This symposium is a one-day event that will bring leading experts in the field of learning differences. The keynote speakers are internationally recognized speakers in the areas of learning differences from different backgrounds of medical, education, psychology.

Dr Steve Chinn was Founder and Principal of Mark College, a specialist school for dyslexic learners, which is recognised as a Beacon school. Dr Chinn has served on the councils of the British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Institute and has more than thirty five years of teaching experience. He is an internationally regarded expert trainer and lecturer in the area of Dyslexia, Mathematics and Dyscalculia and is the author of several publications, including the highly acclaimed The Trouble with Mathematics. Steve set up the first Post Graduate Course for maths and dyslexia which was accredited by the British Dyslexia Association for Associate Membership (Numeracy) status.

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D, Associate Clinical Professor, is a teacher and learning disabilities specialist in the Division of Adolescent Medicine. She provides referrals and consultation for case management of adolescents with learning problems. She has worked as a classroom teacher and special education teacher for San Francisco Unified School District; she was the pilot teacher for the special day class for gifted students with specific learning disabilities (dyslexia) in the Department of Special Education- SFUSD.

Lalitha Ramanujan (M.Phil), Director, Alpha to Omega Learning Centre and a Founder Trustee Sri Krishna Trust. She is a trainer and therapist in specific learning difficulties, for more than two decades. As a Certified Trainer for Strategies Intervention Model Kansas University and Instrumental Enrichment Programme; she conducts workshops and courses for teachers and parents. As a Director she is involved in training and management of the Centre. She has received awards for her contribution to the field, from the Rotary clubs and other social organizations. The Alpha to Omega Learning Centre was founded in 1988. Its core activities are remedial intervention on a one tone basis, full day school and training tutors.

Dr Constace Smith-Hicks received her MD and PhD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She completed her internship and residency in Pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and her residency in Pediatric Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr Smith-Hicks also completed a Research Fellowship at Hopkins in the laboratory of Dr Paul Worley where she studied the role of the Immediate Early Gene Arc in the formation of neural networks that are involved in learning and memory. She is now a faculty member of the Department of Neurology, John Hopkins, USA.

Where? Rashid Library Auditorium, Dubai UAE.
When? Saturday 25th Sep, 2010

Fees (AED):
Early Birds- before September 15th, 2010:

Students: AED 400

Teachers: AED 550

Individual: AED 650

After September 15th, 2010:

Late registration surcharge:AED 200

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Join us for this informative workshop to answer your questions about Dyslexia. Come with your questions.

Together we’ll explore:

What dyslexia is and what it is NOT?

From scientific models and research to
common myths and misunderstandings

Why it occurs and how to recognize it?

Causes and Symptoms of Dyslexia

Who are the 2-D Learners and 3-D Learners?

Various profiles for children with learning differences

What to do about it?
How to assess that?
How to provide help?
Evidence based Multisensory intervention theories and approaches

Speaker Profile
Rudolf Stöckling,
Educational Psychologist, MSc (Psych); Dip.Ed; B.A.
Member Australian Psychological Society

Praveen A.V
Reading Specialist, Remedial Tutor
M.A, B.A, Dip. Sped

Event Details
Date: June 23rd , 2010
Timing: 18.00 – 21.00
Location: Tulip Inn Hotel, Dubai Knowledge Village, Khaled 2 Meeting Room

Entry is FREE

but Registration is necessary either via e-mail or SMS.
Please RSVP to:
050-7954428

info@lexiconreadingcenter.org

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• Why are Social skills important?
• What are the subtypes of skills?
• How do we recognise them?
• How do we teach them?
• Experiential activities

Do any of these comments sound familiar?
“I tell him to stop doing that, but he keeps on doing it. Damn. This kid must have been raised by wolves!”

“That kid knows how she is supposed to behave. She CHOOSES to misbehave.”

“I ask him what he is supposed to be doing and he can tell me. He knows better, so why isn’t he doing it?”

Some kids know (intellectually) what to do, but they’ve never (physically) done it before. It’s difficult for all of us to all-of-the-sudden display a completely different behavior than we’ve been showing for years.

Why Are Social Skills Important?
Social skills are those communication, problem-solving, decision making, self-management, and peer relations abilities that allow one to initiate and maintain positive social relationships with others. Deficits or excesses in social behavior interfere with learning, teaching, and the classroom’s orchestration and climate. Social competence is linked to peer acceptance, teacher acceptance, inclusion success and post school success.

What Social Skills Will we be looking at?

“Manners” & positive interaction with others
-approaching others in social acceptable ways
-how to asking for permission rather than acting impulsively
-how to make and keep friends
-sharing toys/materials

Appropriate classroom behavior
-work habits/academic survival skills
-listening
-attending to task
-following directions
-seeking attention properly
-accepting the consequences of one’s behaviour

Better ways to handle frustration/anger
-counting to 10 before reacting
-distracting oneself to a pleasurable task
-learning an internal dialog to cool oneself down and reflect upon the best course of action

Acceptable ways to resolve conflict with others
-using words instead of physical contact
-seeking the assistance of the teacher or conflict resolution team

Speaker Profile
Mr. Rudolf Stöckling,
Educational Psychologist, MSc (Psych); Dip.Ed; B.A.
Member Australian Psychological Society

Event Details
Date: April 14th, 2010
Timing: 18.00 – 21.00
Location: Tulip Inn Hotel, Dubai Knowledge Village, Khaled 2 Meeting Room

Entry is FREE but Registration is necessary either via e-mail or SMS.

Please RSVP to:
050-7954428
info@lexiconreadingcenter.org

Growing up in Switzerland, almost too long ago to remember, I still can feel the effect on me of two very distinct teachers: Herr Lehrer Steiger in my primary school and Professor Stickelberger in the Gymnasium.
The memory of my primary school teacher smells of the plants growing in the classroom, plants whose seeds we had collected ourselves and whose growth we had observed day by day. I can also feel the excitement of climbing over the remnants of the medieval wall of our small town, listening to his description of battles of long ago.

Well, I turned out to be one of the ones who didn’t belong to Professor Stickelberger’s world because I left school shortly after and returned to academia only many years, and many adventures in the “real world”, later. By this time, the enthusiasm for learning and discovery I had caught in primary school had long given place to a daily feeling of boredom and even dread at school.

I had what nowadays is described as “ADHD of the hyperactive type”.  If I had known that I was of a certain “type” may have helped me at a time when I had absolutely no clue why simple things, like sitting still and listening to teachers six hours every day, were so difficult for me. Although I learned to cope with my particular way of learning and tackling life, it was at a great cost to my family and me.

What I really needed at the time was an understanding of my unique learning profile, the positive side of belonging to the “why” generation as well as ways of training myself to increase the time I could concentrate on listening to teachers. If only somebody would have told me how to focus on the parts of their lectures that appealed to my questioning mind, how to satisfy my need for excitement in a positive manner and other “tricks” I had to learn so painfully on my own.

Naturally, a better fit between my learning strengths and the teaching environment, as had happened in my primary school years, would have made a huge difference.

This anecdote out of my personal life hopefully helps to illustrate some of the issues I am trying to disentangle in this article: How the concepts of learning disability and learning differences affect individual children, their parents and their schools.

Common Interchangeable Use of Terms
Let’s begin with the way the terms are often used. Many people use “Learning Difference” in preference to “Learning Disability” because it sounds “nicer” but really means the same thing: A description of someone who is not coping at school. This interchangeable use of the two terms is unfortunately often necessary in the interest of children who do have problems at school. This is the case when schools have a rigid concept of what “normal” children look like (usually the ones who are thriving in their particular leaning environment) with an equally rigid concept of what “not normal” children look like (usually the ones who are not coping in their particular learning environment.  The concept of “Learning Disability” is based on the idea that there is a deficit in the learner that needs remediation.

Denotes Different Philosophical Outlook
The concept of “learning differences” denotes, however, a fundamental change in our attitude towards success or failure at school. In this view, it is the fit between learning environment and learner that determines the outcome of education rather than the learning characteristics of the child alone.

This does not mean that the learning characteristics of the child are unimportant, quite the contrary.  A thorough knowledge of the individual child’s learning profile, their particular strengths and weaknesses is an essential ingredient in helping a child to succeed.  The first step in supporting a child is thus a thorough assessment of a child’s learning profile.

At Lexicon Reading Center, we use an evidence based best model of assessment of a child’s strengths and weaknesses. We examine, together with information gathered form parents and schools a child’s  learning profile in eight areas that determine and individual’s learning (I will be looking at the contribution of each of these systems in future articles): Attention Control System, the Spatial Ordering System (non-verbal), the Temporal-sequential Ordering System (step-wise learning), the Memory System (Short and long term remembering), the Language System, the Neuro-motor Control System (brain body movement connection), the Social Cognition System (relating to others) and the Higher Order Cognition System (making sense of complex information).

An equally important element is on the other hand an understanding of how a child’s learning environment impacts on her ability to develop her strengths and find ways to compensate for her weaknesses.  Her we are looking at the child’s learning environments (the school and the home) and the interaction between the child and these environments.

Responsibility for change
If the reason for success lies in a good fit between the child’s learning profile and his learning environments, it follows logically that the responsibility for success is shared by all participants in the learning process. The process of improving a child’s academic success becomes collaboration between the child, the school, the home and other participants like clinicians and learning support personnel.

This is a break from the idea embedded in the term “learning disability” where the disability is within one participant in the learning process: the child. In an ideal situation, all the participants are willing to examine their contribution to a child’s success or lack of success at school and in life.  While more and more parents, teachers and schools are willing to do so, we sometimes have to settle for the best possible approximation to the ideal.  The closer the collaboration between the participants in the learning process, the better is a child’s chances for success.

Practical Implications
The first impact of this model is on a child’s self-concept and the resulting self-esteem:  Self descriptions of a child with a learning disability often include words like failure, stupid, can’t, fear, and hate. A self description of the same child when aware of his individual learning profile may include words like good at, need help with, my own way, comes easy, is a bit hard.

The change from a low self esteem to a healthy (and realistic) self appreciation is one of the most gratifying effects of this change in outlook.

The second impact is one the child’s parents and its school.  The shift here is one from an attitude of “how can we help this poor child with its limited resources” to one of “what is our responsibility in supporting this child’s strength within our learning environment.”

Example
Let’s now look at the story of a child who was diagnosed with an oppositional defiant learning disability, let’s call her Alice.
Alice was described by her Kindergarten teacher as “bright” and “inquisitive”.  This developed into “willful” and “uncooperative” in early primary to “oppositional” and “disruptive” in late primary. Her parents were becoming more and more exasperated and Alice frequently refused to go to school. Alice was suspended from school in early High School.

A thorough examination of Alice’ Learning Profile revealed a high level of general ability (higher order cognition). Alice caught on quickly to new ideas. She had particular strengths in visual spatial perception (Spatial Ordering System). Alice tended to remember things in pictures and was good at using graphs and charts etc.

Alice had a significant weakness in her graphomotor (writing) functions (neuro-motor system). She was slow at writing, her spelling was poor, her writing was disorganised and she wrote very little.  Alice also found it hard to translate her excellent understanding of concepts into a logical sequence intelligible to others (Temporal-sequential Ordering System). Her oral answers showed often a good understanding but she found it hard to explain how she reached conclusions.

Alice’ unrecognised specific strengths and weaknesses and the frustrations resulting from the discrepancy between her well developed insight and her poor output were at the core of her problems at school. Her profile and some possible strategies were explained to her, her parents and her teachers. She then learned how to compensate for her weaknesses by using her high ability and visuo-spatial strengths. She learned to apply graphic representations, mind maps, brainstorming and other strategies to show her knowledge and understanding.  She also learned to apply template like structures to her writing that helped her to improve her output. Most importantly of all her confidence in herself improved dramatically and she started enjoying school.

Her teachers a the same time realised that other students too had  similar learning styles as Alice and adapted their teaching by including more visual support and reducing the need for writing lengthy essays.
Alice was finally able to develop her great potential and became an enthusiastic and successful member of her class.

Conclusion
The most important conclusion of the shift from “disability” to “difference” is that we (parents, teachers and children) understand that everyone learns differently without the need to judge “wrong” or “right”. These means that we as parents and teachers have to strife to understand the whole child and adapt our teaching and support to fit the individual learning profile of each individual child.

By

Rudolf Stöckling

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After introducing the neuro-developmental model consisting of eight processing functions that make up a child’s learning profile in the previous talk, the present topic addresses the first element of this model: Attention.

The workshop participants will be introduced to the nature of attention and examine various strategies on how it can be developed as a study skill rather than being an obstacle to achieving academic success. The participants will look at diverse examples and engage in activities and discussions that will help in the in depth understanding of the presented information.

Workshop Goals
Participants will

• gain a deeper understanding of the construct of attention and the role it plays in the educational life of a child.
• examine various ways to support the attention of students who struggle in this area.
• consider a variety of pedagogical methods and how they affect attention.

Speaker Profile
Mr. Rudolf Stöckling,
Educational Psychologist, MSc (Psych); Dip.Ed; B.A.
Member Australian Psychological Society

Event Details
Date  January 30, 2010
Timing  18.00 – 21.00
Location  Tulip Inn Hotel, Dubai Knowledge Village, Khaled 2 Meeting Room

Entry is FREE but Registration is necessary either via e-mail or  SMS.
Please RSVP to:

Rania Anis
050-7954428
rania.anis2009@gmail.com

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To introduce parents and teachers of students who struggle with learning to a system of assessment and interventions that will measurably improve their children’s success in school and life by providing interventions that integrate

• Educational
• Scientific
• Clinical Expertise

Agenda Overview

• Eight neurodevelopmental processing functions that makeup the person learning profile.
• Indicators of strengths and weaknesses in children’s neurodevelopmental (learning) profile.
• Strategies for some of the common profiles leading to difficulties at school.
• Interactive session to discuss parents’/teachers’ concerns about their children learning.

Speaker
Mr. Rudolf Stockling, Educational Psychologist, MSc (Psych); Dip.Ed; B.A

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• Individuals with learning differences
• Parents
• Teachers
• Society represented by Peers, friends and other family members