Category: learning disabilities

Michael Phelps now holds the record for the most gold medals won at a single Olympics with a total of eight.  He said, “ I’ve dreamed a lot of things, and written down a lot of goals, and this one was the biggest one I have ever written down.” 

But not too long ago he could have been labeled a problem student.  He still jokes about his middle school teacher who said he would never be a success.  In school he struggled with AHDH and started swimming to provide an outlet for his excess energy.

Phelps unlike many struggling students overcame his disability, he had the support of an encouraging and loving family and he never believed the words of his critical teacher.  How often do you think this happens?

It is inevitable that every teacher will experience a student with ADHD. It could be the biggest challenge a teacher can face.  It can result in frustration and exhaustion for the teacher worse it can negatively impact a student’s self-confidence and belief in his or her own ability to learn. 

What you tell yourself can become a self-defeating mantra whether you are the teacher or the student. 

Teachers who dread the presence of a student with ADHD will communicate this even in non-verbal ways.  What teacher’s witness is the impulsive, unorganized and easily distracted student.  What they don’t see or connect to is this behavior is a cry for help saying, “reach me and accept me.”  Teachers can look at the glass half-full or half-empty when dealing with a student with ADHD.   When they make a connection with the student and use behavior and classroom modifications this connection will become a life preserver. 

Some of these modifications are:

• A touch – on the shoulder or a smile so the student know what good behavior is
• Rewards to motivate like a smiley sticker on the corner of the deck
• Verbal reinforcement with positive praise
• Give the student specific tasks that require movement in the classroom
• Provide structure at all times and remain calm
• Have the student repeat verbal directions
• Provide advanced warning when a change is coming
• Take five minutes everyday with the with the student to make sure he or she is using a planner for organization
• Divide tasks into chunks of time with shortened assignments
• Consider how desks are arranged and be sure ADHD students are grouped with others and frequently switch

As difficult as this seems when a teacher practices compassion and understands how critical “what you tell yourself” is to learning  things can change and improve.  Look to Michael Phelps as an inspiration.  Know that in his life it was not just what he told himself but also what he heard from others. 

Have you ever dismissed your own shortcomings by saying, “it’s just the way I am,” or “I can’t change that?”

If you have you truly are a creature of your own habits.  Question is do your habits own you or do you own your habits?   Most people are owned by their habits simply because the human brain forms synaptic pathways like an expressway and it’s difficult to exit off that path without consciously developing new ways of doing and thinking.  When you change anything you create parallel synaptic paths and new brain cells that can jump onto a new track. 

The problem is whenever you initiate change even positive changes you activate fear in the emotional brain, and if the fear is big enough your flight or fight response will go off and you will literally run away from what you’re trying to do.    That’s why extreme changes like a new diet, fitness regiment or change in career will be difficult and uncomfortable. 

Authors Dawa Markova of “The Open Door” and M.J. Ryan of “This Year I Will” have found that humans approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, collaboratively and innovatively.   What happens is during adolescence the brain shuts down half of that capacity and uses only those modes of thought that seemed the most valuable during the first decade of life.   The result is few use the innovative and collaborate modes of thought.  It’s these two that creates discovery, invention and excellence. 

Teachers have the perfect opportunity to help students adapt to change by creating a stretch zone in their classroom.  The stretch zone is the place in the middle that will feel awkward and unfamiliar but it’s where true change occurs.  When students stay in the stretch zone their brain is healthier because it’s constantly challenged to learn not just new things but create new pathways. 

So how do you create the stretch zone?   Look for ways to challenge students to make tiny continuous improvements. 

• Students should have their own improvement list and work to check off one item every week.  
• Teach students how to access their weak areas and grade their own progress.
• Guide students along their learning path by moving though new material like an explorer in a new place, it’s here they will go from curiosity to wonder.
• Remind students that new ideas like new habits feels awkward at first, and feeling awkward is a valuable moment one that scientists call confusion because it’s fusing the old with the new.  If the process is repeated enough the brain will begin organizing the new input with new synaptic connections.

Teach your students to become innovative thinkers, create collaborative groups where they can explore all the possible solutions to a problem. Every time students do this they will ingrain their brain with the ability to create parallel pathways.

Your classroom can be the best place for students not just to learn but also to create the ability to become a creature of new habits. 

Perception is everything.  How you see things shapes how you interpret the world.  In the classroom the teacher’s perceptions can mean the difference between success and failure.  The verbal and non-verbal communication of the teacher lets a student know if he or she is capable and smart or inadequate and challenged. 

Consciously or not you tip people off as to what your expectations are.  You exhibit thousands of cues, some as subtle as the tilting of the head, raising an eyebrow or dilation of the nostrils, but most are much more obvious.  And your students pick up on these cues.   In other words once an expectation is set, even if it isn’t accurate an individual tends to act in ways that are consistent with that expectation.  Surprisingly often, the result is that the expectation comes true.

Students who lack academic and social skills continue to struggle sometimes even when they are capable and the help and encouragement is sufficient.  Could it be because no foundation has been built to give that student confidence?

Every student needs to learn in a quality environment.  This type of classroom allows for failure.  For students the perception is mistakes are bad and embarrassing and should be avoided.  When in fact mistakes are opportunities to learn something.  The more mistakes made the more a student will learn and the greater chance they will of have of succeeding on the next try.  The key is to learn from the mistakes, not making the same mistake twice.  

Thomas Edison would never have invented the light bulb if he did not take this principle to heart.  He failed more than 10,00 times before he found the filament that would create light for a sustained period of time.  He did not view these as failures. 

How a student views their failures comes from you, the teacher.  If you can eliminate judgment and comparing, you can give every student the mental confidence to know that they can succeed.  An interesting case in point is the story about a group of American schoolteachers who were visiting schools in Japan.  In one school they watched a Japanese boy struggling at the board with a single math problem.  For forty-five minutes this boy worked on the problem making repeated mistakes.  During this time the American schoolteachers became anxious and embarrassed for the little boy.  Yet the boy did not seem to mind.  The teachers wondered why they felt worse than he did.

What they didn’t understand is that in Japanese schools practice in making mistakes is accepted as a natural part of learning.  Once the boy got the answer right his classmates cheered.  Maybe in American schools it’s forgotten that achievement is just a matter of plain hard work.  If students are worried about meeting expectations they many never get on the path to success thus ensuring themselves of the very thing they are afraid of – failure. 

Teachers can empower their students to learn by making their classroom mistake friendly.   Create room to fail with collaborative and cooperative groups.  Give students a stretch zone in which they move away from what’s comfortable and challenge themselves everyday.  Let them learn from their mistakes.

Gifted or learning disabled?   Can a child be both?

Inside the human brain are one hundred trillion connections most of which are still unmapped.  Mapping the human brain has been the domain of scientists except in the case of one extraordinary woman.   Barbara Young born with an asymmetrical brain made the discovery that allowed her to invent the treatment that transformed her life.     Today she runs the Arrowsmith School in Toronto where children with learning disabilities are literally building themselves a better brain.   Incredible as it sounds the human brain can change itself. 

Children at this school who were formerly taught using compensations are engaged in a form of mental olympics where exercises strengthen the weak areas of the brain as if it were a muscle.   After completing the program they are reintegrated into their public or private school at the appropriate grade level.

This astonishing discovery that the brain changes its own structure and function through thoughts and activity is called neuroplasticity.  The brain can change its own structure and perfect new circuits, when one part fails other parts take over.  Understanding neuroplasticity allows us to change the thinking that limitations and disabilities need not be lifelong handicaps.

Imagine the possibilities in applying this thinking for schools.  Rather than labeling children as learning disabled assessments like those used at the Arrowshmith School could be utilized to look for weak areas of the brain. Learning disabled and gifted do not have to be on opposite sides of the continuum.   The paradox is many children have both, creative talents alongside weak areas of the brain. 

Evidence like this will continue to improve society.  Scientists believe we will learn more about the human condition in the next two decades than was learned in the past millennia.  Developing evidence-based teaching will require a paradigm shift for schools.   Educators need to raise new questions, consider new possibilities, and to look at old problems from a new angle.   We all need to push harder for a system that can adapt and apply this new information.