Blog
“We’re Not Doctors…We Think You Should See a Neurologist”
Oliver, age 8, has difficulty behaving in his third grade class. They were told by the school, "We're not doctors, so we don't know why he's doing these things, but we think you should see a neurologist." The last statement is code language. Here's the translation -...
#Dyslexia Mythologies Perpetuated
In spite of state training initiatives around the country, there are so many persisting mythologies hampering the understanding of “dyslexia.” Besides the top one of, “Isn’t that when a child reads upside down and backwards,” the second is the myth that “Only medical...
The Writing Road: Write On, Write On
Those of you who have been following Shut-Down learner for a while know that I have a bit of an obsession with kids' writing. It’s true. I am endlessly fascinated by the writing samples that they generate. When I look at a writing sample, usually I know immediately...
“Parent Brain” & the Anger River
Last week we talked about the “Anger River” that resides, often unseen, beneath the “ADD Swamp. ” Control battles, punishments and other attempts at compliance feed the river. (See Anger River: https://shutdownlearner.com/the-anger-river-below-the-add-swamp/)...
The Anger River Below the ADD Swamp
Do you know about the river that lies below the ADHD/ADD swamp? It’s the Anger River and it lurks down below, often unseen, but detected at times by certain actions or behaviors from either child or parents. How do we detect the Anger River? Punishments have...
Self-Monitoring (Not really)
Flexibility of thinking and problem solving are two interacting skills impacting academic and social functioning. Children who have difficulty with these also have trouble with “self-monitoring,” that is the ability to be aware of the correctness of your output to a...
The ADHD “Test”
Rating scales frequently are used as the “tests” to determine whether or not the child has ADHD (as if ADHD can be diagnosed like a broken bone). (“Yep, it says here on these scale that your child has ADHD.”) The fact of the matter is the vast majority of kids...
“My IQ is in the ‘Not-Good-Enough-Zone'” – Still Need Help!
Those of you have read my blogs or the books know that there are certain aspects of this business (e.g., the over use of worksheets, lengthy IEPs that really aren’t individual, the way writing is taught, the rapid “diagnosing of ADHD, calling dyslexia a medical...
“Evidenced Based?” What about unmotivating?
As a psychologist specializing in dyslexia and learning disabilities, I have always valued and embraced reading instruction that has been referred to as “bottom-up” (skills based) for teaching struggling kids how to decode and read more fluently. Over the years I have...
The Micromanaging of Childhood
It’s an admirable goal that parents want to be kept informed of their child’s academic and behavioral progress. In the “Way-Back Machine” before modern technology (yes, that time did exist ), parents were periodically informed about how their child was doing in...
Phonological Awareness According to Hank & Claire
Phonological awareness refers to an individual's awareness of the phonological structure, or sound structure, of words. Phonological awareness is an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability and has, therefore, been the focus of much research. Trying...