The learning components addressed are

Early Identification

• A testing instrument for children 5-6 years of age that is designed to survey perceptual and neuropsychological functions basic to learning.

Early Intervention

• Instructional methods and instruments that builds a child’s pre- academic skills specific to reading and language. The intervention is formulated on the child’s strong and weak academic areas and the educator is trained to prescribe appropriate instructional tasks for reading and language.

Objectives

With successful completion of the course, the educational therapist will be equipped to:

• Identify children vulnerable to learning difficulties and educational failure
• Provide a clear profile of a child’s neuropsychological skills
• Provide a structure to guide appropriate intervention before failure has occurred
• Organise a program of learning (according to the child’s test profile) that is based on five clusters – visual, visual motor, auditory, body image and intermodal skill clusters

Who it will benefit

The program is ideal for two sets of participants:

• Kindergarten or early primary grade years. Its most effective use is in scanning an entire class in order to provide teachers and administrators with a grade-wide profile for the proper planning of content, organization and timing of instruction.
• Educational therapists working individually with young children who appear to be faltering in educational activities

Research

Search & Teach is based on both clinical and statistical research that focuses on neuropsychological skills. The importance of these skills was determined via an intensive inter-disciplinary study that examined 1st graders neurologically, psychiatrically, perceptually, psychologically and educationally.

Results of the study revealed that those children vulnerable to learning failure lagged in developing skills relating to spatial orientation and temporal organization. A follow-up of the original group of children validated the clinical judgment that reading failure is associated with specific types of perceptual immaturity, all relating to orientation in space and organization of time.

The program is formulated through the results of this research, making early identification of learning difficulties in children key to overcoming potential failure.