Attention Deficit Disorder has become a real buzz-word in the last several years. While only four to five percent of the school-age population actually have attention deficit disorders,

current articles are identifying up to 20 percent of school-age children having problems in school related to attention.

What an alarming thought for both the children and the teachers who have to manage the classroom!

"Josie" was twelve when she came to the Learning Center for an evaluation. She was obviously very bright and articulate but was failing in school because of serious attention focus problems.

Josie's attention deficit was being treated with medication. As a result, her body was generally in control, in fact, she complained of being sleepy.

Josie's mind, however, was anything but sleepy!

Her mind jumped from thought to thought so rapidly that she could not pay attention to one thing for more than two to five seconds. She constantly interrupted herself in the middle of a sentence with totally unrelated topics.

Josie was so aware of everything around her that she felt bombarded all of the time. Her world was very insecure and she had many, many fears. She simply could not evaluate the stimuli coming in fast enough to know what it was and that it was safe.

Josie worked at the Learning Center for approximately six months. At first, she was very disruptive to other students, wanting to know what everyone else was doing.

Within four weeks, Josie was no longer a disruption in the learning center. She was able to go straight to her work station without disturbing others. She was able to sit and complete a task. She learned to use Edu-K (Educational Kinesiology) activities to control her own attention focus and get herself ready to work both at the center and at home.

There are many reasons for children to be off-task in their learning behavior. If inattention is perpetual and is affecting the child's life and/or learning, it is out of his control.

At the Learning Center, we have found that consistent attention focus training can be very effective with children and adults in developing internal awareness and control over their attention.

Andy (not his real name) was an eighth grader who couldn't read. Despite special education services provided by the school and private tutoring, Andy continued to struggle along. He had only a second grade sight vocabulary, and virtually no ability to sound out words.

When Andy came in for testing, he presented himself as a bright, motivated, and polite young man. He said he had always wanted to be a doctor, but now he guessed that just wasn't possible for him.

(Why is it that there are so many young people like Andy who are having to give up their dreams because they can't read? )

Research tells us that up to 30% of the population (or 9 students out of every class of 30 ) can't process, or think about, the sounds inside of words. It is this process (called auditory conceptualization) that makes phonics and spelling make sense.

(This inability to process the sounds inside words is what can make teaching the currently popular phonics program so frustrating. Phonics programs will make sense only after people can process those sounds.)

An auditory conceptual judgment deficit almost always keeps a person from being an efficient reader and speller, and usually causes individuals to be "disabled readers" in spite of the best efforts of parents and teachers.

Often, these students are simply taught to recognize "survival words." It is a tragedy to make kids settle for less than they can actually do.

It doesn't have to be this way! Learning disabled readers, like Andy, or individuals who are just simply working too hard to read, can develop auditory judgment.

They can learn to be comfortable, independent readers.

Overcoming Reading Failure and Attention Focus Challenges is Possible!

Stowell Learning Center is a diagnostic teaching center for learning and attention disorders. We know that children and adults with average or above average intellectual ability can and should become efficient learners.

Learning disabilities, Dyslexia, and attention focus problems are not diseases. They are differences in thinking or processing information that can be changed - permanently!

To teach these students successfully, instruction must combine the development of underlying thinking processes (teaching efficient ways to think about and remember information) with the remediation of basic skills.

The very same techniques that worked to help Josie and Andy and hundreds of other students make phenomenal progress, can also be applied to classrooms everywhere.