How Can You Support Your Child with a Learning Disability at Home?

Consistency from school to home

Have you ever had a job where you had multiple managers or bosses with wildly different expectations and the confusion that can cause?

Many parents (who are their children’s first teachers) took on the additional role of being the sole teacher during pandemic lockdowns-- the result being more parental involvement in their children’s daily experiences at home and school than ever before.

The silver lining is that these tumultuous times have revealed what we have already known – parents and educators need to work together to build the bridge between home and school and provide consistency for children through common routines, language, and a shared approach to helping children foster key emotional, cognitive, and social skills.

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Topics Covered Today:

1. Home vs. School Differences and Strategies
2. What can you do with your child at home to support academics or behaviors?
3. Supporting students with Autism
4. Supporting students with ADHD
5. Supporting students with Dyslexia
6. Supporting students with Speech or Language concerns
7. Supporting students with Occupational Therapy or Physical Therapy concerns.
8. Homework, what it should be and how you can support

Home vs School

Kids may present themselves differently during different settings throughout the day.

• A student with Autism may thrive at school on the predictability of daily routines, but struggle at home when the structure is lessened.
• A different student with Autism my thrive at home due to the control of their preferred stimuli (i.e. toys, screens), then struggle at school when they are required to be patient or lack access to these preferred activities.
• A student with ADHD may struggle at school due to constant stimuli and tasks that require direct attention for an extended period of time, but at home they thrive under lesser academic demands
• A student with behavioral challenges may spend all of their energy trying to keep it together at school, then have tantrums at home as a release of energy, knowing family will still love them despite these outbursts.

Home vs School

The solution to these differences can often be lessened or solved through communication.

• Does a visual schedule at school help? Can it be used at home?
• Are there specific reinforces that parents know are effective that can be used in school?
• Does the child respond well to peer models at school? Who can do this at home?

What Activities Can Be Done At Home?

• Read
• Talk about books
• Write about your day
• Draw and label about your day
• Math activities that don’t involve writing

Other Ways to Bridge Home to School

• Find a “hook” that keeps your child interested in school.
• Finding a role model who also has learning problems can show children that success is achievable.
• Communicate routines/expectations

Behaviors at Home

• 5:1 positive to negative statement ratio
• Consistent routines
• Engage in play, even 5 minutes a night
• Create punishments that can be enforced
• Give a chance for a clean slate

Consistency for Students with Autism

1. Routines = Autistic children thrive on routines. And while we do want to help them gain skills to be flexible when life doesn’t go as planned, some routines should stay consistent.

2. Expectations - from teachers to parents to grandparents to aunts/uncles

3. Reinforcers - for autistic children, positive reinforcement is a way better tool than punishment

4. Behavior Strategies= Behavior strategies are techniques used to encourage positive behavior. For us, we use strategies such as First/Then, Choices, and Tell, Don’t Ask.

5. Terminology - ask the teacher what terms he or she uses and adopt those terms at home.

Consistency for Students with ADHD

• It’s very common for kids with ADHD to behave better in one setting or another
• Collaboration and consistency with goals and rewards across settings
• Clear routines at home and school
• Communicate these routines so students can prepare for each setting before they arrive
• Movement breaks and physical activity in all settings
• When to be flexible

Consistency for Students with Dyslexia

• Help them engage with reading, focus on comprehension
• Get them to work independently.
• Have your child teach it to you.
• Break material down into chunks.
• Give appropriate praise.

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Consistency for Students with Speech and Language Concerns

If you think about the big picture, a child is in therapy for typically 30 minutes to 2 hours a week. On the scale of a week, which is 168 hours, 2 hours is not a lot. Consistent practice at home allows a child to work on skills more frequently. Research has shown home practice can lead to improved outcomes for children in speech therapy (Sugden et al., 2019).

Consistency for Students with Speech and Language Concerns

• Home practice does not mean sitting down for hours working on endless worksheets
• Carryover is the ability for an individual to take a skill learned in therapy and apply it to different situations and contexts
• It can feel hard to know when to correct your child vs when to coach
• Focus on target sounds
• Practice multi-step directions

Consistency for Students with Fine or Gross Motor Concerns

If your child’s occupational therapy (OT) evaluation mentions difficulty with fine motor coordination, consider incorporating these activities into your day.

• Sort marbles, play with Play-Doh or putty, string beads or pasta with holes, practice using tweezers

If your child’s OT evaluation mentions difficulty with visual perception or visual motor integration, try these!

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• Puzzles, word searches, sorting activities, mazes, hidden pictures, spot the differences, copying activities

If your child’s OT evaluation mentions difficulty with endurance, postural stability or core strength, try these!

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• Draw or play lying on the ground, yoga, pretend to move like different animals

Homework

Homework should have a purpose. Our goal is not to give out work just for the sake of doing work.

Homework’s purpose could include informing home what is being taught at school, extra practice, teaching student responsibility

The goal of homework is not to create perfect 100% correct work

Homework for students with learning disabilities should be:

• Short
• Mostly Independent
• Not graded
• A review of already covered topics

How you can help with homework

• Praise effort rather than outcome.
• Ask the child with the learning disability if he or she would like help with a daily task that involves academic skills before jumping in to help. The child might want to figure it out by himself or herself.
• Model that it is okay to get things wrong. For example, if you make a mistake while writing a letter, say, “Oops! I spelled that word wrong. Oh well! I will mark it out and start over.”
• Treat each child as an individual and do not compare abilities across children or compare how one child was at the other child’s age
• Make time for the child’s preferred activity.

Future Topics Being Covered