Educational Therapy
What is Educational Therapy?
Educational Therapy offers children and adults with learning differences a wide range of intense, individualized interventions designed to remediate learning challenges and build resilience.
Educational Therapy demystifies learning differences and stimulates clients’ awareness of their strengths so they can use those strengths to their best advantage to overcome or compensate for areas of weakness.
Educational Therapists create and implement a treatment plan that utilizes information from a variety of sources including the client’s social, emotional, psychoeducational, and neuropsychological profiles.
What skills does Educational Therapy address?
ACADEMIC
reading
spelling
writing
math
critical thinking
study skills
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING
planning and prioritizing
organization
time management
self-monitoring
flexible thinking
focus/attention
task initiation
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL
self-awareness
self-management
responsible decision-making
relationship skills
social awareness
What's the difference between an educational therapist and a tutor?
A tutor usually helps the student with one subject or multiple subjects. Tutoring focuses on subject matter, and the goal is to improve the student’s grades.
An educational therapist takes a more holistic approach, with the goals of both improving a student’s academic performance and helping the student reach psycho-educational and social-emotional goals.
While tutoring focuses on "what", educational therapy focuses on "how". Some of the hows include:
understanding one's unique learning profile (both strengths and challenges)
developing certain learning and social-emotional strategies
fostering a growth mindset
building communication and self-advocacy skills
To support students across academic, psycho-educational, and social-emotional goals, educational therapists have extensive training in learning disabilities as well as understanding of the psychology of learning disorders, assessment, and intervention strategies that address the social and emotional aspects that impact learning.
Educational Therapy for Children and Adolescents
Indicators that your child or adolescent would benefit from educational therapy:
Difficulty maintaining concentration, remembering, and/or paying attention
Loss of self-esteem regarding school performance
Resistance going to school or participating in normal childhood activities
Lack of progress at school and questions about ability to learn or to benefit from school
Extreme amount of time and parent support to get homework tasks done
Struggles with homework and school assignments that increase as schoolwork becomes harder
Discouragement and withdrawal
Educational Therapy For Adults
Indicators for adults who would benefit from educational therapy:
The adult is experiencing difficulty with learning expected tasks in college or the workplace
The adult has difficulty organizing tasks and managing time efficiently
The adult notes a need for complicated compensatory strategies to camouflage difficulties with reading and writing in the workplace
