It was a very cozy and pleasant gathering. We had the talk (without the slide projector due to technical difficulties!) and a very stimulating discussion afterwards. Of course, there was the delicious Black Forrest cake and pastries and tea too. In short, we all enjoyed ourselves very much. Even my co-workers felt the same way despite of the huge amount of planning and work that went into putting on an event like this. We really do wish that more educators could join us for tea and “shop talk” at Hycroft. It was just so much fun! However, we do know that this is a tense time in our public education system and teachers are overworked and they really do not have that much time to spare. For this reason, we felt really honored to have the number of guests that we had.

So, here is the slide show that was actually not shown on the day of the talk. Yes, “yours truly” (me) brought the wrong projector for the occasion and my guests had to listen to me speak without the slides. In fact, I was so flustered about the absence of the slide projector that I must have been incoherent when I spoke! So, I hope the slides will make up for my performance than evening.

(Please click “HERE“ for the slides.)

The message we want to get across is simply this: LD children do not necessarily have to be in a special school where all the students have LD. With proper support, they can do very well in a regular school setting. The school-based team, working together with an intermediary special education service such as us, can produce some very encouraging results.

Summer is a good time to jump-start LD intervention. Teachers should encourage parents to take advantage of this time to help their children move ahead!

We are having Tea & Talk @ Hycroft for Chinese-speaking parents on May 26^th, 2010. Chinese-speaking parents who find it hard to access special education services due to language barriers should make it a priority to attend this event!

Email us @: events@Learn2ManageLD.com to RSVP.

Dr. Winnifred Tang & Associates Learning Management Inc. is organizing a talk for Chinese-speaking parents which will take place on Wednesday, May 26^th, 2010, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Hycroft, home of The University Womens’ Club of Vancouver. There will be a tea reception afterwards so parents will have a chance to chat with all of us from the office of Dr. Winnifred Tang.

Tea & Talk @ Hycroft for Chinese-Speaking parents is intended to be a cozy and leisurely event. We want parents to feel comfortable talking to us about their children’s learning problems. The beautiful setting at Hycroft, hopefully, will help us to achieve this purpose!

Interested parents should contact us as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. All the information is on the flyer.

We have opened an account at HSBC specifically for Tea & Talk @ Hycroft. Parents can go to HSBC directly and make a payment for their tickets. Before they do so, they should email us at events@Learn2ManageLD.com to ensure that the seats are still available. We will send out the HSBC account information upon confirming seat availability.

The registration procedures were designed to reduce unnecessary paper work and communication. We hope you will find this method of registering simple and convenient.

See you at Tea & Talk @ Hycroft on May 26^th at 7:00 p.m.!

Our clients are often pleasantly surprised by how quickly their children begin to experience the sweet taste of success once we begin working with them. Our secret? We take an “uncluttered” approach to our work and we keep things simple and direct. And that can only be done if one truly knows what he or she is doing!

I like to tell clients that we prefer not to have them spend unnecessary time and money if we can help it. For example, most psycho-educational assessments take six to eight hours and that is very stressful for the children, especially for the younger ones. With us, we can have a high quality psycho-educational assessment done by an experienced and respected psychologist for much less time and cost. And here, I am talking about an assessment that can stand up to the scrutiny of scientists working in the forefront of research in our field.

How do we do that? Well, we make it a priority to establish a professional network of excellence. We have a good working relationship with professionals in related fields who share our philosophy of simplicity and directness. These professionals will not sell unnecessary services. They are happy to help you when you need them, but only if you really need them. Why? Because they have better things to do with their lives than trying to waste your time and theirs!

Working with quality individuals is our secret to success.

The creation of CHARD is indeed a step forward by the British Columbia Medical Association, the Ministry of Health Services and HealthLink BC. For the longest time, one of the major challenges facing GPs and other health providers in the province has been a lack of information when it comes to referring patients to the right professionals to get timely and appropriate intervention for children with learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are learning problems related to academic learning; the most common ones are reading disability (dyslexia) and arithmetic disability (dyscalculia).

Many times, I have sighed and shaken my head at the fragmented service delivery for those with learning disabilities. For example, we have clients coming into our office with assessments from medical professionals such as pediatricians or psychiatrists; when we look at the date of these reports, we cannot help wondering why there is such a big time lapse from the time the client was suspected to have learning issues to the time they finally found their way to our office on their own. There is no intermediary service linking the diagnosis to appropriate special educational services. Medical professionals and special education professionals must work more closely to bridge the gaps in service delivery so client’s interests are best served.

Hopefully, with CHARD, gone are the days of parents having to rely on the “grapevine” for information when it comes to finding appropriate special education services for their children with learning disabilities! Sometimes it just takes too long for clients to find their way to our office and precious time is lost.

And so I say, “Bravo to BCMA, Ministry of Health Services and HealthLink BC!!!” It is high time medical professionals and special education professionals join together to serve patients more effectively. There has to be a way for parents to access evidence-based interventions for their children that are founded on sound scientific research.

Let’s drink to the CHARD initiative which is enabling the formation of this very desirable and productive union between the medical profession and the special education profession!

Happy New Year!!!

Getting a timely diagnosis for injuries and other medical problems is crucial for a successful treatment outcome. Everybody knows that. The question is: how to we know which expert(s) to consult for our particular problem?

The gentleman who recently designed my business card is a case study of what not to do when one has a sports related injury. I noticed Tony’s (not his real name) crooked little finger when he stood next to me to show me something on my computer. Because one of my brothers has a crooked finger too from playing soccer, I asked Tony how he got his “trophy” finger. It turned out that he was injured in a soccer match as well! Although Tony was in great pains, instead of checking to see if he cracked any bones, Tony first tried to patch it up himself. Then he visited various medical people, from traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, his family doctor, to finally a specialist whose expertise was in sports related injuries. First thing the specialist checked was: the bone in his injured finger. It was cracked!

The story of Tony’s crooked finger, sadly, is similar to the story of many children who have a reading disability. Instead of directly addressing the reading problem by finding a specialist in identifying and treating reading problems, many parents don’t know what to do or where to go.  Sometimes out of desperation, a huge amount of money is paid to the wrong “specialist” and the result is disappointing, to say the least. This is where going to someone with an expertise in reading disability will get the most satisfying results for the child and the parents.

There is array of “solutions” for children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. The costs vary: $50 dollars per hour for an Orton-Gillingham tutor, tuition fee of over $20,000 per year for attending a special school for dyslexics such as Fraser Academy, and of course, in order to be recognized as being “learning disabled,” one has to go to an educational psychologist and pay between $1500 to $2000 for the assessment. There is a great deal of coordination work to be done and many parents sometimes get lost in the process. This is where our service comes in handy.

Winnifred Tang & Associates will help parents go through the entire process of identifying the learning problem(s), arrange for appropriate testing done by a qualified educational psychologist if required, design instruction, match instruction and instructional materials to the child, and set up supporting technology to help the child to be as independent as possible as a learner. At the same time, we try to instill in the child team spirit, that is, learning to find joy in learning by collaboration with others. In short, we manage the child’s learning for academic success.

The earlier one diagnoses the learning problem(s), the better it is for the child. If the reading problem was discovered in primary school, a great deal more can be done for the child. I remember one university student who came to me for help a few years ago. This student passed his first year university English course with my instructional support (and believe me, it was really intense and my blood pressure increased drastically while I had this student), but I just can’t help thinking that if he was identified earlier, he would be a far more confident young man with a better sense of his unique place in the world.