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5 Signs & 4 Ways to Help an ODD Child

Does your child argue a lot – with you or teachers?  Does he or she seem to anger easily?  Is this behaviour worrying you?

It could be quite normal – just a phase your child is going through. On the other hand they may have oppositional defiant disorder, also known as ODD.

There are five signs which can point to ODD, according to Dr Martha Burns.  In a conversation on the Learning Capacity Podcast, she described the signs and discussed how to help a child who has this disorder.

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Out-of-School Learning Business - Rewards & Challenges: Monique Peters

Monique Peters is a mother of a child with learning difficulties.

Her efforts to help him opened up a new world for her. A world of learning specialists, educators, tutors, neuroscientists, support groups and other parents desperate for a solution for their own learning disabled child.

Monique saw a need that was not being met from the range of existing services for families like hers.  So she established an out-of-school learning business to support parents like her and children like her son. It's called Brainwise Learning.

This is Monique's story.

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Sarah 2.0: Recovering from Chronic Brain Inflammation

What happens if you suffer chronic brain inflammation?  How does it affect you, physically, emotionally and cognitively?

And what can you do to help you recover?

Sarah Rasborsek, a young, healthy, successful woman enjoying her life, was stricken by brain inflammation.  Her world was turned upside down. I met her via a Learning Success Podcast interview in February 2019, where she explained what had happened and how difficult her life had become.

Now  a little over a year later, Sarah spoke to me again on another episode of the Podcast. She has made significant progress in her rehabilitation. But she explains she will be unlikely to return to how she was before the inflammation. She describes herself as a new Sarah - Sarah 2.0.

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Devon Barnes - learning difficulties specialist

Devon Barnes: 35 Years in the “Learning Difficulties Mindfield” .

Learning difficulties are based in the mind, or more specifically in the brain, according to speech pathologist and learning difficulties specialist Devon Barnes. She has been working for the past 35 years with children who have a wide range of learning challenges.

In an discussion with learning support teacher Moya Gibb-Smith, Devon describes the challenges for parents in what she calls the "Learning Difficulties Mindfield". And gives some advice on how to sort the hype from reality when parents are trying to decide how to help their child.

What's the first thing a parent should do it they are concerned their child may have a learning difficulty?  Speak to the child's teacher, says Devon.

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cheryl chia the learning capacity podcast

Brain Fitness for Children in 26 Centres Across Asia & the Middle East

How can you improve the learning ability, intelligence and emotional quotient (EQ) of children of all ages? Cheryl Chia is a Singapore based mother of 2 young girls, author of a book titled “Fit Brains Learn Better: A Chronicle of 12 years of Brain Fitness Training” , and the founder of BrainFit, a service which focuses on helping children from birth to 18 years develop a learning advantage by strengthening their brain fitness and intelligence.

What drove Cheryl to find the time, energy and enterprise to build BrainFit from its original single location in Singapore to a network of 26 centres in eight countries across Asia and the Middle East?

And what has she been able to achieve for the children who attend the BrainFit programs and for their parents as well?    

Cheryl discusses her BrainFit journey in an episode of The Learning Capacity Podcast.

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5 Keys for Building Maths Skills: Dr Dion Khlentzos

After 20 years as a maths teacher and tutor, Dr Dion Khlentzos, has a clear view of what's necessary for building students' maths skills.

His top five keys to maths success include building on students' prior knowledge, relating maths to their everyday life and strengthening their motivation and belief in their own maths abilities.  

He discussed the five keys in an interview on The Learning Capacity Podcast where he commented on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), and whether artificial intelligence will reduce the need for many people to understand maths. 

Dr Khlentzos also commented on how technology like Zoom and Skype has enabled maths tutoring to be delivered to students who find it hard to attend face to face sessions with a tutor.

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learning difficulties

Learning Difficulties: 16 Terms Explained for Parents & Teachers

If you have a child with language challenges, reading problems or learning difficulties, and you have sought help from their teacher, speech pathologist or other learning professional, you may have heard some unfamiliar terms.

Words like phonemic awareness, auditory processing, listening comprehension and working memory.

Listen to Episode 96 of The Learning Capacity Podcast for explanations of 16 common terms used in discussions about learning difficulties. Once you understand these, you should be able to have more productive discussions with your child's teacher or therapists.

  

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Rebuilding a Brain after Chronic Inflammation: Sarah Rasborsek's Story

Can you imagine what it would be like to suddenly forget your past, to have pounding headaches, dizziness and tremors?

To be unable to find words when you wanted to speak?      

To experience an extreme loss of energy, have your blood pressure drop dangerously low, and find yourself uncomfortably sensitive to sounds and sunlight?  

And to feel that as well as having no past, you have no future? 

Sarah Rasborsek did.  She experienced all that and more when she "fried her brain" and suffered chronic brain inflammation during a triathlon on Queensland's Gold Coast in January 2018.

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Moya Gibb-Smith

Remedial Reading on Steroids - A Learning Support Teacher's Story

Learning support teacher, Moya Gibb-Smith has used most of the well-known remedial reading programs to help her  students who were struggling to learn to read.

While she said they all had merit, there was one program that stood out for her.  "It was like doing it on steroids. It was just so much quicker, so much more effective".

Moya described her journey from a young "reluctant teacher" to a passionate remedial reading teacher in an episode on The Learning Capacity Podcast. Listen to the podcast, or read the transcript of her story, which includes how her husband  was "going a bit blue-mouldy" on the way.

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Episode 84

Dr Marianela Diaz - Innovative Early, Bilingual Education in Panama

Psychologist and Educator, Dr Marianela Diaz searched the world for best practices in early learning before establishing the first Cleverest Education learning centre in Panama.  

She discovered Singapore leads in many aspects of early education and spoke about her experiences in a conversation on the Learning Capacity Podcast.

Dr Diaz says, "Since I am a psychologist and I'm into education, I know that the most important years are the very early on, the first five years is where you make your neuron connections. So, that's why we decided to go into early education". 

"I also wanted to do something that would actually coexist with cognitive learning and emotional learning".

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