While SLES staff is already very knowledgeable in these areas, we also believe that a broad-based, continuing education for all our staff is vital to providing the best service to our clients. To support this, we invite top learning and education professionals to provide staff training, and on January 9th of this year we were pleased to have with us Sharron Donnelly (MS, OTR/L), co-founder and owner of Advanced Pediatric Therapies, to help deepen our understanding of the intersecting of these issues, and to further explore potential remedies.

Sharron has her Master’s degree in occupational therapy from Washington University in St. Louis, and has extensive training in many areas related to pediatric occupational therapy and child development. She spoke at length about sensory integration and learning, took our questions during the course of over an hour, and gave an insightful presentation and clear directive as to how staff can best support students with sensory integration disorders.

We appreciate and were truly informed and inspired by Ms. Donnelly’s efforts, are poised to implement the techniques that were shared during this valuable training, and look forward to partnering with APD when our students need that extra support.

Thank you, Sharron, and APD!

NEW!  Math Assessment  An in-depth math assessment is now available that will evaluates all strands of math.  Follow up this assessment with tutoring in math to address areas of difficulty. We now have math tutoring available that provides help in the many areas that students typically struggle with.  Our focus is to develop the underlying concepts of the mathematical problems students are being asked to solve in today’s classrooms.  If a student doesn’t understand the underpinnings of the math problems they are being asked to solve they will be unable to show their work effectively.  Let us help your child in a way that forms the foundational concepts of math!

Many individuals experience problems when learning and using math facts and concepts due to difficulties in either symbol imagery, concept imagery, or both.

Symbol imagery or, Numeral Imagery, is the ability to visualize the identity and sequence of numerals and other symbols in math problems. Many students who are thought to have math-specific learning disabilities are able to perform functions, such as addition and subtraction. However,  these individuals struggle with difficulties in recognizing the written symbols. For example, “six minus one is five,” but when the math problem is written-out as “6-1=__,” they may not recognize what the ’6′ means, or that the ‘-’ is a minus sign; and, if they do recognize the meaning of the symbols, they may still struggle with their order (i.e., which number is being subtracted from which).

Concept imagery is the ability to visualize the whole of a math concept. It is the underlying skill needed for critical thinking.  A number of students who are thought to have math-specific learning disabilities are able to process the parts, but struggle to see the big picture.  Difficulties are experienced when trying to connect the overall concept to individual math problems. For example, they might be able to solve for “1+3,” but they cannot solve for “1+4,” because they do not comprehend the concept of addition – they simply memorized the math fact “1+3=4.”

Math-related weaknesses in symbol/numeral imagery, concept imagery, or both, often manifest through the following symptoms:  difficulty learning math facts, understanding math relationships, computations, solving word problems, and difficulty performing higher mathematical problems.

The On Cloud Nine® (OCN™) Math program, created by Kimberly Tuley and Nanci Bell, helps kids and adults develop the underlying sensory-cognitive functions needed for math processing. Unlike most math programs, OCN instruction directly applies concept and symbol imagery to learning and retaining math facts, solving word problems, and increasing the speed and stability of math computation. Students in the On Cloud Nine Math program move through a series of steps – from imaging numerals to solving word problems and working with fractions/decimals – to develop the imagery-language connection for competency in math.

Read through our Tutoring page to learn more about the programs we use. Call us today to schedule a math assessment!

Successful Learning Educational Services is excited to announce a brand new offering of speech and language evaluations and therapy services.  Elizabeth Grant, MA, CCC-SLP, has recently joined our staff.  Elizabeth has worked in school, hospital, and rehabilitation settings and is qualified to provide assessments and varied therapies for children and adults who have speech/language needs.

If your needs are combined with reading and writing challenges, we will provide you with a collaborative setting to assess and provide remediation using the skills sets of dyslexia and speech and language professionals in both areas.

Don’t let your child struggle in these areas any longer!  Give us a call today!

Watch for our new webpage of our speech and language services.