Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Our speaker today was Natalie Frazier, from Trinity Counseling Center. She has worked in special education, and had been performing psychometric testing for the Madison County Schools. She is currently working on her PHD in School Psychology and for her Licensed Counselor Certification. She has a daughter in high school and a ADHD son in college. She gave us practical suggestions for helping children get organized with homework and other ADD issues.
We got a treat of M & M�s to help us remember her topic MONITORING AND MOTIVATION. Natalie gave us a handout of forms to use to help our LD kids organize and focus.
Natalie told us the foundation for learning is selective attention. Our goal is to help our kids learn to attend to a task. She talked about the scaffold approach. Moving from lots of support up the scaffold to little support, we do things to help our kids as they master concepts.
Selective attention- helping them to focus
Organize. Remember we can�t change behavior overnight. Give positive feedback-no yelling!
There are six factors of motivating:
1. The first step is setting goals.
2. Get your child to consider internal blocks that keep them for reaching their goals. One approach to helping them attend to their task is to say the instruction, give them a list, and then as them what they heard you say.
3. Ask your child what external blocks keep them for accomplishing a task, such as friends, activities. Help them come up with things that trigger their lack of attention.
4. Come up with way to overcome those triggers.
5. They need people�a support system, of parents and peers to help them meet their goals.
6. Realizing the fruits of their effort. What changes in their life if they meet their goal?
Natalie talked about using encouraging words with kids. She told us about a Division of Learning Disability website with information on visualization techniques, ways to associate things being learned, graphic organizers and ways to work on memory.
Natalie talked about S.O.S, Structured, Organized, Strategies. She told us we need to cue, prompt and shape behavior.
Make sure to let the kids move after 20 minutes. A good book Natalie recommends is Brain Based Learning.
Natalie encouraged us to be consistent in whatever we use to help our kids. Consistency has to come from home since the outside work is so inconsistent.
Natalie is willing to put together a Study Skills class of 8-10 kids, $125 charge per student for six weeks. If you are interested, contact Natalie at Trinity Counseling Center 883-3231. She also has a social skills group.
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