The students to whom we provide services often have academic barriers that prevent them from succeeding despite their best intentions. These barriers may include learning, attentional, emotional or behavioral barriers. We help students overcome or at least manage these barriers by customizing their instructional program, delivering this program in an environment in which they can succeed and accommodating their barriers to reduce the barriers’ impairing effects.
Here are some of the students’ barriers that we are equipped to deal with:
Learning Barriers
Reading Delays
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- phonemic, or sound, awareness
- auditory processing
- auditory memory
- phonics
- sight word recognition
- word analysis
- reading fluency
- rapid naming and word retrieval
- visual processing
- visual function
- language processing
- vocabulary
- reading comprehension
Spelling Delays
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- phonemic awareness
- phonics
- visual recall of word spellings
- working memory
- knowledge of spelling patterns, including common deviations, syllable patterns, prefixes, suffixes and word endings
Handwriting Delays
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- maintaining stable posture
- hand dominance
- pencil grip and pressure
- letter size, alignment and formation
- word spacing
- fluency
- other fine motor functions
Written Expression Delays
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- handwriting
- spelling
- writing mechanics (capitalization and punctuation)
- phrasing and sentence construction
- topic and thematic development
- language delays
- reading delays (as related to writing book reports, research reports and literary essays)
- memory
Math Delays
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- math concepts
- math facts
- computational sequences
- mathematical reasoning
- handwriting
- visual-spatial reasoning
- fluency
- memory
- other visual processing functions
Time Management, Organizational and Study Skill Weaknesses
which may involve difficulties in these areas:
- working memory
- self-awareness
- task analysis
- temporal-sequential reasoning
- awareness of the passage of time
- problem-solving
- attentional control
- self-monitoring
- basic reading, writing and math skills
- other executive functions
Attentional Barriers
which may involve difficulties in:
- focusing and sustaining attention
- blocking distractions
- controlling impulses
- completing tasks
- attending to details
- organizing materials
- sitting still
- working at steady and consistent speeds
- monitoring one’s behavior and performance
- thinking strategically
- remembering
- organizing oneself in time and space
Emotional and/or Behavioral Barriers
which may manifest themselves by:
- unusually strong and extended states of sadness, anger, anxiety, excitement and/or moodiness
- perfectionist behavior
- rigidity or inflexibility
- noncompliance
- obsessive thinking
- compulsive behaviors
- chronic school tardiness
- excessive school absences
- lack of motivation