The Process…
Our Model:
Our model of educational therapy is an integrative, holistic approach that takes the individual needs of our clients into account in order to provide a course of action suited to their unique needs. We understand that in order to effect lasting change, it is vital to understand the etiology of a concern, take psychological state into consideration, and help provide personalized scaffolding so clients can implement new strategies and approaches into their everyday lives. We pride ourselves on a whole-person approach to helping people overcome obstacles to processing information and managing their lives. We do what we call “working on the edges” of our scope of practice, meaning that we make observations, offer early-stage strategies, and if needed, make referrals in areas like nutrition, sleep hygiene, stress management, technology behavior/abuse/addiction, trauma, medicine, vision, and family communication.
We address a wide range of needs, but at our core, what we’re doing is improving the information processing system, the way the brain attends to inputs, and the ways in which we engage with the brain’s primitive instincts as we try to retain and recall information. We specialize in clients who do not fit neatly into diagnostic profiles; they tend to have features of several diagnostic profiles and yet strengths that may be atypical of those profiles. Often their academic and life demands are suited to their strengths but leave little space for their weaknesses. We see children as young as six years old, but we are some of the only educational therapists who work with adults, in college and beyond, locally and remotely if needed. Our adult clients include young people who have struggled to succeed in college, as well as midlife adults struggling to pass professional exams due to their learning differences. We always have an eye on every client’s next steps in life. In addition to the most immediate needs that sent the client to our office, we also monitor and address their level of preparation for a globalized economy. In addition to managing the demands of tests, research papers and life balance “in the now,” people of all ages need to develop an understanding of self, as well as the skills of self-regulation and decision-making necessary to compete in the 21st century workforce.
Our Network:
We value collaboration and teamwork, as we work closely with psychiatrists and other clinicians, behaviorists, and advocate for accommodations through schools to gain a full understanding of an individual’s situation. We work hard to maintain open lines of communication within a clinical team to understand and support holistic needs (e.g. psychological, medical, self-regulatory, academic). That collaboration incorporates the development and alignment of complementary goals, the exchange of observations and critical background information, and the active reinforcement of each other’s training. This work often includes participation on DBT and other teams, parent training to support ET goals, instructional design consultation to educators, and referrals for medical or nutritional tests or support in areas that affect cognition. By broadening our scope and gaining a deeper understanding of our clients’ situations, we are able to holistically and psychologically assist our clients on a deeper level which fosters long-lasting impact.
Our Approach:
Though there is validity to the traditional approach of “planner therapy” which teaches individuals organizational skills and planning methods, we find that particular training oftentimes proves inefficient and ineffective in the long term. We do train people in planning, organizing, task initiation, and even self-motivation, however, we find it is integral to delve beyond the surface to provide individuals with longer-lasting results. We implement cognitive-behavioral approaches to understand the nature and etiology of procrastination, avoidance, and other difficulties with task management that live in the realm beyond planning skills themselves. By taking a cognitively-rooted approach, coupled with our aforementioned holistic view on educational therapy, we seek to help each and every individual we have the opportunity to work with. We equip people with the necessary tools to thrive in all environments. By assessing individuals from a cognitive standpoint, we seek to rewire and alter executive functioning to alleviate any concerns you may have. We can integrate alternative methods such as mindfulness and breath work, paired with the cognitive aspect, to expand the impact of educational therapy. We truly care about properly assessing the situation at hand and doing everything in our power to help however we see fit.
After the initial assessment, we provide:
-Training in learning strategies to help people encode, retain and retrieve information
-Provision of tools and resources to manage learning
-Remediation of skills typical of traditional educational therapy (e.g. reading, written expression, language processing, sequencing)
-Team consultation and collaboration