Learning Skills 101 – Visual Processing

Learning Skills 101 – Visual Processing To Review: 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 our learning skills. Selective, Sustained and Divided Attention, and Working Memory, Processing Speed and included Visual and Auditory Processing. Without these cognitive skills as strengths, the student has great difficulty within the classroom and in his life. Last week we tried an exercise from Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart In Your Child. Dr. Gibson is the creator of Processing and Cognitive Enhancement (PACE) and Master the Code (MTC). This week we will discuss visual processing in a bit more detail. Visual processing relates to the brain’s processing to make sense of information taken in through the eyes. This is different from the mechanics of the eye that would lead to glasses. Visual Processing issues usually impact a child so they will find anything requiring spatial relations (keep in the lines, ordering the math problems on a paper within the space, not bumping into objects when they walk, etc.) a big challenge. Reading and math are two subjects where accurate perception and understanding of visual processing is important. For example, spatial relationships are very important. Both Math and Reading rely heavily on the use of symbols I Most students I work with have this area impacted to a point. Some students are more severe than others. Visual processing issues will impact the child’s reading ability and thus academics. Math and Reading are the two subjects that are directly impacted. Examples of how difficulty with visual processing could pose a challenge would be discerning between the many symbols within both subjects. Within reading, words must be perceived as separate units, directionality in reading left to right, similarly shaped letters of “b”, “d”, “q” and “p”. The importance of being able to perceive objects in relation to other objects is often seen in math problems. To be successful, the person must be able to associate that certain digits go together to make a single number (14), that others are single digit numbers, that the operational signs (+,x,=) are distinct from the numbers, but demonstrate a relationship between them. The only cues to such math problems are the spacing and order between the symbols (LD Online, 2008). Additionally, just being able to space and shape the flow of the equations to the space on the paper can be a challenge for students where they require graph paper to complete the work. When you have visual processing difficulties, visual motor integration is often a spillover effect. This is the ability to use visual cues (sight) to guide the child's movements (LD Online, 2008). This refers to both gross motor and fine motor tasks. Often children with difficulty in this area have a tough time orienting themselves in space, especially in relation to other people and objects. These are the children who are often called "clumsy" because they bump into things, place things on the edges of tables or counters where they fall off, "miss" their seats when they sit down, etc. This can interfere with virtually all areas of the child's life: social, academic, athletic, pragmatic. Difficulty with fine motor integration effects a child's writing, organization on paper, and ability to transition between a worksheet or keyboard and other necessary information which is in a book, on a number line, graph, chart, or computer screen. A funny story with visual processing weaknesses goes back to when I became certified and licensed in Processing and Cognitive Enhancement (PACE). First, I have to give you the background to the story. When I arrived in Colorado Springs for my week of training, I admit that I was probably the biggest doubting Thomas in the room. I came to Colorado because I wanted help for my children, especially Shannon who sustained cognitive injury from her autoimmune disorder. The Gibson Family, creators of PACE and MTC, picked up on my doubts. Perhaps it was because all I kept asking was “where’s the data?”, “Where’s the Research?” Read More Parents: If your child is having difficulty with reading and comprehension or learning in general, there is a solution. ELSK provides research based programs that provide measurable results in as little as 12-24 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 been awarded Professional of Year 2009 by Cambridge Who's Who for her work within Special Education. She has a Masters in Special Education. She is licensed in the state of New Jersey in both elementary and children with disabilities. Colleen 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 the owner of Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids, Colleen provides intensive one-on-one cognitive training to individuals ages 8 and older to strengthen all of their learning skills. She specializing in children with reading and comprehension challenges.

Learning Skills 101 - Auditory Processing

To Review:
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 some exercises from Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart In Your Child. Dr. Gibson is the creator of Processing and Cognitive Enhancement (PACE) and Master the Code (MTC). This is one of the programs at the core of The Enhanced Learning Skills System.

Auditory Processing is really an important underlying mental skill. This week I wanted to provide you with some background details around this one mental skill. The National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders states the following on Auditory Processing:
Auditory processing is a term used to describe what happens when your brain recognizes and interprets the sounds around you. The "disorder" part of auditory processing means that something is adversely affecting the processing or interpretation of the information.

Children with Auditory Processing issues often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words, even though the sounds themselves are loud and clear. Read More.

Parents: If your child is having difficulty with reading and comprehension or learning in general, there is a solution. ELSK provides research based programs that provide measurable results in as little as 12-24 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 been awarded Professional of Year 2009 by Cambridge Who's Who for her work within Special Education. She has a Masters in Special Education. She is licensed in the state of New Jersey in both elementary and children with disabilities. Colleen 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 the owner of Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids, Colleen provides intensive one-on-one cognitive training to individuals ages 8 and older to strengthen all of their learning skills. She specializing in children with reading and comprehension challenges.

Learning Skills 101 - Did You Spell Washington Backwards?

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. Selective, Sustained and Divided Attention, and Working Memory were seen as necessary cognitive skills for students. Without these cognitive skills as strengths, the student has great difficulty within the classroom and in his life. Last week we tried an exercise from Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart In Your Child.

The exercise demonstrates how all of the major cognitive skills work together we you learn. How did you do with trying to spell the name of the first American president backwards as fast as you could? I explained how this task required you to use higher learning thinking skills. Logic and Reasoning, Visual Processing, Auditory Processing and Long-Term Memory were used for this exercise.

Dr. Gibson's Book points out how weakness in any of these mental skills might affect performance:

• If Attention is weak you may have never fully heard the request.
• If Short-Term Memory is weak you may have forgotten the request before you responded, maybe needing the request repeated.
• If Processing Speed is slow the request may have seemed too complex, requiring the need to have it repeated.
• If Logic and Reasoning is weak you may have failed to come up with a solution.
• If Auditory Processing is weak you may have been unable to unglue sounds in "Washington."
• If Long-Term Memory is weak you may have been unable to remember letters that represent the sounds in "Washington."
• If Visual Processing is weak you may have been unable to create a picture of the word in your head.
  

The point is that if any one of these cognitive skills is weak it will hinder your performance.

Your child may be experiencing similar "breakdowns" of processing while learning because one or more cognitive skills are weak. The best way to find this out is to have your child's cognitive skills tested. The good news is after a student works with the Enhanced Learning Skills System, they will have strengthened all of their cognitive skills. ADHD symptoms, that are cognitive based, disappear to the point the teachers and family take notice. Recognize that there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Call me at (908) 285-8352.

Next week we will begin to discuss visual and auditory processing.

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

Learning Disabilities - 5 Steps to Improve a Child's Academic Success in Reading and Math

Once parents observe their child having learning challenges, they may want to dive a bit deeper into the underlying causes. Having the neurologist or the pediatrician diagnose is not sufficient in most cases. Additionally, when a neuropsychological test is completed the average Intelligence Quota (IQ) will not provide all the answers. By following these five steps, parents can help their child lessen the negative impact of their learning disabilities and improve academically.

Step 1: Determine the Underlying Causes of the Learning Difficulties

Parents can choose to have their child tutored for specific academic areas of concern. If the tutoring is provided for a few sessions and the student is able to become independent without the ongoing need of the tutor, then it is possible that lack of or poor instruction is the root cause. However, if some brief tutoring does not solve the problem than this is a red flag that the problem is beyond poor instruction or not enough instruction. If learning problems cannot be quickly resolved with tutoring then usually there are weaknesses in underlying learning skills.

Step 2: Understand the Learning Skills Required for Success

Learning skills all work together to produce great results. If, for example, a car has a bad transmission, then putting premium gasoline into the tank will not produce successful results. Our brains have an active processing system which requires many learning skills to be strong at all times. First, the brain requires attention and memory skills when attempting to receive information. As additional input is received, other learning skills are activated to assist in processing the data. Next, visual processing is needed for discerning and analyzing input. Additionally, auditory processing is used to review, process and discriminate sounds. We cannot leave out logic and reasoning skills to focus on problem solving requests as in Math. Reading comprehension skills are integrated to deal with listening and reading activities. Finally, each skill will play a part in processing almost every input. Therefore, the degree of strength in these individual learning skills will impact the ability of the active processing system to handle information. If a person's skills show some or several weak areas, then the overall learning process will not be accurate, fast or efficient.

Step 3: Assess Which Learning Skills Need to be Strengthened

One way to objectively measure a person's strong points is through standardized testing. First, the most common testing approach is using achievement tests. These tests measure how well a child is doing academic not learning skills. Another popular choice are intelligence tests. These tests measure the strengths of the underlying learning skills. Unfortunately, intelligence tests provide an average intelligence scored based on all the measures of the learning skills. They will not give the individual measures of learning skills necessary for reading, math calculations or comprehension. Parents can look at the individual test scores and compare them to their child's grades with each academic subject and discover which underlying learning skills need to be strengthened.

Step 4: Explore How to Strengthen the Weak Learning Skills

Cognitive Training is one of the fastest growing markets. Studies prove intense, challenging procedures completed one-on-one will strengthen weak learning skills without any regression. As a child progresses through a procedure, tasks are added requiring greater attention and forcing new skills to become automatic. Research studies have shown a child will gain an average over 3.6 years improvement in all deficient skills within 10 weeks! This type of training requires working with a certified trainer at least 5 hours a week for 12 weeks. The programs offer a variety of choices to work through to completion. The child, trainer and parent(s) all have a role to play in this type of therapy. The programs are not academic in nature and the children enjoy themselves. The results show great improvement but the children will notice the differences themselves without needing an assessment. They can list one to several noticeable changes a week that contribute to an improved academic and social life.

Step 5: Make your Decision
If your child has difficulty learning which impacts their self-esteem, school success, parent-child relationships then you should consider further investigation into cognitive therapy. There is plenty of studies and research results to back up the programs. A child can compensate for only so long when trying to avoid weak learning skills. Eventually, the child will run out of options. Help is available to your child through cognitive therapy.

By following the five steps outlined in this article, parents can understand that learning challenges are complex but manageable. They do not necessarily go away. However, with proper advances in science, there are alternative methods proving to be successful. Children with learning challenges are now creating new neuropathways to enable faster more efficient processing. By completing a cognitive therapy program, children lives are being changed. With new neuropathways and stronger learning skills, children once considered out of synch can now become active participants in the overall learning process.

For more information on the article you just read email colleenbain@comcast.net or visit our website http://www.els4kids.com Colleen Bain has a Masters in Special Education. She is certified in special and general education. She has been married for 16 years now and been blessed with two children with special needs. She has over 11 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 intensive cognitive training to individuals ages 6 and older. Copyright © Enhanced Learning Skills for Kids 2008

Learning Skills 101 - What is Working Memory?

essings,olleen

Working Memory and Attention

Learning Skills 101 - What is Working Memory? To Review: 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. Selective, Sustained and Divided Attention were seen as necessary cognitive skills for students. Without these cognitive skills as strengths, the student has great difficulty within the classroom and in his life. This week, we will learn about working memory. Working Memory works with attention to make it possible to process information that is given to us. For those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), that are cognitive based symptoms, experience difficulty with all three types of attention which impacts the strength of their working memory. Why? Because attention and working memory go hand in hand. When attention is not held long enough to process information into working memory, the skill does not get worked thus presents weak. Parents of students with ADHD usually receive comments from teachers that their child gets distracted too easily and the student needs help with memory. The teachers will state that the student cannot remember information from one day or week to the next. Working memory is needed for math, reading, comprehension, test taking and follow directions. Students use their working memory when reading and trying to comprehend. When they take tests and read the questions, if their working memory is weak, by the time they read all the possible answers for a multiple choice question, they forget the question and have to reread it again. Students will be unable to follow directions that have multiple steps because they cannot store the information long enough to follow through. Weak memory skills prohibits successful learning. Weak attention prohibits successful learning. See the pattern yet? All of our learning skills are interconnected. If just one cognitive skill is weak, our ability to learn is negatively impacted. The good news is after a student works with the Enhanced Learning Skills System, they will have strengthened all of their cognitive skills. ADHD symptoms, that are cognitive based, disappear to the point the teachers and family take notice. Recognize that there is hope and a solution. Call today for more information on your choices! Call me at (908) 285-8352. For more information on the article you just read, you can email or visit my website.

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.

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

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.