(cheerful music) >>Welcome to "A World of Difference Embracing Neurodiversity."

I'm Darryl Owens.

Language unlocks our world, but some children struggle with turning the key.

They grapple with reading, writing, and speaking, impacting their ability to learn and thrive.

From kindergarten to college, challenges with language-based learning disabilities can impact these students' academic performance, self-esteem, and even their future career prospects.

But with the right tools, support, and understanding, they can overcome these obstacles and unlock their full potential.

On this episode, we visit a New Jersey private school that attacks these hurdles with multisensory gusto.

Next, our national panel of experts delves into the signs, challenges, and most importantly, the solutions in managing language-based learning disabilities.

And you'll meet our latest difference maker, a researcher and author whose intimate understanding of autism fuels her advocacy.

But first, we travel to the Craig School where students with language-based learning disabilities attending this garden state school sow seeds of success through lessons that integrate a multi-instructional way of reading and building sentences, plus the use of manipulatives during structured reading sessions.

(upbeat music) >>When a child does have a diagnosed disability like a language-based learning disability, it can be really good news because that means that we can start building ramps to success for that student to get them where they need to be.

Oftentimes, when parents receive a diagnosis for their child that he or she has a language-based learning disability, the parent is oftentimes very confused.

Certainly we weren't expecting that as parents.

And they come to schools like the Craig School and other experts in our field wondering obviously how they can help their child.

For the most part, language-based learning disabilities have to do with either receptive language or expressive language, and there's a wide variety of those.

For the most part, children at the Craig School have trouble reading.

That's how it presents itself mostly.

But certainly other ways that information gets processed by the brain auditorily.

We have children with auditory processing issues.

Textually, which would be dyslexia, numbers with dyscalculia, or expressive communication issues, either through expressing emotions or other communication deficits.

>>I would describe my learning differences as very out of control sometimes.

I get very hyper and can't sit still well in class or I'll be reading and then I'll have to read it again and again just to understand one sentence.

So it takes a long time to read just a page of a book and seeing all the words seems like it's all scrambled up and just confusing.

- So ADHD makes it hard to focus.

Dyslexia makes it so the words are kind of more jumbled, so it's hard to read.

And then auto-processing is just basically when you hear something, it doesn't fully process in your brain.

Based on what I've learned, it has helped me impact my self-confidence and my thoughts on the future.

It showed me that I have more support and that I am with a community of people who have similar learning disabilities and that I'm not alone in this.

>>So we address the social and emotional needs of students as they progress through high school by teaching them, guiding them, their sense of self.

A lot of students with learning disabilities come into high school with very low self-esteem, prior experiences that just weren't very positive.

So it's almost like a rebuilding process for them.

We need to guide them, to teach them that their learning disability is just a piece of their puzzle, that they bring aptitudes and values and uniqueness, and so to help them find that balance in themselves.

So we're addressing their self-esteem, creating that self-awareness with the ultimate goal of making them self-accepting, which allows them to be self-advocates.

>>Multisensory instruction at the Craig School is one of the foundational principles of how we teach our students.

Learning disabled students or neurodivergent students really need multisensory instruction to activate different parts of their brain because their brains learn differently.

They are actually using different parts of their brain to learn.

Some examples of that multisensory instruction, you will see in every single classroom all throughout the day from simple things like making sure that anything the teacher is saying is also up on the board, whether it's in a list fashion or it is keywords or very deliberate, like when we are doing our written expression instruction.

The written expression that we use is a completely multisensory program.

It has hand signals that go with all of the definitions or parts of speech, like for a subject or a predicate.

But even in the math classrooms, you see it with learning how to skip count and literally playing hopscotch to do it, right?

Hopping, whether it's down the hallway or it's on a hopscotch board in the classroom, you know, feeling it and seeing it are very important for them.

>>Some advice I would give to other students who are facing similar challenges that I have is to not always look down, to look ahead and know that there are people out there who can help you, and you might have to keep looking a little bit, but you'll definitely find someone there who will be able to help you through life.

(upbeat music) >>Next, let's meet our experts.

(cheerful music) Rosemarie DeJarnett is a senior instructor, reading specialist, and assistant chair of General Education and Distance Learning at Beacon College.

The Leesburg, Florida liberal arts school is America's first accredited college or university dedicated to educating students with learning disabilities and attention issues.

She created the TORCH, Teaching of Reading and Comprehension Holistically labs at the college, which culminated in higher success rates for students concurrently enrolled in college composition in writing across the community.

Dr. Joshua D. Feder, M.D.

is a board certified general psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychiatrist, and is a distinguished fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

He is executive medical director for positive development and editor-in-chief at the Carlat Child Psychiatry Report.

He's a clinical associate professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry where he teaches about learning disorders including dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia.

Dr. Tricia A. Zucker is an education researcher and former teacher.

She's a professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

Her research interests include early identification and prevention of reading disabilities, evidence-based curriculum and instruction, and aligned family and school-based interventions.

She has authored over 60 scholarly publications and earned the presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

We're gonna start a conversation with Rosemarie.

Rosemarie, can you share with us some of the more common language-based learning disabilities?

>>Absolutely.

So one of the most common disabilities that we see is dyslexia in the classroom.

And students who have dyslexia have trouble with reading comprehension, decoding sounds within words, even their oral language and writing.

Another one that's very common in our schools is to see dysgraphia, which similar to the dyslexia with reading, it impacts our writing.

So being able to size and space your letters, maybe students will use the wrong word when they're constructing sentences or misspell a word.

We see dyscalculia with math facts and numerical information.

It could be with time when we're learning first how to tell time.

And last, we see auditory processing disorders, which is when students will have difficulty filtering different sounds and the order of sounds, as well as taking in information that is given verbally.

And one thing we wanna keep in common is with all of these, we sometimes see that comorbidity of ADHD.

>>Thank you, Rose.

Well, let's go to Dr. Feder.

So you have a child who's grappling with a lot of these issues that Rosemarie discussed.

How does this impact their self-esteem and confidence?

>>Thanks for that question.

So you need to think about both psychological and social factors here.

Psychologically, when you've got these learning difficulties, it can be sad or even depressed and certainly anxious.

And of course this idea of feeling you can do things isn't there.

So it really takes, they take a hit to their feelings of competence because they feel like they can't do things.

And then socially, kids tend to avoid that topic or maybe multiple topics if they have multiple learning difficulties.

And their peers may be teasing them.

This is often an age where kids are kind of figuring out their hierarchies, who's better at running, who's better at math?

And if you're not good at something, well, maybe kids are picking on you for it.

And then finally, sometimes we push kids too early.

They're not ready for something like algebra in fifth grade, and that only leads to unnecessary failure.

>>All right, thank you, doctor.

So Dr. Zucker, parents are going to want to get ahead of the game here.

Can you share with us some red flags they should be looking for that are kind of early warning signs for language-based learning disabilities?

>>We recommend that parents and teachers be aware of developmental milestones checklist.

These are really helpful in the early stages of development to just have a sense of what's typical at different ages and to understand that there is a wide range of normal development.

So for example, in the area of language development, milestone checklist would help you understand if your child is talking later than expected or has a more limited vocabulary than expected, or perhaps if they are not interested in social communication and keeping conversations going.

Also, this would help you to look for red flags like difficulty learning to read and/or with early math.

So the earlier we can identify learning difficulties, the earlier we can start intervention and get kids set up for success.

>>All right, thank you.

So Rosemarie, can you share with us some specific strategies that parents can use to help support children with language-based learning disabilities?

>>So yes, so for parents, I would recommend them to just normalize that support.

It's just part of their daily routine.

As you heard previously, one of the things that students struggle with is that they feel different in the classroom and that can impact them socially as well as academically.

And so just really as a parent normalizing that support is part of learning.

It'll increase that child's motivation.

It'll also improve their self-efficacy.

Another thing is to make sure that you work as a team with your child's teacher.

Your child's going to kind of model off of you.

So if they see you working together with that teacher and having that positive attitude, that's also going to impact their learning environment.

As a parent, I would also recommend surrounding and encouraging your child to read all kinds of books, audio books, comic books, anything that brings them a little bit of fun, I would strongly encourage.

>>Great.

Dr. Feder, I wanted to drill down a little bit on the question I previously asked Dr. Zucker.

Can you tell us what are some of the challenges and opportunities when it comes to early intervention for parents who are trying to support their children with language-based learning disabilities?

>>Oh, absolutely.

I'm really glad that you asked that.

I mean, I think the biggest problem is when people don't recognize the signs of these problems.

Tricia was talking about milestones, and I wanna get back to that in a second.

But the big one is the avoidance that I spoke about a little bit earlier.

Kids might be avoiding, and then parents may be, or teachers may be blaming the student for being bad or calling them a difficult child, oppositional, and it's really because they're having trouble with that academic or cognitive process, right?

The other thing is when kids end up competing without learning to cooperate, that can be another big challenge just in the way the system might be set up for learning.

But the opportunities are really great.

I mean, if we can help kids to learn to work together using everyone's unique perspective, that's an amazing win.

Everybody's so different.

We see the world differently, and learning differences make it much more clear that we do that, that we learn in different ways.

So it's an amazing way to help people work together and learn to work together.

And on top of that, building meaningful relationships between students and teachers and peers and even parents.

I wanted to get back just briefly to the milestone thing because the CDC put out some new milestones for walking and talking for little, little kids.

And we really want to pick these things up early.

And the problem with the new milestones is that they allow a little bit later before you start doing early intervention.

And many of us in my field are a little bit concerned that we may wait a little too long.

So it's a tension in our field about, well, what's the right milestone versus do you need to jump in there sooner so that you can help kids sooner.

>>Definitely sounds like some valid concerns, Dr. Feder.

Dr. Zucker, we've been focusing a lot on parents, and a lot of the time that students spend is in school, of course.

So I'm wondering how can teachers differentiate instruction for students who are dealing with language-based learning disabilities?

>>So let's think first about a situation where you're concerned but a child does not have a diagnosis.

The first thing that teachers can do in these situations is use great practices to differentiate instruction to meet all learners where they're at.

So some examples of this are what we call scaffolding strategies.

These are ways to take a task and maybe step it down, make it a little easier so that a child can still have success in the classroom.

For example, you can take a big open-ended question for a child, and if they're having difficulty answering that, reframe it as a more simple, closed, either-or type of question.

This lets you keep conversations going with kids who have limited language and they feel successful in the classroom.

For kids who have a diagnosed learning difficulties, you'll wanna work with parents each year to make sure you have a plan in place to set them up for success.

This will usually include some accommodations and also supports to make sure that they're getting a lot of positive feedback from you.

And finally, going back to what Josh said, it's so important to just create a classroom environment where we really accept kids who are neurodivergent and we celebrate those differences because in many ways, these are just in different ways of seeing the world.

>>All right, thank you.

So Rosemarie, you're working in a college setting and so clearly students are still dealing with these issues once they are walking on campus there.

Is it too late to remediate language-based learning disabilities at that point?

>>Absolutely not.

So I work with students every single day who have been told that they will not read at college level, or they cannot write at college level.

And with explicit skill development, they are able to achieve all of those things and reach their goals, become active members of our community, you know, pursue the careers that they dream of doing.

And some of the ways that we do that is we build in multimodal learning.

So a student isn't just hearing information in one way, instead there might be a visual component as well as a tactile component.

They're having discussions with their peers.

So building in multiple ways of hearing information ensures that those students who do need that differentiated instruction are receiving it.

We also wanna keep in mind that assistive technology that we're using at all levels of education, even in our careers.

Speech to text, we might also use something like audio that'll read to us.

Graphic organizers to help break down information.

So all of those pieces, they don't only just work in our elementary and middle and high schools, they're also very effective in college and beyond.

>>All right.

Dr. Feder, so as a parent who's trying to support their child at home, do the strategies change at each developmental stage for these parents?

Or is it just building on each building block as we go along?

>>Yeah, well, there are some things that stay the same and some things that change, of course, right?

But I think the main buzz phrase if you wanted, and I don't know who made this up, is be curious, not furious.

So again, not being angry at your kid when they're having difficulty.

Kids usually really wanna do well and wanna please you.

And if they're not, it's probably because they're frustrated.

And like Rosemarie was saying, we have to figure out how to make learning meaningful to people and maybe even fun.

Mathematicians don't do worksheets when they're inventing things, right?

They're taking real-life problems.

So if you're reading to each other, measuring ingredients for cookies, writing your names in the dirt, things like that.

>>Watch the full Ask the Expert segment on our website at awodtv.org if you wanna learn more about this topic.

You can also watch or listen on Facebook, YouTube, or on your favorite podcasting platform.

(cheerful music) Now let's meet our latest difference maker.

With apologies to John Lennon, imagine a world where workplaces aren't just spaces to punch in and out, but vibrant ecosystems where individuals can thrive, innovate, and contribute their unique perspectives.

That's the vision of Dr. Ludmila Praslova, a torch bearer in the field of industrial organizational psychology.

With a passion for creating inclusive and empowering work environments, Dr. Praslova has dedicated her career to unlocking the potential of neurodivergent individuals.

But it was only after her research into autism surfaced an unexpected discovery that her role as champion for diversity and inclusion, transforming the workplace one worker at a time, became personal.

(upbeat music) >>Ludmila Praslova is director of research in industrial and organizational psychology at Vanguard University in Southern California, and a leading authority on neurodiversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Her work in diversity, equity, and inclusion is widely followed and has been featured in the Society of Human Resource Management blog as well as Fast Company and the Harvard Business Review.

>>My field has always been diversity.

Actually even when I was back in college, I started working in global diversity.

I was 19, so I worked in diversity my entire life.

>>Dr.

Praslova has been studying psychology for decades, but her interest in neurodiversity only recently became more than academic.

>>Officially, I've been diagnosed with being autistic.

I'm pretty sure I have dyspraxia because it's obvious.

I just always been really bad with doing things with my hands.

But it also kind of overlaps with many characteristics of autism that it's very often co-occurs.

And then like a lot of women, I've been misdiagnosed with all kinds of things.

So for many years, I was diagnosed with depression except medication made me worse.

And that is a very typical thing.

So women are very often misdiagnosed with depression or anxiety, but it actually could be due to just how you are treated when you are autistic by society that creates variety of just social issues.

So then most people develop some form of complex PTSD because a lot of neurodivergent people, especially people who are undiagnosed, experience a lot of trauma.

>>As a psychologist, Praslova knew that 15 to 20% of the population is neurodiverse, but she had never counted herself among that number.

>>The way psychology is taught, specifically with neurodiversity, it was very hard to recognize myself in all those official descriptions.

>>Her left brain didn't know what the right brain was doing.

>>My light bulb actually went on when I started reading specifically about female autistics because what is described in typical textbooks is a four-year-old or eight-year-old boy.

And so I was always wondering, okay, so I know I have extreme sensory sensitivities, and, like, I never learned to drive well.

I drive, but it's pretty sad.

So I don't go on freeways, for example.

But it just didn't quite connect with those descriptions.

But when I started looking specifically to research on autistic women and specifically late diagnosed women, it's like, okay, well that makes a lot of sense.

>>Her biggest revelation was in finally being able to put a name to a challenge she'd struggled with her entire life.

>>My parents did not have very good words for my dyspraxia, so their way of expressing it was that my hands grow out of my behind.

It was actually a worse word that they were using.

And yeah, so they made me really feel pretty useless because what they valued is physical things.

They really didn't value that, you know, I taught myself college history when I was eight.

It was just like, whatever.

So it just wasn't something that in this particular social economic environment and this particular context was valued.

It was all about, you know, playing sports.

>>She and her parents never did fully see eye to eye, which is why she had this to say to parents who might be watching this now.

>>Focusing on your child holistically and focusing on their joy and happiness and whatever strengths they have that could then bring them fulfilling occupation is definitely something that requires standing back and saying, "Okay, this person is not me.

They do not have the same strengths that I do."

And very often, parents just parent their children the way they wish they had been parented, which is fantastic, but their child is not them.

So platinum rule, not the golden rule.

Don't treat them as you wish you were treated.

Treat them as they wish they were treated and they are not you.

>>For "A World of Difference," I'm Brad Kuhn.

(upbeat music) >>Congratulations, Dr. Ludmila Praslova for making a Difference.

And that does it for this edition of "A World of Difference Embracing Neurodiversity."

I'm Darryl Owens.

I'll see you back here next time.

You can watch episodes of "A World of Difference" on the Beacon College Facebook and YouTube channels, and on the show's website, awodtv.org.

The website also provides tip sheets and other resources for your parenting journey.

You can watch the show from the PBS app available on your favorite streaming device, and you can listen on your favorite podcasting platform.

Thank you for watching and supporting "A World of Difference."

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