Guest Blogger: Maxine Ficksman - Editor of 'The Clinical Practice of Educational Therapy'

Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Maxine Ficksman - educational therapy guru and creator of EducationalTherapyClinician.com. Maxine is one of the founding members of the Association of Educational Therapists (AET) and continues to be a prolific writer on the topic of educational therapy. In this post, Maxine provides an entrypoint to readers unfamiliar with educational therapy, its practices, and its desired outcomes. Maxine's book, The Clinical Practice of Educational Therapy, is a must-read for families, educators, and therapists who seek to enhance the learning and development of their children.

The Clinical Practice of Educational Therapy
Educational therapy is a burgeoning and transformational profession that bridges the fields of education and psychology. This trans-disciplinary practice considers the treatment alliance between therapist and client as being paramount. Only 30 plus years young, the Association of Educational Therapists (AET), the national professional association, sets the standards for training and practice.

How is the work of an educational therapist different from that of a Private SAT tutor? Often parents and professionals ask this question. A brief explanation of this significant issue follows this paragraph. For a more complete explanation, see the text edited by Ficksman & Adelizzi, cited below.

Tutors usually work with children who need help with homework and specific academic skills, whereas educational therapists search for the source of the disconnect in learning which often has a social/emotional component that impacts self-esteem. The main goal of a tutor is higher test scores, while the psycho-educational goals of an educational therapist might include:

1. An augmentation of self-esteem by creating opportunities for success and the recognition of one’s unique islands of competency (Brooks & Goldstein, 2004);
2. A self-awareness of resiliency and an elevated level of coping skill when recovering from a disappointment or self-perceived failure;
3. A decrease in anxiety related to academic and social demands;
4. A self-awareness and strengthening of executive functioning skills;
5. An increase of self-advocacy skills;
6. An expansion of autonomy in meeting academic and social demands.
(Ficksman, M., & Adelizzi, J.U. (2010). The Clinical Practice of Educational Therapy: A Teaching Model. New York: Routledge.)

Educational therapists are skilled in contextual analysis, assessment, remediation/intervention, collaboration, and case management in working with clients who have learning and memory difficulties including dyslexia, AD/HD, nonverbal learning disabilities, Tourette, and Asperger Syndrome. Serving as a resource for parents, educational therapists provide consultation to parents regarding enhanced home routines, socialization, prioritized interventions, referrals, as well as appropriate school placement. Additionally, educational therapists are trained to work with adults, in postsecondary settings and in the workplace, who may experience difficulty with academic tasks, executive functioning, social interactions, and compromised self-esteem. ETs work closely with families, school personnel, and allied professionals to enhance the psycho-educational process of the treatment alliance.

In my first sentence above, I described this profession as transformational. This holds true for the educational therapist as well as the clients. Every day, we as educational therapists learn and improve our own self-concepts. The joy and love we give our clients comes back to us in spades. We are truly blessed.

Last week, one of those wonderful moments occurred when I received a note from a former parent informing me that my former student graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious university! We began our work together when he was in the first grade, just after he had a stroke and underwent life-saving surgery. It took most of his elementary years to regain his self-esteem and motivation in order to reach his potential. While his journey was not that of a student with learning disabilities, his struggles required similar approaches, interventions, and supports.

To further clarify the dynamic of educational therapy utilizing fascinating case studies by a diverse group of accomplished educational therapists, I again refer you to The Clinical Practice of Educational Therapy: A Teaching Model.

Maxine Ficksman, MA, BCET, FAET
mbfet@aol.com

Less as More?

Here at Launch Education, we believe in helping students achieve their potential. While this might sound vague, I think the best way to approach it is to think of it as broad. For example, I am often approached with questions that seek me to predict an outcome: How high will my student's score go with private SAT tutoring? When will he become "independent"? When will she "get" Geometry? Which colleges will he get in to?

As you can see, students are working toward their potential in many areas of life - and while I can usually predict with some accuracy a "result," most times I'm wrong - but not in an overestimation - which has led me to answer a lot of questions regarding potential with the preface that I don't want to say anything for certain because I don't want to cap your student's potential.

Indeed, how many times have you surprised yourself with what you are capable of? Often, we can do and go a lot further than we (or someone else) can imagine. In the same facet, children have endless potential. Therefore, I encourage you to guide your student so they can find that potential themselves - in whatever area it may be in, however high it may be.

Below is a fascinating article that discusses children, growth, guidance, independence, and potential. Don't let the title scare you, and don't let the length turn you off. Feel overwhelmed? this might just be the read you need, as the theme is that "less" may actually be better.

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

Guest Blogger: Alexis Lauricella - Founder of PlayLearnParent.com

This week's blog is a real treat. Alexis Lauricella - founder of PlayLearnParent.com and Postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University - shares her insights and research on parent involvement in education. Specifically, she reviews the Family Engagement in Education Act (2011) and suggests ways in which parents can improve their students' academic performance.

The Crucial Role of Parents in Education
It’s pretty clear that the education system as a whole in the United States is struggling to provide youth with an adequate, let alone quality, education. For decades, the US government has enacted policies and programs with the goal of “fixing” our education system by creating new rules and procedures for schools and teachers. Only recently, after decades of continuously failing schools, a new bill was introduced to the House of Representatives that recognizes the crucial role that families, and particularly parents, have on children’s academic achievement. The goal of the Family Engagement in Education Act of 2011 is to provide incentives for schools and districts to engage parents in children’s education with the hopes of closing the achievement gap. This bill is clearly only in its infancy, but the message is clear: parents and families are crucial factors in the academic success of children.

The teachers and school systems clearly can’t do it all on their own. Government funding and regulation are attempting to “not leave any children behind”, but unfortunately, kids are getting left behind and no one is coming to pick them up. Recent reports from the Annie E. Casey Foundation (Fiester & Smith, 2010) indicate that 67% of all 4th grade students are not proficient readers and these numbers are even higher for African American and Hispanic children. Literacy isn’t the only issue. Students are also performing poorly in Science and Math, especially compared to children in other countries (Fleischman, Hopstock, Pelczar, & Shelley, 2010).

The US school system undoubtedly needs considerable work and there is no quick-fix answer to the problem. But, parents can help, and even when children in are highly competitive, wonderful academic institutions, parents have a responsibility to be involved and help their children academically. No one expects that parental involvement will fix the achievement gap or the failures of our education system as a whole, but their involvement is crucial!

Research demonstrates that parent involvement does help- significantly! When parents are involved in their children’s education, their children perform better academically and socially (Henderson, 1987; Jenyes, 2003). This doesn’t mean that parents have to volunteer at every school function or become the president of the PTA in order for their child to reap the benefits of education. There are thousands of fun, creative, and easy ways to get involved in your children’s educational success. Here are just a few:

Parent-teach Conferences. Parents can take the lead and work directly with their children’s schoolteachers to determine ways that they can enhance their child’s education at home. Parents can take advantage of the one-on-one time that is provided during parent-teacher conferences to determine what concepts will be taught in class that year and how to can expand upon these concepts at home.

Get Creative. The technological advances of the past decade have provided many new ways for children to learn. Take advantage of quality websites that offer educational worksheets or activities related to a particular topic your child is studying at school. Search for videos (either online or at your local library) related to the concepts your child is learning in school; maybe having the information presented in a new way will help your child learn. Take learning outside the classroom by bringing your child to the library to find related books on topics covered in class, to a museum to see a related exhibit, or even to a park where you can find real world examples of the science concepts being taught in class.

Combine subject areas and interests. If your child is learning multiplication tables in school but really loves to write, work with your child to write a story about multiplication problems. Similarly, if your child loves baseball encourage her to keep scores and calculate batting averages while you watch a game or ask her to write a newspaper article about the game you watched together using some of the new vocabulary words from class. Supplement their learning with private SAT tutors who tutor in multiple subjects, combining school preparation and SAT preparation all in one.

Teachers will educate and work with children at school, but parents need you to help; to expand upon the learning that is occurring in school and help your children prosper and succeed both academically and socially. It would be ideal if teachers and school administrators facilitated and encourage parent involvement with or without incentives provided by the potential Family Involvement in Education of 2011 bill. However, until this bill passes or other action is taken to encourage schools to include and incorporate parents, parents should take the lead and find ways to get involved!

For a list of all works cited, please contact Matt Steiner at matt@launcheducation.com.


Alexis R. Lauricella is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Ellen Wartella at Northwestern University. Dr. Lauricella earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology and her Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University. Her research focuses on young children’s learning from media and parents’ and teachers’ attitudes toward and use of media with young children. Dr. Lauricella is also the founder of www.PlayLearnParent.com, a website that translates relevant child-development research for parents.

What Interested You Most in The Times This Week?

Was it the article about rising unemployment in the U.S.? The editorial about Derek Jeter’s 3,000^th hit? The correlation between SAT tutoring and improvement on test scores? Whatever it was, the New York Times wants to know what got your attention and why.

Every week this month, students (ages 13-25) will have the opportunity to share their thoughts with the world by participating in the Times’ Summer Reading Contest. Here’s how it works…

You see, hear, read, watch something—anything—that interests you in print or online. Articles, essays, editorials, photos, videos, podcasts, etc. are all fair game. You write about how it intrigued, irked or inspired you and submit your response. At the end of each week, the paper publishes its favorite submission(s) in a special post. Added bonus: winners are announced on Twitter and Facebook.

So, students, throw a little real-world, non-fiction onto your summer reading list. This is your chance to read and be read!

Click here to find everything you need to know about participating in the challenge.

An Insider's Perspective: Taking Community College Courses in High School

Launch Education's intern, Shawn Danino, shares how community college classes enhanced his high school education.

In my experience as a high school student at a public school in the suburbs of LA (Taft High School), one of the greatest experiences I had was getting to take courses at my local junior college (Pierce Community College). At my school - and many others across the country - there was a list of courses available to enroll at the community college that we would receive credit for and get the equivalent boost of an AP class. The subjects were diverse and interesting, from Business Fundamentals to Sociology, and the instructors were far more passionate and engaging than the majority I had in high school. In fact, my Introductory Sociology instructor is the man I credit with inspiring me to eventually become a Sociology Major at USC.

The experience of being on a college campus in high school was truly invigorating for me. In contrast to the overcrowded chaos that unfolded at my high school, (we had a shooting right outside the school my freshman year and a riot my junior year) going to a junior college offered a more mature, relaxed setting that was more conducive to learning. While many students opt into taking classes during the school year, I think the best time to enroll is over the summer. During the summer, you don’t have to worry about balancing coursework with as many other commitments.

Community colleges sometimes get a bad rap amongst folks aiming for a four-year school, but I think it’s an unfair bias. Honestly, many of the instructors I had at Pierce rivaled my more ‘reputable’ professors at USC. Furthermore, LAUSD actually pays the entirety of tuition for junior college courses taken during high school - so there’s really no excuse to not consider attending!

It gets better. The beauty of junior college courses is that they are often graded as college courses. At my high school, this meant that one extra grade point was added to my GPA. So essentially, an A was weighed as 5.0 GPA points and a B was 4.0. This was incredibly helpful to my cumulative GPA, which was negatively skewed by a couple B’s I had received in my high school classes. This takes off much of the performance-related stress that comes with AP tests and final exams, since there is much more of a cushion.

Without the regimented daily schedules and bells ordering us that we had 5 minutes to get to the other side of the school, going to junior college made me even more excited about going to a four-year university. The work load can be challenging, but taking two or three classes for a few hours a day makes planning to do your homework a lot more manageable.

Moreover, you have the opportunity to choose your classes, which allows you the time to figure out what you’re best at and what subject areas you enjoy most.

It might sound cliché, but it is a rare opportunity to have full autonomy over your schedule and what courses you take. Taking classes at junior colleges can give your application the edge it needs to get into your dream school. Also, my private SAT tutors not only helped me with scoring big, they taught me the value of time management.