Jane M. Healy - Different Learners: Identifying, Preventing, and Treating Your Childs Learning Problems

Praise for Different Learners

Different Learners is a fantastic book for both parents and teachers for helping children who have learning difficulties to excel and achieve.

Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and The Way I See It

Different Learners is superb. Jane Healy, one of the most experienced and savvy experts in the field, brings together a wealth of useful information and presents it all in terms all readers can understand. The book both breaks new ground and organizes what is already known in wonderfully innovative ways. All in all, an excellent and practical book.

Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Driven to Distraction

In her book, Different Learners , Dr. Healy de-mystifies the scientific jargon and research in an extraordinarily readable way. She casts a fair (but cautiously skeptical) eye on the latest developments in neurology, pediatrics and education. Her decades of experienceand her incomparable sensitivityshine through as she explores the current approaches and offers practical advice to parents, professionals and caregivers. Most importantly, Dr. Healy empowers the reader by providing specific strategies that can be used to create a brain positive environment at home and in the classroom.

Richard D. Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed., author of The Motivation Breakthrough and Its So Much Work to be Your Friend

From educational psychologist Healy comes a parents guide to learning disorders and the positive steps to avoid or reverse problems accompanying a childs diagnosis. Healy provides a very hands-on guide with anecdotal case studies, the latest brain science research data made comprehensible, and plenty of bulleted checklists covering symptoms, action steps, and advice. This is a ready reference parents will welcome.

Publishers Weekly

Jane Healy writes elegantly and eloquently to explain how the interaction of a childs genes and experience governs how the child learns. Why are so many of our children diagnosed with learning disorders? How do nature and nurture workor not worktogether to cause some children to struggle at school? What can we do to improve our home, school and community environments and thereby improve our kids brains? For all present and future parents, teachers, and others who care enough for children to make a difference, Different Learners is a very, very important book.

Carol Kranowitz, M.A., author of The Out-of-Sync Child and co-author (with Joye Newman, M.A.) of Growing an In-Sync Child

Different Learners makes sense of why so many children are now identified with learning problems, and why parents and teachers must move beyond labels to treat every child as a unique individual. There is much we can dowithout drugsto improve every childs emotional and academic learning. Jane Healy brings her deep experience to creating an excellent guide for parents and teachers dedicated to bringing out the best in each child.

Lise Eliot, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neuroscience, the Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science; author of Whats Going On in There? and Pink Brain, Blue Brain

A sensible guide for parents and a wonderful reference for professionals. I particularly enjoyed the insights on Stress and Brain Disrupters.

Michael Brody, M.D. Chair, Media Committee of The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; co-author of Messages: Self Help Through Popular Culture

The discussion of how our brains work is valuable to anyone wanting a summary of the latest information.

Library Journal

ALSO BY JANE M. HEALY, Ph.D.

Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Childrens Minds

and What We Can Do About It

Endangered Minds: Why Children Dont Think

and What We Can Do About It

Your Childs Growing Mind: Brain Development and Learning

From Birth to Adolescence

How to Have Intelligent and Creative Conversations with Your Kids

Simon & Schuster Paperbacks A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2010 by Jane M. Healy

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Paperbacks Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition August 2011

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Diane Hobbing

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Healy, Jane M.

Different learners: identifying, preventing, and helping your childrens learning problems / Jane Healy.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Learning disabled childrenEducation. 2. Attention-deficit-disordered childrenEducation. 3. Dyslexic childrenEducation. 4. LearningSocial aspects. 5. LearningPhysiological aspects. 6. Parents of children with disabilities. I. Title.

LC4704.H43 2009

371.9dc22 2009027287

ISBN 978-1-4165-5641-1

ISBN 978-1-4165-5642-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4391-7020-5 (ebook)

To Tom:

With love and gratitude.

PART ONE
Brain Crisis: Problems and Possibilities

PART TWO
Your Unique Child

PART THREE
Childhood in the Twenty-first Century: Pathway to Problems or Gateway to Success?

I n the course of an alarmingly long career as an educational psychologist, I have never found myself eye-to-eye with a student without puzzling about two questions:

What is going on with this particular childs brain?

How much of this childs learning abilityor problemcame from genes and how much from lifetime experiences?

Searching for answers has impelled and energized years of gratifying study and work. The first question has turned out to be easier to address because so much effort has been poured into brain research, although many questions remain. The nature-nurture problem has also begun to yield some tentative but vitally important information. Integrating this information for practical use has been an engrossing challenge.

In this book I have tried to view scientific findings through the lens of my own experience in teaching, testing, observing, raising, and granny-ing children and teens. I have written this book to help parents, professionals, and the kids themselves. However, nothing in this book is meant to replace professional advice from a physician.

People often ask, How long does it take you to write a book? For this question there are two answers: Three yearsor A lifetime. In either case, many people have helped out. I am most grateful to my own parents, teachers, and mentors. I also thank the innumerable professionals who have offered time, advice, wisdom, and research findings as well as the families who have candidly shared their experiences.

No book would have appeared without the assistants who keep my life together: Natalie, Valerie, and the eminently resourceful Emily. I also thank the staff at the Vail Public Library for cheerfully setting new records on interlibrary loan.