Our Approach

What do we teach?

We provide intervention in the following:

• language and literacy (all levels)

• mathematics (preschool and primary school levels)

• humanities subjects including geography, history, social studies and literature (secondary school level).

Whom do we teach?

We only accept clients who have been diagnosed by a qualified professional to have a developmental and/or learning disability. If there is no formal diagnosis, a learning difficulty must be apparent. Our strict intake policy is to ensure that our limited resources is reserved for those who truly need specialised help.

What is the developmental approach in educational therapy?

Effective teaching and learning takes place only when the therapist takes into account the child's developmental level. It is futile to skip any level and push the child through solely to meet curricular demands. To do so is akin to building a house of cards - it is bound to collapse at the slightest stress. The child needs to be supported to master whichever level s/he might be at before progressing to the next level. In practice, it would mean that the therapist employs dynamic assessment (DA) to understand the child's current learning needs through the process of pre- and post-testing. This ensures that the child does not waste time being taught things that s/he may have already mastered while also not being taught concepts beyond his/her zone of proximal development (ZPD) which will only serve to frustrate the learner. For example, if a child is unable to read short consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, s/he should not be pushed to attempt longer words. However, s/he may still be shown how those longer words may be broken down for decoding during guided reading to inspire him/her to the next level.

Why teach strategies?

Children with learning disabilities may possess strategies for learning but their strategies may be maladaptive or not systematically applied. For instance, a child who has learnt that sheer memorisation of solutions worked for low level math problems may persist in the use of rote memory when learning to solve more complex math problems only to fail. Strategies for thinking, otherwise known as cognitive strategies, are hence taught to guide students through tasks. What results is an independent learner who is more aware of task requirements and his/her cognitive processes.

How is educational therapy different from tuition?

Educational therapy addresses a wider range of concerns than typical tutoring. It considers the child's current functioning in various areas including the child's attentional control, memory, language, spatial and sequential thinking, higher order thinking, social thinking and motor skills (Levine, 2002) and how they impact learning and performance. Intervention is then tailored to leverage on the child's strengths as well as to circumvent his/her weaknesses even while working on them. In short, educational therapy does not just focus on the 'what' but the 'hows' of learning. In addition, an educational therapist often works collaboratively with the child's teachers and other allied professionals involved to achieve and improve learning outcomes. Educational therapy is often sought for individuals with various learning and developmental disabilities including, but not limited to, dyslexia, autism, auditory processing disorder, dyspraxia and language disorders.

What is case management?

An Educational Therapist provides case management where needed, by coordinating among the child's parents, teachers and other allied professionals involved. By coordinating, resources are optimised and skills taught in therapeutic settings are more likely to be generalised across contexts. Parents are also aided to understand their child's learning and behavioural needs and to provide the necessary home follow-up between sessions.

Why is home follow-up important?

The old adage that "practice makes perfect" has its neurological basis. It has been found that practice alters the neurons in the part of the brain that is specific to the skill so that the skill may be performed more fluently with less conscious effort needed (Hill & Schneider, 2006; Pujol et al., 2006). Strategies taught in class ought to be practised repeatedly for the child to internalise them and therefore be able to independently execute them subsequently.

References

Hill, N. M., & Schneider, W. (2006). Brain changes in the development of expertise: Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological evidence about skill-based adaptation. In K.A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 653-682). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Pujol, J., Soriano-Mas, C., Ortiz, H., Sebastian-Galles, N., Losilla, J. M., & Deus, J. (2006). Myelination of language-related areas in the developing brain. Neurology, 66(3), 339-343.