Learning Patterns

Well, after a "girl's weekend" in Austin, I am blogging a little later today than usual.  I have started to receive questions and comments from friends who are reading the blog and I am so grateful for their input.  I have been sharing Dr. Levine's book and now Priscilla Vail's book, because I want to lay a foundation for parents and teachers on what to look for in your child or student that may have a learning difference.  In Vail's book that we will discuss briefly this week, we learn that we all have different learning patterns.  Certain things may inhibit those patterns so that learning is compromised; but, we all have some kind of identifiable learning pattern. 
I think the information this week will be very informative for parents.  Do I know the learning pattern(s) of my child?  What did I do this morning, even last night, to help prepare my child to be available for schoolwork today?
Priscilla Vail addresses this in her book: Liberate your Child's Learning Patterns:

To be available for schoolwork, a child needs to marshal energies, focus interest, and distribute attention.  Together these make up what is call "executive function"...

...You need to assess whether your child is available for schoolwork physically, emotionally, and intellectually.  If  your child is unavailable, not matter how fascinating the teache or engaging th subject matter, learning will not take place.

Physically Available:

The physically available child can reason, remember, concentrate, listen, carry out instructions, maintain eye contact, and last but far from least, have enough energy left for humor.

How can a child be sitting in a classroom yet not be physically available?

Weary (tired) children aren't available for the active exploration of real learning. 

Hungry children who have skipped breakfast lack the fuel to sustain effort in learning.

Physical sensations of visual and auditory awareness add extra dimensions to what we know of the world, but they also can cause interruptions in availability.  Many children have trouble filtering out such externals as auditory or visual distraction, or ignoring the internal itch of daydreaming. (have we heard this somewhere before??? :) )

This next statement was very interesting to me because my son had a lot of ear infections as a baby and a daughter with severe allergies:

The child with a history of middle-ear infections may have an undetected hearing problem leading to observable but misunderstood trouble with concentration, following directions, and participating in the give and take of group discussion.  For obvious reasons, the same comments apply to children with allergies.

Emotionally Available:

...today's children are frightened by mystery or violence at home, or are bereft at the departure of a separating parent, or are confused by yo-yo-ing custody plans, or mourn the death of a family member or pet.  These children bring with them to school pangs of wistfulness and yearning that spirit away availability on the wings of sadness.

The child who has tasted school failure frequently, abandoned by lost friendship, the child with a guilty conscience, or the depressed child cannot focus on such externals as clasroom attention. **These negative experiences disrupt the availability of increasing numbers of children each succeeding year as our society changes.

Intellectually Available:

Emotion and intellect support one another. The emotional brain interprets incoming stimuli and then sends its interpretation as if you loudspeaker to the rest of the brain.  When the emotional brain notices a stimulus, the sound of a school bell for instance, it decides whether the stimulus is humdrum, or threatening, or appealing.   If a danger message is broadcast, the gears of memory and reasoning lock.  If a message of interesting excitement comes through, pathways to memory clear, new ideas burst forth, and associations blossom.

...the child who feels safe is the one who dares take intellectual risk.  Children in a classroom that offers both safety and exploration are intellectually available.  The emotional climate of the classroom is totally and directly under the control of the teacher.  It is a point of view, not a point of purchase.  The same thing is true at home.  The emotional climate of your home - and, consequently, your child's willingness to take intellectual risks - is totally and directly under your control.

Intellectual availability expands through overall intelligence, adequate language development and the use of methods and materials designed to capture children rather than to make them obedient.  ( I love this statement!)

I hope you can take away a wealth of information to help your in preparing you child, LD or not, to be prepared for learning at school and at home.  We have our child for a time...and all too soon it is over...(I will have a senior this fall)  We must make the most of the time we have by creating safe, loving environments for learning, risk taking, exploring, etc.    And, don't be quick to always blame the teacher if your child is having trouble "behaving" in the classroom.  Take a look at your child's environment & intellect that may be affecting how they perform at school.  Parents are in more control of this than they give theirselves credit.  All of this information pertains to auditory processing issues, ADD, dyslexia, and the gifted child.