Learning Difficulties

Educational Needs: What Your Child Should be Getting Out of Their Schooling

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

There’s little question as to how and why teachers are such important and influential figures in our children’s lives.

Not only are they imparting knowledge and skill, they are also having a huge impact on their student’s psychological and emotional development.

And the best teachers can navigate all of your child’s education needs while keeping them motivated and engaged with school life and the study materials.

A recent article in The Conversation has identified what exactly our children’s Educational Needs are, and what we need to look for to ensure they are being met.

Why You Shouldn’t Help Your Kids With Their Homework

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

If you’re like most parents of school-aged kids, you’ve probably witnessed an anxious child struggling with a challenging homework task.

The temptation to help them in some way can be very strong…

And even when the ‘help’ starts off with a gentle nudge in the right direction, it can sometimes end up with the child sleeping on the couch while you finish off the project!

It’s perfectly understandable. We want to stop children from being anxious, while helping them to succeed.

But it’s best not to help too much.

Why?

Is “Brain Training” a Sham? New Study Casts Doubts on Claims Made by Billion-Dollar Industry

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

In recent years we’ve been told that it’s possible to get smarter with the aid of various expensive high-tech brain training tools, apps and software.

Companies such as Cogmed, Lumosity and NeuroNation, have promised everything from higher IQs through to staying sharp in old age.

Claims even went so far as to suggest brain training can help with learning disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD).

What’s more the claims made by the vendors and resellers of brain training products and services were all purportedly based on scientific evidence.

Now it appears there could be serious questions about the credibility of that evidence.

What Every Teacher Should Know About The Psychological Assessment of Children’s Learning Ability

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our psychologists have completed more than 500 learning assessments on children and adolescents in the last few years.

Here are 23 of the things we have learned.

Child Learning Difficulties: New Study Shows Why Early Action is Vital to Prevent Children Falling Into Long Term ‘Learning Gap’

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics, early action is vital to help prevent students with learning difficulties from falling into a long term ‘learning gap’.

The study found that first grade children with dyslexia (reading difficulties) have significantly lower reading scores and verbal IQs compared with their peers, and these differences persist into adolescence.

The authors recommend that “reading interventions must be implemented early, when children are still developing the basic foundation for reading acquisition.”

What Every Parent Should Know About Learning Assessment

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our psychologists have completed 714 learning assessments for children and adolescents in the last several years. Here are 24 of the main lessons we have learned.

Preparing To Use A Scribe For Exams

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

For students who really struggle with putting thoughts to paper, one of the things we usually recommend for VCE and university exams is the use of a scribe.

There are many reasons why a scribe is particularly helpful for some students. For students with specific learning disorder in the area of Reading (dyslexia) and/or written expression (dysgraphia) writing is a burden and causes anxiety.

Similarly, there are many students who experience slow processing speed (skills in the speed of mental problem solving, attention and hand-eye coordination). Generally, these students have difficulties completing work within expected time limits and they write very slowly.

Slow processing speed is a part of many clinical presentations (including specific learning disorder, AD/HD, and autism spectrum disorders), but it also affects people who do not have any diagnosable disorder.

Doing Too Much At Once – How To Study More Efficiently And Effectively

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

“Women are so much better at multi-tasking than men” is a commonly heard boast.

With our busy schedules, fast-paced lives and many commitments, the ability to multi-task has long been something to aspire to, something that is supposed to give us more time, make us more efficient, and perhaps even make us more desirable as employees.

However, the research in this area suggests that we may, in fact, be less efficient if we try to do more than one thing at a time. We might get everything finished quicker so we can get more time on the couch but may be also be more likely to make a mistake, forget a step, or end up with a less-than-perfect result.

Well, before you stop trying to brush your hair while you are waiting for the toast to pop up and decide to stand there staring blankly at the wall like a nincompoop, there are a number of factors involved.

So let me help you make the decision about whether or not to multi-task…

Do Coloured Irlen Lenses Really Improve Dyslexia and Reading?

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Parents who have watched their child struggle through reading, battling tears and tantrums at homework time are good targets for the promise of an all too easy cure with coloured lenses.

Marketers also know that this is the generation of parents who grew up listening to U2! (Bono is known for his use of coloured or dark lenses which reportedly ease visual sensitivities).

For the encore of a U2 concert I attended in 2006, Bono said that his father used to tell him to “take off those [stupid] glasses!”.

He then looked to the sky, removed his glasses, and the crowd roared.

However, in reviewing the evidence for the efficacy of coloured lenses for dyslexia, I think that Bono’s dad might have had a point…

Texting and Spelling

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Does Texting make Children’s Spelling and Reading Worse?

Despite popular theory that the use of ‘textese’ (e.g., ‘gr8’ for ‘great’ or ‘2nite’ for ‘tonight’) is creating a generation of poor spellers, recent research evidence actually suggests that texting can actually improve children’s spelling and reading skills.

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