Education

This informational overview will help parents, teachers, and other professionals better understand when and why children may have frequent temper tantrums, become increasingly frustrated, or experience “meltdowns”. Specific contextual situations will be discussed and strategies will be provided to help both children and adults navigate tough/stressful situations

In this hands-on experiential workshop, practical movement activities based on the Brain Gym® program will be presented. These exercises will support stress-free learning and can be applied to children of various ages and ability. In this overview you will learn Brain Gym movements which stimulate the brain/body connection, exercises to enhance your energy, balance, coordination and organization, and strategies to promote “calm-thinking” and create confidence to meet any new learning challenge.

Executive functioning is defined as the cognitive process that regulates an individual's ability to organize thoughts and activities, prioritize tasks, manage time efficiently, and make decisions. It is an umbrella term for the brain functions that serve ongoing goal-directed behavior. Proper executive functioning skills are essential for social and academic involvement. If you notice concerns about your child’s attention, initiation, mental flexibility, working memory, inhibition, or planning and organization he or she may be demonstrating executive functioning deficits. This discussion will focus on the impact of executive functioning deficits, and provide strategies to address these areas of concern.

This presentation will outline the foundations needed for fine motor development, as well as provide you with simple and creative activities you can do at home or in your classroom to promote the growth of these important skills. The areas focused on in this overview include postural strength and control that provide the foundation for fine motor development, hand mechanics needed for refined dexterity, and strategies and tools to improve skill and confidence with fine motor activities and handwriting.

This overview will provide you with an understanding of the language and social characteristics of NVLD. Defining characteristics include difficulty understanding nonverbal communication, inability to grasp the “big picture”, concrete thinking, difficulty with math and reading, and poor self-esteem. During this discussion, you will also learn great strategies to help boost your child’s social and higher level language skills.

This informational and interactive overview will help parents, teachers, and other healthcare providers identify sensory processing issues in children and adolescents.  It will outline the typical behaviors and challenges confronting these individuals and review strategies and tools to help the student feel more in control of his or her body to perform daily activities more efficiently at home, school and in the community. 

This conversation will help parents and teachers who have students that are struggling to interact with their peers. We will discuss the definition of social language and how it plays a role in our everyday life. In addition, this in-service will help you to identify symptoms of a social communication disorder, clarify your role in the social language assessment process, determine treatment considerations, and implement strategies and visual aids to help build and strengthen a child’s social language skills.

This overview is designed to inform parents, family members and educational professionals about the various types and uses of augmentative communication tools that can be used to increase independent communication and reduce difficult behaviors. We will discuss the reasons for using augmentative supports for kids at all levels and provide examples of how visual tools can increase a child’s understanding of language, time, and changing environments. Specific ideas and examples will be shared for creating low tech home and school made visual supports for use with children. We will also review new and popular technologies such as the iPad and how it can be used as a communication tool.

This is an interactive overview discussing the essential role that vision plays in your child’s daily learning.  The importance of ocular motor and binocular skills will be discussed and helpful vision resources will be provided. Attendees will learn about eye dominance and how it directly impacts academic skills such as reading, as well as how it helps you determine the most appropriate seating within the classroom.