Helping Parents and Teachers Help Children 

"It is every parent’s responsibility to ensure that their child receives the tools to succeed in school as well as in life. This goal can be achieved if the parent begins to think like a teacher as well as a parent. In my experience, school success is often the result of a home environment where learning and achievement have become priorities."                                    Dr. David P. Sortino, Director Cal. T.C. 9200069138

RESPONSIBILITY

to Our Children

Educational Consulting & Testing can help parents learn how to motivate as well as help raise the level of school achievement of their children. This includes such strategies as study skills, homework preparation, test taking, problem solving and skill building. These are all the skills teachers demand of their students to become successful but are rarely understood or used by most parents. It is our purpose to provide you with strategies that you can implement and teach in the home. Educational Consulting & Testing can help create pathways to school success and learning. 

We Provide 

Workshops

 -- School Success or School Failure?

-- Attitude and Self Esteem 

Assessment and Screening

And More

For further information:

David P. Sortino, Ph.D., Director (707) 548-7216

davidsortino@comcast.net

P.O. Box 557, Graton, CA 95444 

PRAISE for Dr. David P. Sortino

“We met with Dr. Sortino because our child was experiencing a great deal of school failure. Through a series of assessments, Dr. Sortino was able to define our child’s difficulties as well as provide us with concrete strategies to deal with our child’s problems. Today our child’s attitude toward school has reversed. Now he actually likes school and his grades have improved dramatically!” — Parent “Dr. Sortino’s ability to define a student’s [learning or behavioral] problem is excellent. He can take a limited amount of information, pinpoint the stu- dent’s strengths and weaknesses, and then offer creative strategies that work.” — Principal “I turn to Dr. Sortino not only for his experience as an educator but also for his strong background in working with at risk children and youth. His understanding of both worlds is a plus for any parent or teacher looking for answers.” — Psychologist

 

Neurofeedback

Children With Attachment Disorders -

Healing the Paper Cut!

      Abandoned children often compare their abandonment or attachment issues to a paper cut in their heart, an injury that simply never heals. For parents of such children the pain of trying to heal the paper cut can be a life-long journey. Although there will be brief moments of recovery and/or a belief that the child will someday move beyond the painful memory of abandonment, the paper cut is always hanging over the child and family like some dark cloud. The problem is that there will mostly be lows and very few highs, which causes the parent and/or caregivers to constantly search for a cure to heal the paper cut.

          For most parents, the search for the magic cure is ongoing, often beginning with family therapy, which comes in the form of a trained therapist who has a specialty in dealing with attachment disorders. The parents feel a sense of relief that maybe they will learn how to deal with the child’s inability to trust, the child’s unpredictable moods and the child’s intense cycles of rage. The psychotherapy, which is mostly verbal, relies on the child’s verbal ability to trust the therapist in order to communicate his/her unpredictable emotions arising from mistrust. An experienced therapist will attempt to tap into the child’s brain or limbic (emotional) system via the hippocampus, seat of trusting relationships. The purpose of trying to stimulate the hippocampus is that the child will hopefully begin to experience a sense of trust that was lost during the critical period of infancy, the early months when the child bonds with his caregivers. Further, unless the child can learn a semblance of trust, the paper cut can only get worse as the child’s social world moves into play groups and school situations in which rudimentary social skills are developed and required.

      The opposite brain area of the child’s hippocampus is the brain’s amygdala, which represents the human’s survival mechanism, or a fight or flight response so prevalent with attachment disordered children. In other words, when placed in a constant state of survival, the child can never bond or establish secure emotional relationships, hence the term attachment disorder. Moreover, the more the amygdala comes into play, the more the brain’s higher centers are short-circuited  (empathy) and learning potential and intelligence are compromised. In addition, the chemical cortisol is secreted into the brain to further accentuate the child’s fight or flight mechanism. Therefore, like a metronome echoing the words: they don’t like me; they will never accept me; they will abandon me if I fail -- the child’s never ending cycle for emotional survival is the paper cut or black cloud that is always lurking. (This is precisely why so many children suffering from attachment disorder have so much difficulty in school, particularly during adolescence when identity and social relationships dominate). 

     Moreover, when one’s interpretation of social relationships is associated with fight or flight, another problem can develop and associated with the right or non-verbal side of their brain. This problem can be a serious detriment to such children’s learning potential and intelligence, especially when placed in traditional school environments where learning is predominantly a left-brain, logical, linear and mathematical endeavor. Not surprising, many children of this ilk often have weak focusing skills (the right side of the brain is associated with spatial intelligence), which is why they are often misdiagnosed as bi-polar, ADD or ADHD? 

      As a result, some parents will intelligently choose to turn to art therapy to heal the paper cut. The art therapist will address the child’s mistrust and let the child draw his/her emotions out on paper as a strategy to talk about their drawings. For the child, the drawings serve as spokesperson to mistrust and their non-verbal personality. For younger children the therapist can use sand tray as another strategy toward stimulating trust and communication. With sand tray the therapist provides the child with miniature figures to use in a sandbox-like environment as a strategy to connect the child’s feelings with play. Finally, sand tray as art therapy is an excellent avenue to stimulate the child’s visual and kinesthetic intelligences  (see Montessori and Steiner school curriculi). 

     Another group of parents turn to neurofeedback, a successful method that helps the child learn how to self regulate his brain by viewing videos of nature etc.

(Neurofeedback has been supported by the American Association of Pediatrics as having Level 1 efficacy (top ranking) in application to ADHD).  The success of neurofeedack is that it rewards the child’s brain when it is focused and inhibits or reminds the child when they are distracted or unfocused. After a series of 30 to 45 minute sessions the child’s brain begins to change (plasticity) from being unfocused, overly aroused and fearful, to one associated with less arousal and control. The ability to experience control, especially with attachment-disordered children, is a powerful experience for such children. Now it is the hippocamus rather than the amygdala that is stimulated, allowing the child to form positive attachments (bonding) and a connection to the higher centers of the brain associated with empathy and executive thinking.

 The above therapies represent the journey most parents of children with attachment disorders often follow for a cure to the paper cut and a persistent sentence of mistrust.

    The bottom line is for parents to look for long-term solutions, rather than temporary solutions in order to heal the child’s paper cut.   

Dr. David Sortino, a psychologist and current Director of Educational Consulting and Testing, a private consulting company catering to teachers, parents, students.

Mechanics of Teaching

                     

       Today’s complicated car engines often seem analogous to the workings of a students’ learning brains? And to continue the analogy, car mechanics and teachers do not get the credit  they deserve for dealing with the increased complexity in their professions. For example, compare yesterday’s cars and students with today’s cars and students and you begin to see the increased intricacy of care required in both professions.

      Years ago, teaching was far less complicated. Today’s teachers have to be far more trained and professionally resilient to teach students who have been exposed to public and/or private schools, charter schools, arts centered/home study programs, IB high schools, technical schools etc. And let’s not forget the hour-long versus block schedules to add to the mix. As a student, I had only one neighborhood K-8^th school to choose from. Further, for years, our public school teachers taught the same curriculum to my brothers, sisters, etc. There was a sense of stability, yet substance in the less complicated curriculum in the earlier teaching approaches. Conversely, our cars were equally uncomplicated. I could personally change the oil and do a tune-up on my 1971 Saab with little or no problem. However, recently I brought my (new) car in for servicing. My mechanic, a man with very impressive credentials that hung on his wall, hooked up my car to a very pretentious looking machine. The entire experience was now computerized and seemed far more complicated than the cars of yesterday. The same can be said of the teaching profession. In other words, teachers not only are required to have advanced degrees beyond a BA or BS, but must also be trained and possess certificates defined with important sounding acronyms called CLAD or SYDAE to name but a few of the certificates required to teach to different student cultures. And car mechanics often must be trained to service a variety of foreign cars representing different countries and cultures as well.

    In addition, today’s teachers must deal with what I like to call the alphabet soup of student labeling, which, only makes the teacher’s role more complicated. Teachers must be able to spout off and understand additional acronyms such as LH, SED, SDC APE, IEP and 504.  For the car mechanic, the language is as daunting: GPS, Hy-wire, ECU, ABS and so forth, but I think you get my point.

     And let’s not forget cost. During my time, the cost to educate a student was far less. Today, the cost is about $9,000 to educate one California HS student. As for cars, a new VW sold for about $1,999. The cost to educate a child is expensive, particularly if something goes wrong with the learner. It can cost over $100,000 to incarcerate a juvenile offender!  I do not need to mention what I recently paid for a major engine repair.   

        When you think about how complicated it is to service cars and teach students

we must go back to my original premise and give credit to where credit is due. When you look at the number of recalled cars and low student test scores, much of the blame should not go to the mechanic or teacher, but to the dilemma that teachers and mechanics must now face with the proliferation of the electronics used by cars and students. That is, when you are hooked up to cell phones, I-phones, computers etc. and cars to the aforementioned GTS, ABS ECU systems, the simplicity of the teacher/student relationship and mechanic/car has become a thing of the past. Therefore, the next time you bring your car to be serviced, think about how good your mechanic must be. The same should be said for your child’s teacher, or what I like to call the mechanics of teaching, as both seem to be cut from analogous molds? 

School Violence

Restorative Justice or Zero Tolerance?

The Obama administration’s push to eliminate a zero tolerance discipline philosophy in American public schools is long overdue. Zero tolerance is a tool that became popular in the 1990’s, supporting uniform and swift punishment for offenses such as truancy, smoking or possession of a weapon. Violators could lose classroom time and even be saddled with a criminal record. The recommendations encouraged schools to ensure that all school personnel be trained in classroom management, conflict resolution and approaches to de-escalate classroom disruptions. According to Attorney General  Holder, “the problem with a zero tolerance philosophy is that it often stems from well-intentioned zero-tolerance policies that too often injected the criminal justice system into the resolution of problems.” Police have become a more common presence in American schools since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.  However, what was missing from President Obama’s anti-zero tolerance presentation is the promotion of a more concrete approach which could replace the old policy - restorative justice.

For example, statistics from one study describes the effectiveness of restorative justice on recidivism, the inability for those imprisoned to avoid future crime. In the first year, the restorative justice offenders had a recidivism rate of 15% compared to 38% for the probation group. In the second year the respective rates were 28% and 54% and by the third year the rates were 35% and 66% (JA Justice, 2012). 

 

Brain scientists know the positive effects restorative justice can have on negative behavior, particularly with the adolescent’s brain. Again, one major difference between zero tolerance and restorative justice programs is that the dialogue is a face-to-face discussion about a problem. Face-to- face meetings stimulate the brain’s hippocampus which stimulates higher centers of the brain, potentially leading to rational thinking.  Conversely, zero tolerance is based on law and order or rules that are set up by authority figures, using punishment to obtain adherence.  

Therefore, the next time someone suggests using restorative justice versus zero tolerance in our schools, one can turn to a Colorado High School that has shown a great deal of success using restorative justice as their principal discipline policy. This Colorado high school, which has 75% of students qualifying for free and/or reduced lunches, showed a dramatic decrease in school violence after it enacted restorative justice as a form of discipline. The school progressed from a high of 263 physical violence incidences in the 2007 - 2008 school year down to 31 for 2013 – 2014! Further, the restorative justice program at the Colorado high school has shown not only decreased suspension rates, anywhere from 40% to 80%, but has also resulted in a nearly 50% drop in absenteeism and a 60% decrease in tardiness.  In short, the reason the Colorado restorative justice program works is simply because restorative justice is a more evolutionary/rational approach than zero tolerance in dealing with teen violence in schools.