and how they impact a student on a daily basis. If you recall, we stated that learning skills are the underlying mental skills formally known as attention, visual/auditory processing, memory, processing, word attack and auditory analysis. Most of our children experience these skills through reading, writing, spelling, paying attention, remembering, recalling and how quick we can respond to a request.

To continue our discussion around the "attention" learning skill, we recall our student from last week's example was having trouble with selective attention. We said selective attention is the skill that enables us to literally choose what we will pay attention to. We can still take in everything in our visual span but we only "select" one thing at a time to pay attention to.

This week we talk about sustained attention. Sustained attention is the ability to direct attention and focus on one main thing for a period of time. The fact that you are reading this article and keeping your attention focused on these words is an example of sustained attention. For children, sustained attention can be seen when they need to stay on task for a period of time. If they are to be able to read for 20 minutes in a reading period, they need the skill to keep them on task.

Of course, the challenge is what to do when the child is not able to stay on task? Its important to recognize that the child could have weak attention skills. Sometimes, there are other variables that add to the weak attention skills. For example, weak auditory or visual processing along with memory skills could be part of the bigger problem. The best way to determine where your child skills reside is to have them assessed and then create a plan of action to strengthen them.

The good news is that the above skill is just one of many that you are able to strengthen due to the brain's ability to develop and grow. The Enhanced Learning Skills System was designed to strengthen learning skills required to learn and read easier and more efficiently. Call me today for an assessment and let's begin working together to help your child learn with ease.

Next time, we will discuss another learning skill and that impacts everyday learning ability and how there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Colleen can be reached at (908) 285-8352.

Copyright © Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids 2008

For more information on the article you just read, you can email or visit my website.

Selective Attention - Learning Skills 101

Last week, we began to understand what learning skills are and how they impact a student on a daily basis. If you recall, we stated that learning skills are the underlying mental skills formally known as attention, visual/auditory processing, memory, processing, word attack and auditory analysis. Most of our children experience these skills through reading, writing, spelling, paying attention, remembering, recalling and how quick we can respond to a request. To continue our discussion around the "attention" learning skill, we recall our student from last week's example was having trouble paying attention to more than one thing at a time. We said our student had weak divided attention and in our example, this student also displayed weak ability to process more than one item at a time. There are definite exercises to work our student through from last week that will strengthen the weaknesses cited. Divided attention can be identified, measured and strengthened. This week, we will talk about selective attention and cite an example. Selective attention is the skill that enables us to literally choose what we will pay attention to. We can still take in everything in our visual span but we only "select" one thing at a time to pay attention to. Let's begin. Mike is a 10th grade student in his local public school district where the number of students in his science classroom is now approaching 28 fellow peers, thanks to school budget issues. The teacher is a bit overworked and underpaid, the students in the class are a good mix of high performers, middle of the road workers and average to slightly below average students. The student population just happens to be mostly young ladies and only a few young men. Mike is the pick of crop according to the young ladies in his class. The few males in the class cling to Mike for dear life to try and survive the uneven balance of gender population. They also see Mike as their leader because he presents so cool and collective. This semester the class is exploring Human Biology. A typical class scenario in his science class is Mike arrives and the girls swarm to him. The remaining males follow along and hope for some attention. The teacher tries her best to gain control, separate the students and get everyone organized and focused. The teacher begins first with lecture to prep and gain interest in what will be a long "lecture" with visuals on basic genetics and chromosomes. Yawn ... is what Mike begins to hear himself think. However, Mike needs this class and a good grade too because he thinks he may pursue science as a career. He knows he cannot afford to drift off and lose track of the discussion. In order to be successful, Mike needs to pull away from his friends, his fellow peers, stop the internal thoughts about the discussion that was just occurring and quiet his overall mind to begin focusing on the teacher. Mike engages his selective attention and literally blocks out the noise in the classroom. The girls giggling, the guys whispering, the pencils falling, the teacher coughing, the students walking by the room in the hallway are just a few distractions that Mike chooses not to attend to with his focus. Mike's prefrontal cortex has just kicked into gear. This area of the brain decides what will receive attention, which cognitive resources will be used to analyze the incoming information and which distractions will be eliminated. Lucky for Mike, his selective attention skills are strong and he is able to focus on the teacher speaking, ignore the distractions around himself and his classroom and process the incoming information that will be on the next test. Not many students are as lucky as Mike and find it very difficult to block out distractions Try this Selective Attention Test and see how you do. Experience it from two different perspectives. One from being successful and paying attention to what was asked of you and nothing else. Second, from the perspective of weak selective attention and not being able to pay attention to what is being asked of you no matter how hard you try to focus and you understand what you are to pay attention to. Selective attention is one of three types of attention in the broad sense. This skill can be easily identified, measured and strengthened. Do not wait to have your child's selective attention skills assessed today. Email now and save 50% off the cost. Everything you need to help your student is provided in my Enhanced Learning Skills System. The good news is that the above skill is just one of many that you are able to strengthen due to the brain's ability to develop and grow. A student doesn't need to struggle with this weak skill set any longer. The Enhanced Learning Skills System was designed to strengthen learning skills required to learn and read easier and more efficiently. Call me today for an assessment and let's begin working together to help your child learn with ease. Next time, we will discuss another learning skill and that impacts everyday learning ability and how there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Colleen can be reached at (908) 285-8352.

========= Parents: If you child is having difficulty with reading and comprehension or learning in general, there is a solution. ELSK provides research based programs that provide impactful measurable results in as little as 12 weeks. Studies on the incredible results are available for your viewing. I provide services for children with learning challenges and specialize in students with reading and comprehension challenges. Your child will enjoy learning with much less effort. Go to my website today for more information. ================= Colleen Bain has a Masters in Special Education. She is certified in special and general education. She has been married for 16 years and has been blessed with two children with special needs. She has over eleven years of experience with special needs and over 20 years business experience. As Sole Proprietor of Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids, Colleen provides intense one-on-one cognitive training to individuals ages 8 and older, specializing in Reading and Comprehension.

Learning Skills 101

Learning Skills 101 So what are learning skills anyway? Most of us were never taught about these underlying mental skills that lay the foundation for our ability to learn. We were always taught that we could learn if we set our mind to it. Between home and school we should be fine. If not, just see a tutor for a bit and you will be good to go. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to learn in this type of scenario. Why? Well, how easily and efficiently we learn is based on how strong our underlying learning skills are. This definitely turned out to be the case for my daughter and all of the students who have worked through my system. The skills we use to learn with are technically known as working memory, attention, processing, auditory analysis (including auditory processing), visual processing, word attack and logic and reasoning. We see these skills play out everyday based on how well we can pay attention, how well we can remember, how well we can process what we hear(we hear fine - its the processing of the sounds), how well we can process what we see(letter reversals, etc.), how well we can read unknown words (beyond the words we may have memorized) and how well we can plan, organize and problem solve. For each of these learning skills there are sub-categories that exist too. Lets explore an example of attention as a weak learning skill. In this example, we have a student is able to attend to one thing at a time only. However, the student will state that they get distracted very easily. After I work them through a series of exercises I can tell whether or not this is truly the case. 9 times out of 10 it is not the case. You see, students like this one tend to hyperfocus on their targeted input. They zone in on the teacher and everything else around them disappears. So, when an additional task is being introduced that requires processing, they are conflicted because they can only attend to one thing at a time and state they get distracted. In actuality, their "divided attention" skill is very weak along with their ability to process more than one thing at a time. A student with the above weakness will stated easy distractibility but will also have great difficulty with remembering information coming from different inputs at the same time, especially is one is auditory. This student is able to take notes and process the input in the brain. However, if the teacher begins "discussing" the topic of the notes on the board, the student is lost. Similarly, if the teacher started to talk first, the student would be able to process this input but once the teachers asks the student to start writing notes along with the teacher speaking, the student would be unsuccessful. They are unable to share processing within the brain. The good news is that the above weak skill is just one of many that you are able to strengthen due to the brain's ability to develop and grow. A student doesn't need to struggle with this weak skill set any longer. The Enhanced Learning Skills System was designed to strengthen learning skills required to learn and read easier and more efficiently. Call me today for an assessment and let's begin working together to help your child learn with ease. Next time, we will discuss another learning skill and that impacts everyday learning ability and how there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Copyright © Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids 2008 For more information on the article you just read, you can email or visit my website. Click HERE to Subscribe to my Ezine.

========= Parents: If you child is having difficulty with reading and comprehension or learning in general, there is a solution. ELSK provides research based programs that provide impactful measurable results in as little as 12 weeks. Studies on the incredible results are ready for your viewing. I provide services for children with learning challenges and specialize in students with reading and comprehension challenges. Your child will enjoy learning with much less effort. Go to my website today for more information. ================= Colleen Bain has a Masters in Special Education. She is certified in special and general education. She has been married for 16 years and has been blessed with two children with special needs. She has over eleven years of experience with special needs and over 20 years business experience. As Sole Proprietor of Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids, Colleen provides intense one-on-one cognitive training to individuals ages 6 and older, specializing in Reading and Comprehension.