For Immediate Release
September 23, 2009
Valerie Maxwell, Ph.D.
310-546-6500 #1
Valerie@FoundationForLearning.info
The Foundation For Learning Development Releases
Learning Disabilities Research Results
Comprehensive list of Cognitive Training Devices, Programs and Tools is an invaluable resource for parents and educators of children with learning disabilities.
Manhattan Beach, CA (PRWEB) September 23, 2009 - The Foundation for Learning Development has released its comprehensive list of Cognitive Training Devices, Programs and Tools targeted to parents and educators of children with learning disabilities.
This list comes at an important time of the year as most students have recently started the new school year. It also comes on the heels of a recent report by the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) that states, "a fifth of students (at least 6% of all students) with learning disabilities (LD) are five or more grade levels behind; half of students with LD are more than three grade levels behind."
Where does a parent begin when their child has a learning issue?
Most children who are identified in school with a learning disability are given special accommodations such as seating in the front of the classroom and extra time to finish homework and take tests. But these only serve as band-aids and do not remedy the underlying learning disability.
Few parents and educators are aware that there is a technological and educational market to help individuals improve attention, processing, learning, and memory. The Foundation for Learning Development identified at its last conference the need for compiling a comprehensive list of successful tools for children with learning disabilities.
The release of the Cognitive Training Devices, Programs and Tools is an important first step for parents and educators to find proven alternatives to in-classroom methods for improving the cognitive functioning of learning disabled children.
According to Dr. Valerie Maxwell, founder of The Foundation for Learning Development, "Although this is a comprehensive list of the current technological programs available for learning disabilities, it is only the beginning. We will continue to add new programs to our research list but more importantly, identify which training tools are relevant to which populations and outline a sequence of training for students with learning disabilities."
The FLD is publishing this list as a beginning attempt to map the better-known cognitive training tools. We invite your participation in this path-blazing effort.
About The Foundation For Learning Development
The Foundation for Learning Development was established to develop and coordinate the efforts and resources necessary to measure and improve the skills all children need to learn effectively, especially those with Learning Disabilities. Given the growing and disproportionately high number of children with learning disabilities and poor testing scores, The Foundation for Learning Development serves to attract the best and brightest minds in the fields of education and science to study and assess the maximization of human potential. Information about our organization and our list of Cognitive Training Devices, Programs and Tools can be found on our website at: http://www.FoundationForLearning.info .
Contact:
Valerie Maxwell, Ph.D.
Founder / Psychologist
2007 Cedar Ave.
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
310-546-6500 #1
Valerie@FoundationForLearning.info
Experts to Address Learning Disorders
Easy Reader
January 11, 2007
By Lisa McDivitt
Valerie Maxwell has been practicing psychology in Manhattan Beach for the past 27 years, but it wasn't until about a decade ago that her young patients started to count the lines in her black leather couch as they sat in her office. She is seeing what she calls an epidemic of autism, ADHD, and other disorders. And on January 19, 2007, her Foundation for Learning Development will host the first in a series of conferences to address ways of treating these children.
"I think what we're looking at is third generation of fast food kids," said Maxwell, the president and founder of the foundation. And as diverse as the disorders, from visual attention deficit disorder to trouble with listening, Maxwell knows there are ways of treatment that can be more natural than medication. The key, said Maxwell, is networking and communication among experts in research and those who work with the students, and to bring parents and educators into awareness as well.
"Nobody's talking to each other," she said of the various researchers and professionals in the field.
The foundation grew from what Maxwell saw as a need in her field for communication between experts, to tie together assessment and treatments that exist for an array of learning disorders. Her hope is that through conferences such as the one this month, diagnosis of learning disorders will be followed by specific paths for treatment.
"If you come in and you're depressed, we have a treatment plan for you," said Maxwell, "And we do not have that in education." In the educational system, said Maxwell, treatment plans are not prevalent, even though the technology exists for the various disorders a student might face. Maxwell said she imagines a day when a parent can Google his or her child's symptoms, and then be met with not only a specific diagnosis, but a specific path to treatment.
If a child's disorder is in listening, the student might respond well to Auditory Integration Training. A student with difficulties in reading comprehension could be a good candidate for the Irlen Method. What the conference aims to change is the "my program is better than yours" philosophy in favor of "what works for whom," said Maxwell.
The foundation itself is designed as a think tank to help professionals change the learning disorder landscape. "It's pretty exciting that it's happening right here," said Maxwell.
The conference will be held at the Ayres Hotel. Speakers will come from around the country, and include specialists in the fields of genetics, speech pathology, bipolar disorder, and optometry. The conference will aim to help bridge what Maxwell calls a gap between clinical practice and research in cognitive training.
In addition to "learning therapy," a term coined by Maxwell that encompasses this area of treatment, Maxwell helps to educate parents and experts about various other ways of helping comprehension, including diet. Maxwell recommends zinc, and said that 90 percent of American children are deficient in zinc. She also said she is shocked at how many South Bay parents do not give their children a multivitamin. "Zinc makes you think," she said. Omega-3, the fatty acid found in fish oil, protects the brain cells, and helps with learning. Maxwell recommends 500 mg of Omega3 for children every day.
Where certain treatments as well as diet can help many kinds of ADD and ADHD, Maxwell hopes to establish a new landscape and language so that a unified front can begin to create a system for treatment of all such learning disorders. And Maxwell hopes that this month's conference will start the conversation.
