General Recommendations
Students with
auditory deficits exhibit poor auditory sequential memory span, sound
blending and discrimination difficulties, sound confusion, spelling
problems, and sequential problems.
Students with
visual perceptual deficits may have poor-sequential memory, visual
discrimination and direction problems, difficulty in spelling words that
are phonetically irregular, visual analysis, synthesis difficulties, and
spatial problems.
Planning is a
mental process by which the individual determines, selects, applies, and
evaluates solutions to problems. This includes the 1) selection of
relevant information in the task, 2) selection of relevant prior
knowledge, 3) initiation of a “way” or strategy to approach a task, 4)
monitoring progress, and 5) developing new strategies when necessary.
- Disorganized
completion of assignments
- Failure to switch
strategies according to the demands of school work
- Failure to
correct misinterpretation of what is read
- Inconsistent
application of spelling or math rules when solving problems
- Failure to devise
or use aids when completing work
- Lack of
preparedness with materials needed to do school work
- Uncertainty about
how or where to start school work
Say:
·
“How did you do the task?”
·
"Did you make a plan before you started the task?"
·
“What did you do last time? Did it work?”
·
“Why did you do it that way?”
·
“These are hard, is there a way to make them easier?”
·
“Is there a better way or is there another way to do this?”
·
““What strategy worked for you?”
·
“Do you think you will do anything differently next time?”
·
“How can you check your work to see if it is right?”
Do:
·
Teach children about plans
·
Discuss the importance of planning in class, how it helps us
organize ourselves so we
can be more
successful and finish on time.
·
Encourage children to develop, use, and evaluate their own
strategies
·
Encourage verbalization of ideas
·
Explain why some methods work better than others
Attention is a
mental process by which a person focuses thinking on a particular
stimulus and ignores others. Attention allows a child to selectively
focus on things heard or seen and resist being distracted by irrelevant
sights and sounds. Focused
attention is direct concentration on something. Selective attention
involves the resistance to distraction, and sustained attention is
continued focus over time.
These dimensions work together to allow a child to attend.
- Limited ability
to work for more than a few minutes on one thing
- Failure to focus
on relevant aspects of assignments
- Difficulty in
resisting distractions in the classroom
- Incomplete work
because the child did not sustain effort
- Tendency to
answer questions based on incomplete information
- Tendency to
answer the wrong question
- Failure to start
a task because the instructions were missed
·
Model and teach strategies that improve attention and
concentration
1. Teach the use of
verbal self-commands (e.g., "OK, calm down and think about the
question")
2. Teach focusing
strategies (e.g., checking for critical features and careful listening)
3. Teach child to
use only required materials
·
Teach strategies that increase inhibition and organization
1. Encourage the
use of date books and special notebooks for organizing papers
2. Teach the child
to stop and think before responding
3. Teach the child
to count to 10 before answering
·
Teach strategies to increase alertness
1. Teach child to
be aware of his or her level of alertness
2. Teach child to
use calming self-statements
3. Encourage
planned breaks so that effort does not have to take too long
·
Teach a few strategies but teach them well
Simultaneous
Processing is a mental process a child uses to relate separate pieces of
information into a group or see how parts are related to a whole.
Usually Simultaneous Processing is seen in tasks that involve spatial
skills like using blocks to build a design, doing geometry, seeing
patterns in numbers, seeing a group of letters as a word, words as a
whole, a sentence as part of a paragraph, and reading comprehension. The
spatial aspect of Simultaneous processing includes perception of things
as a whole and seeing patterns among things. Simultaneous processing is
involved in comprehension in that it requires the integration and
understanding of word relationships, prepositions and inflections so
that a person can derive meaning based on the whole idea. Children good
at simultaneous processing easily get the "big picture" and the hidden
meaning in information, in other words, “what does all of this
information tell us about?”
- Failure to
recognize sight words quickly
- Failure to
interpret word, sentence, or passage meaning
- Difficulty seeing
the shapes of words or working with spatial tasks
- Failure to see
patterns in text or math problems
- Failure to
comprehend math word problems
- Matching and
categorization games (pictures, words, etc.) including opposites
- Reproduction of
figures in rotation, from different perspectives
- Jigsaw puzzles,
hidden picture worksheets, and building 3-d objects
- Supply missing
details in stories
- Encourage rhyming
- Use and creation
of maps, both geographical and contextual
- Summarization of
stories or articles
Successive
processing is a mental process a child uses to use or put information in
a specific order. In this process incoming information is organized in
order so that the only connections are the links of one part to the
next. This allows a child to see how parts are sequenced.
This process is important when it is necessary to keep
information in its correct order. For instance, Children who are good
successive processors are usually able to follow verbal instructions
well. Successive processing involves remembering information in order as
well as the formation of sounds and movements in order. For this reason,
Successive processing is highly involved with blending of sounds to form
words as well as the syntax of language.
·
Poor word decoding skills
·
Failure to comprehend syntax structure
·
Failure to pronounce words and sequence word segments accurately
·
Difficulty in following steps, or omitting steps needed to solve
problems
·
Lack of comprehension of the sequence of events in a story
·
Teach the child to organize things in steps as a strategy for
completing tasks
·
Say and write alphabet letters or numbers in order
·
Memorize poems, songs or lines in a play (make it fun)
·
Arrange items or repeat events from a story or occasion in order
·
Follow specific, ordinal instructions
·
Write out steps of an everyday activity
As a general rule
most students adopt misconceptions which can hinder school progress.
Some of these misconceptions and recommended corrections include:
|
Incorrect |
Correct |
|
Mistakes
are a sign of weakness. |
Mistakes
help students learn. |
|
Speed is
what counts. Faster
is smarter. |
You are not
expected to understand everything the first time around.
Care, quality, and perseverance are what count.
Slow down and learn. |
|
Good
students can learn it by themselves without help. |
Good
students get help and lots of feedback on their work. |
|
The
intelligence we are born with is mostly what determines our
success. |
Consistent
effort and good strategies are mostly what determine success. |
|
Only the
few who are bright can achieve at a high level. |
Everyone is
capable of high achievement.
Effort creates ability.
|
Positive Behavior Reinforcement:
Visual learning is
a proven teaching method in which ideas, concepts, data and other
information are associated with images and represented graphically.
Graphic organizers, such as webs, concept maps and idea maps, and plots,
such as stack plots and Venn plots, are some of the techniques used in
visual learning to enhance conceptualization and learning skills.
√ Likes to read
Ask for written
instructions
√ Doodles
Use graphic
organizers
√ Remembers from
seeing
Use video tapes
√ Has a hard time
listening
Take notes
√ Likes to observe
Form mind
pictures while studying
√ Notices details
Color code
information
Creating graphic organizers
- Students create graphic organizers such as diagrams, webs and concept
maps by selecting symbols to represent ideas and information. To show
the relationships between ideas, students link the symbols and add words
to clarify meaning.
By representing
information spatially and with images, students are able to focus on
meaning, reorganize and group similar ideas easily, and make better use
of their visual memory.
Auditory
Learning
Auditory learning
is a style of learning in which a person learns most effectively by
listening to information delivered orally, in lectures, speeches, and
oral sessions. Auditory learners make up about 30% of the population.
Studies indicate that when an auditory/verbal (i.e. listening to
information delivered orally) learners read, it is almost impossible for
the learner to comprehend anything without sound in the background. In
these situations, listening to music while learning is beneficial.
Auditory Learning
Characteristics
Accommodations for Auditory Style
√ Enjoys talking
Ask to take oral
exams
√ Remembers from
hearing
Request oral
directions
√ Easily distracted
Talk to yourself
√ Likes to listen
not read
Tape record
instructions/lecture
√ Enjoys music
Play music while
studying
√ Talks to self
while studying
Read aloud
Kinesthetic Learning
Kinesthetic
learning is a teaching and learning style in which learning takes place
by the student actually carrying out a physical activity, rather than
listening to a lecture or merely watching a demonstration.
It's about learning through doing and students with this
predominant learning style are natural discovery learning who have
realizations through doing, as opposed to having thought first before
initiating action.
Kinesthetic
learners may be restless or hyperactive when feeling under stimulated in
educational setting reliant on visual or verbal learning styles.
Without movement they may struggle to maintain attention and so
may be more susceptible to diagnoses such as ADD or ADHD.
√
Enjoys projects/activities/sports
Request teachers
who use group activities
√
Has a hard time sitting still
Request
classes/jobs
that let you move
√
Likes to move around
Take frequent
breaks
while studying
√
Uses hands while talking
Take notes when
listening
√
Would rather do than read
Request a
demonstration of tasks
√
Talks to self while studying
Tape record class
lecture
Memory is the biological process whereby information is coded and retrieved. It is essentially what drives our personality. It gives us a reference point for the past and a gauge for the future. Contrary to our collective notion of a personal “memory bank” or storage unit reserved for this purpose, memory, unlike our heart or lungs, is not a singular place or thing. Rather, it is a collection of complex electrochemical responses activated through multiple sensory channels and stored in unique and elaborate neuronal networks throughout the brain and body. Dynamic in nature, memory is continually changing and evolving as new information is added to it.
- Insignificance – the most common cause of forgetfulness. “We remember things that interest us” (S. Freud). If the student does not deem the information meaningful, it will not be stored in long-term memory.
- Interference – an untimely interruption of competing stimuli during the memory processing stage. When interference occurs an attempt at memory retrieval will likely be unsuccessful.
- Deterioration – the “use it or lose it” theory – suggests that the engram or neural connection that occurs the moment an event is recorded in the mind may deteriorate with time if not “exercised.” Exercising memory traces involve reviewing, recalling, visualizing, and practicing.
- Stress – Memory performance peaks with moderate stress and declines when the stress is excessive or chronic. A critical aspect of remembering something is attention and focus, when one is stressed focusing can be difficult resulting in poor encoding.
Information that is personally meaningful to you or emotionally laden will be easier to remember than information that is inconsequential or insignificant. For this reason, a sentence is easier to remember than a series of unrelated words and sensory rich information will be remembered better than information based on only one sense. Some basic memory principles are:
- Personal Relevance - Make information personally meaningful.
- Concentration – Be clearly focused on the information you want to remember.
- Multi-Sensory Perception – Visualize it; talk about it; manipulate it; and/or associate a feeling with it.
- State Dependence – Recall is easier when you are in the same mental state as when you learned it.
- Mnemonics – Use memory strategies to encode information and aide in retrieval.
- Mood or Attitude – Be in a conducive state of mind for learning – low to moderate stress; relaxed; confident; and a “can do this” attitude.
- Mental Organization – Recognize your processing strengths/preferences.
School Success Strategies for Optimal Memory Encoding
- Keep your cool – Use positive self talk. Trust your ability to master a new subject. If you become overwhelmed do something physically active; take a break; and/or change the pace.
- Learning takes energy – Plenty of uninterrupted sleep (6 – 8 hours) will help you stay alert during class and study time. Limit consumption of caffeine – the ideal state for learning is alert not hyper. A better alternative is physical exercise, which will increase blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, thus increasing alertness.
- Goal seekers are high performers – Know what you want to learn and why. You may consider developing a plan of attack. Write down you learning goal for the week, day, and/or study session. Consider what you have to learn and what you want to learn and see if these overlap.
- Get Proactive – Use your learning strengths and develop multi-sensory ways of learning.
- Feed your memory well – Maintaining a healthful diet will supply your brain the vital nutrients it needs to function. Eat plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
- Get engaged – Active engagement with the material ensures deeper understanding and relating. Look for the big picture. Seek and find out how this information is relevant to you. Ask questions in class. Discuss what you learn with others, to reinforce the newly learned material.
For more information on these recommendations, contact Dr. Jerry Turner at DrJerryTurner@gmail.com