 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(October 2010) |
| Educational therapy | |
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| ICD-9-CM | 93.82 |
Educational Therapy is a form of therapy used to treat individuals with learning differences, disabilities, and challenges. This form of therapy offers a wide range of intensive interventions that are designed to resolve learners' learning problems. These interventions are individualized and unique to the specific learner.
This type of therapy [1] helps the student strengthen his/her ability to learn. The student engages in activities that help their academics comprehension, as well as, teach them skills in processing, focusing, and memory. There is a difference between traditional tutoring and educational therapy. Traditional tutoring deals specifically with academics while educational therapy deals with both the processing of information and academics. The educational therapist uses a variety of methodologies and teaching materials to help the student build on his/her academic competency.
Processing is the way students think and learn. All students learn differently and process information in a unique manner. Information is taken in through the five senses. Some students learn better by watching (visual learning) while others learn better by hearing (auditory learning). The students who seem to do worse in the traditional school setting learn best by doing (kinesthetic learning). If these students are taught to strengthen their weakest learning systems, then learning becomes easier and more efficient.
Some students have problems focusing. Attention deficits make the student less receptive to learning. If the student is not receptive to the information being presented, the student does not learn. Traditional methods involve helping the student improve, on the other hand, educational therapists work with students and teach them how to focus and attend to what is being presented to them.
Students today are expected to hold vast amounts of information in their memory banks. Many students are weak in this area as well. Memory skills can be strengthened like any skill, which in turn affects academics in a positive manner.
Cross lateral kinesthetic exercises may be used to strengthen proprioception skills. These physical exercises are thought to strengthen cognitive skills. [2]
By addressing the processing of information, focusing issues, and memory skills, as well as academics, the educational therapist is better able to treat the underlying problem of the learning issue that is keeping the student from succeeding in the academic arena. This sometimes seems illogical to people, as they feel that the only way to fix an academic problem is to offer more academics. This rarely is a long-term solution to the problem of poor academics, since piling on more academics only fatigues and burdens an already frustrated student. Educational therapy is better equipped to deal with the problem of processing information. This in turn leads to stronger academics.
Educational therapy addresses the underlying learning skills that affect academics. These skills would include visual and auditory processing, attention, and focusing as well as memory skills. The student only receives instruction or help in the skills that he/she is weak in.
The goals of educational therapy's treatment plan include developing clients' strategic use of strengths to foster learning, develop autonomy and understand the relationship between learning and social/emotional functioning. [3]
In the 1940s, parallel development in the field took place in Europe and the United States, influenced by the work of pioneers like August Aichorn and Katrina DeHirsch, in Germany. DeHirsch wrote of the "treatment alliance" between the educational therapist and the child, while distinguishing the differences between educational therapy and psychotherapy.
In the UK in the 1960s, Irene Caspari, Principal Psychologist at the Tavistock Centre, London, became a leading trainer and exponent of a more psychoanalytic version of educational therapy, leaving money for the establishment of a 'Forum for the Advancement of Educational Therapy'. It was Caspari's belief that a child might learn more effectively when an academic learning program went hand in hand with 'expression work' which tapped into a child's deeper feelings, and that it therefore behoved the therapist to be aware of, and to work with, such feelings as well as with his/her own relationship with the child as a learner. [4]
Educational therapy has been used to treat:
Dyslexia, previously known as word blindness, is a learning disability that affects either reading or writing. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. Often these difficulties are first noticed at school. The difficulties are involuntary, and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. People with dyslexia have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental language disorders, and difficulties with numbers.
Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
Visual thinking, also called visual or spatial learning or picture thinking, is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing. Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures. It is common in approximately 60–65% of the general population. "Real picture thinkers", those who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be true "picture thinkers".
Dyscalculia is a disability resulting in difficulty learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, performing mathematical calculations, and learning facts in mathematics. It is sometimes colloquially referred to as "math dyslexia", though this analogy is misleading as they are distinct syndromes.
Developmental disorders comprise a group of psychiatric conditions originating in childhood that involve serious impairment in different areas. There are several ways of using this term. The most narrow concept is used in the category "Specific Disorders of Psychological Development" in the ICD-10. These disorders comprise developmental language disorder, learning disorders, motor disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. In broader definitions ADHD is included, and the term used is neurodevelopmental disorders. Yet others include antisocial behavior and schizophrenia that begins in childhood and continues through life. However, these two latter conditions are not as stable as the other developmental disorders, and there is not the same evidence of a shared genetic liability.
Kinesthetic learning, kinaesthetic learning, or tactile learning is learning that involves physical activity. As cited by Favre (2009), Dunn and Dunn define kinesthetic learners as students who prefer whole-body movement to process new and difficult information. However, scientific studies do not support the claim that using kinesthetic modality improves learning in students identified as kinesthetic learning as their preferred learning style.
Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder and learning disability that concerns impairments in written expression, which affects the ability to write, primarily handwriting, but also coherence. It is a specific learning disability (SLD) as well as a transcription disability, meaning that it is a writing disorder associated with impaired handwriting, orthographic coding and finger sequencing. It often overlaps with other learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders such as speech impairment, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
This is an index of education articles.
Vision therapy (VT), or behavioral optometry, is an umbrella term for alternative medicine treatments using eye exercises, based around the pseudoscientific claim that vision problems are the true underlying cause of learning difficulties, particularly in children. Vision therapy has not been shown to be effective using scientific studies, except for helping with convergence insufficiency. Most claims—for example that the therapy can address neurological, educational, and spatial difficulties—lack supporting evidence. Neither the American Academy of Pediatrics nor the American Academy of Ophthalmology support the use of vision therapy.
Visual learning is a learning style among the learning styles of Neil Fleming's VARK model in which information is presented to a learner in a visual format. Visual learners can utilize graphs, charts, maps, diagrams, and other forms of visual stimulation to effectively interpret information. The Fleming VARK model also includes Kinesthetic Learning and Auditory learning. There is no evidence that providing visual materials to students identified as having a visual style improves learning.
A reading disability is a condition in which a person displays difficulty reading. Examples of reading disabilities include: developmental dyslexia, And alexia,
The Dore Method, named after its creator, businessman Wynford Dore, is a method for improving skills such as reading and writing, attention and focus, social skills and sports performance through targeted physical exercises.
Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as developmental motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia or simply dyspraxia, is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired coordination of physical movements as a result of brain messages not being accurately transmitted to the body. Deficits in fine or gross motor skills movements interfere with activities of daily living. It is often described as disorder in skill acquisition, where the learning and execution of coordinated motor skills is substantially below that expected given the individual's chronological age. Difficulties may present as clumsiness, slowness and inaccuracy of performance of motor skills. It is also often accompanied by difficulty with organisation and/or problems with attention, working memory and time management.
Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficulty learning in a typical manner", this does not exclude the ability to learn in a different manner. Therefore, some people can be more accurately described as having a "learning difference", thus avoiding any misconception of being disabled with a possible lack of an ability to learn and possible negative stereotyping. In the United Kingdom, the term "learning disability" generally refers to an intellectual disability, while conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia are usually referred to as "learning difficulties".
Management of dyslexia depends on a multiple of variables; there is no one specific strategy or set of strategies that will work for all who have dyslexia.
The Center for Research, Evaluation and Awareness of Dyslexia is a university-based program at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, United States. It was established in 1996 to develop strategies for the prevention and remediation of reading disabilities, search for strategies that will lead to the improvement of remedial processes, provide educators and parents with current and appropriate knowledge regarding reading/learning disabilities, provide interdisciplinary evaluations of readers of all ages, promote the concerns relevant to reading disabilities and educate the general public regarding issues pertaining to reading/learning disabilities.
The term twice exceptional, often abbreviated as 2e, entered educators' lexicons in the mid-1990s and refers to gifted students who have some form of learning or developmental disability. These students are considered exceptional both because of their giftedness and because they are disabled or neurodivergent. Ronksley-Pavia (2015) presents a conceptual model of the co-occurrence of disability and giftedness.
Language-based learning disabilities or LBLD are "heterogeneous" neurological differences that can affect skills such as listening, reasoning, speaking, reading, writing, and math calculations. It is also associated with movement, coordination, and direct attention. LBLD is not usually identified until the child reaches school age. Most people with this disability find it hard to communicate, to express ideas efficiently and what they say may be ambiguous and hard to understand It is a neurological difference. It is often hereditary, and is frequently associated to specific language problems.
Dyslexia is a reading disorder wherein an individual experiences trouble with reading. Individuals with dyslexia have normal levels of intelligence but can exhibit difficulties with spelling, reading fluency, pronunciation, "sounding out" words, writing out words, and reading comprehension. The neurological nature and underlying causes of dyslexia are an active area of research. However, some experts believe that the distinction of dyslexia as a separate reading disorder and therefore recognized disability is a topic of some controversy.
Educational neuroscience is an emerging scientific field that brings together researchers in cognitive neuroscience, developmental cognitive neuroscience, educational psychology, educational technology, education theory and other related disciplines to explore the interactions between biological processes and education. Researchers in educational neuroscience investigate the neural mechanisms of reading, numerical cognition, attention and their attendant difficulties including dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD as they relate to education. Researchers in this area may link basic findings in cognitive neuroscience with educational technology to help in curriculum implementation for mathematics education and reading education. The aim of educational neuroscience is to generate basic and applied research that will provide a new transdisciplinary account of learning and teaching, which is capable of informing education. A major goal of educational neuroscience is to bridge the gap between the two fields through a direct dialogue between researchers and educators, avoiding the "middlemen of the brain-based learning industry". These middlemen have a vested commercial interest in the selling of "neuromyths" and their supposed remedies.
| Authority control databases: National |
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