The AAP's guidelines recognize that ADHD "is the most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood and can profoundly affect the academic achievement, well-being, and social interactions of children." AAP 

AAP has issued key action statements:

Educational therapists look as the space between emotions and learning. Emotions can act as obstacles to learning and educational therapists are empathically attuned to that space where learners, despite their best intentions, get stuck.

Educational therapists dig deeper.  We don't just look at the subject the learner is struggling with.  We look at the learner!  All children enter school with excitement and the joyful anticipation of learning to read but a learning disability can squelch that joy.  Ed.

Many childhood disorders have associated conditions that we need to be on the lookout for.  Children's neuro-psychological profiles can change during the course of childhood and diagnoses made during the early years may either not hold up in later years or be joined by new diagnoses.  Comorbidity is when diagnoses overlap or co-exist.  For example, ADD/ADHD very often exists along side other disorders, such as dyslexia or PDD-NOS and other spectrum disorders.  Or, ADHD and Anxiety Disorder frequently occur in the same individual.  Unfortunately, comorbidity

Educational therapy is quite familiar to educators and parents on the West Coast. Even the new TV drama, "Parenthood" has a child receiving educational therapy. However, educational therapy continues to be a novel approach to folks on the East Coast.

Learners can frustrate their parents and teachers by not achieving to their potential.  These students can give up too easily when tasks are difficult or just refuse to try.  This behavior is often driven by the child's own experiences with real failure.  Repeated failure, particularly in the case of a child with a learning disability, discourages the child and he/she starts to believe that failure is inevitable, therefore the attitude of "What's the point?"  Even when a task is well within a child's ability to accomplish, the nagging voice in his/her head repeats, "you'

Research has found as many as 75% of children with LD have difficulties with social relationships.  Why?  Social interactions are quite complex.  Some children with LD are socially rejected by their peers leading to feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem and even depression.  Because these children have limited academic achievement, poor oral language skills, nonverbal communication deficits, secondary psychological problems, or attention/memory difficulties, they are at a disadvantage when it comes

Often parents voice concerns that their child is just not achieving despite their apparent "brightness".  There may be a number of reasons for this, but very often the issue is dyslexia.  The child's school may have completed an evaluation but the results were perhaps too murky to make it clear what the problem is.  Schools are often very reluctant to use the term, dyslexia.  My role as an e

Northeastern University in Boston is a college that offers services for learning disabled students (Colleg

The path to and through college can be rough for LD students.  It becomes all the more crucial for you to become a self-regulated, independent learner.  The level of support dwindles in college, while the level of independence increases, leaving you overwhelmed with both responsibilities for coursework and opportunities for socializing.