We want the
process to be transparent to everyone.
Students, parents and educators are
invited to share their thoughts and ask
questions along the way.
Parents
observations are very helpful.
Parents are encouraged to observe
the entire process either in the room or
by way of an observation window.
What
do we have to celebrate?
+ So
the name is a little strange. We
call ourselves Celebrating Minds because
we emphasize abilities and value
learning differences. We strive to
celebrate the unique contributions each
student brings to the learning
experience.
+ It
appears we became overly enamored with
the potential of mass production.
Our public schools were designed to
efficiently teach the masses and we
missed the mark. Separating
students by ability and "disability" is
not efficient.
+
Imagine Albert Einstein in a classroom
testing students to demonstrate that
students have "learned." He would
have been a big disappointment to the
school. I am not sure he would be
considered to have a "disability"
because his way of learning was not
conventional.
+ Our
educational system would be more
efficient if we had smaller class sizes
and taught the classes to reach those
struggling with dyslexia, expressive and
receptive language problems, social
cognition problems, etc. Imagine a
teacher taking time with the class to
break down the social exchanges
occurring in and out of class time
simply enough to be understood by every
member of the class. Who looses?
What
do I say when my child is called ADD or
ADHD?
First of all, let's try dropping the
last D which stands for Disorder.
This kind of labeling is not helpful for
anyone. If your student is having
trouble paying attention, it could be
associated with a number of
neurodevelopmental function problems.
For instance if he/she is not following
instructions well, there might be a
problem with hearing,
processing auditory information,
receiving language information,
poor sleep patterns, and/or have a
limited
active working memory.
We believe in doing as much
assessment as needed for each student.
Often,
psychoeducational assessments are
tedious and present an emotional
hardship on the student and a financial
hardship on the parents. We start
the process with an hour long meeting.
The agenda of the meeting is to
collaborate with students and parents in
an exploration of the unique functions
and abilities of the student. This
meeting is almost always covered by your
health insurance. If you are
uninsured, we provide a discounted fee
for this meeting.
Once a plan is in
place, there may be no formal
exploration of neurodevelopmental
functions or there may be very extensive
and yes expensive assessment. We
often provide one of the examinations
listed in our
services. Additionally, we may
have the student respond to more
standardized assessment products such as
the
WISC-IV,
WIAT-II,
WRAML,
TOWRE,
LAC3,
WRAT, and many more only in order to
look more closely at particular
functions. We do not believe it is
good for students to be tested until
they drop. We want them to feel
included in this process, so we often
stop the testing and inquire about
strategies they are using, take an
interest along with them when they are
doing particularly well or they hit a
wall.
We also like to use this process to
learn about the students and parents
experiences. Parents are
encouraged to watch the assessment
process through our viewing room.
We also provide a video tape of the All
Kinds of Minds examinations. We
are unable to tape the standardized
batteries, since the material is
proprietary.
We do
not want parents and students to be
mystified
+
Parents are invited to observe
the assessment from start to finish
We value our parents abilities too!
So often, when a parent is able to
observe the assessment process, they are
able to contribute to our understanding
of the profile. They also are
better able to understand exactly how
their son's or daughter's brains are
"wired" for learning.
+
We want the plan to make sense
to everyone
Parents, students and educators are
important sources of information in
gathering the best fit understanding of
the student's neurodevelopmental
functions. Once we have a
consensus about the strengths and
problems, we discuss an action plan
about how to make the most of everyone's
abilities. If the educators and
students are not able to participate in
the development of the plan, they are
much less likely to get on board.
+
Then we want to follow along to
learn with the team about what works and
what does not work.
No plan is perfect and no collaboration
perfectly includes everyone's best
understanding of the students learning
process. We are available to
follow the process over time and to
negotiate changes in the plan over time.
Copyright 2005 Celebrating Minds, Incorporated
Copyright ⓒ [Year] [Your Company Name LTD]. All
rights reserved
