Offering professional reading support in the comfort of your home. Our reading tutors work with all types of reading needs, e.g. dyslexia. We are trained in Orton Gillingham and Wilson, and we travel to:
Manhattan- Upper East Side, Midtown East, Murray Hill, Gramercy, Union Square, East Village, Soho, Upper West Side, Midtown, Chelsea, West Village, Chinatown, Lower East Side.
Brooklyn- Kensington, Midwood, Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Ditmas Park, Boro Park, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, Ditmas Park, Kensington, Prospect Park South, Midwood, Canarsie, Flatbush, Crown Heights, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, Bay Ridge, and Dyker Heights.
Queens– Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City, Astoria
Long Island- near Baldwin.

For more information: http://brooklynletters.com/services/reading-specialists-and-interventionists/

Themba Tutors (www.ThembaTutors.com) is a new professional tutoring company employing highly credentialed professionals, who specialize and who have professional experience working with children and adults with learning differences. Everyone on staff has at least a master’s, several have doctorates, in fields related to learning differences, and their tutors make home visits throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. They strongly believe in a team approach and they work closely with families, schools, and professionals.

The students they work with are prepared to:
• Plan, organize, brainstorm, and complete their work.
• Read effectively and efficiently.
• Write fluently and structure essays.
• Learn and apply math skills.
• Extract important information.
• Communicate more effectively with teachers.
• Become motivated to be life-long learners.
• Feel more confident about learning.

They also prepare students for the following tests:
• State tests in Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science for grades 3 through high school.
• SHSAT for admission to specialized public high schools
• ISEE/SSAT for admission to private boarding and day schools
• Academic tests in all subject areas.
• Regents
• PSAT, SAT, PLAN, ACT for admission to college.
• GRE
• College essays and test preparation

They work with the following:
• ADD/ADHD and Executive Functioning issues.
• Language and Auditory Processing
• Autistic Spectrum Disorders, PDD, & Asperger’s Syndrome.
• Non-Verbal Learning Disorder
• Sensory Processing Disorder
• Reading Disorders, e.g. Dyslexia.
• Writing Disorders
• Dyscalculia & Math Disorders.
• Other disorders and learning issues.

They help adults:
• Writing, reading, and proofreading.
• Organization and planning.

• Paper management.


Their tutors help professionals perform better in the context of the work environment and help them use their strengths and work around their learning issues to achieve maximum effectiveness.

For more information, please go to www.ThembaTutors.com

Parents of children with learning differences are often faced with the decision of which type of evaluation will best meet the needs of their child. This decision is important to ensuring that a child is supplied with the interventions/supports that will provide the greatest potential for success.

A psychoeducational evaluation usually includes an assessment of a child’s social history, intellectual abilities, and basic academic skills (reading, mathematics, spelling) as well as a psychological screening. A psychoeducational evaluation typically includes 2-4 hours of formal testing, depending on the school and/or individual approach of the clinician. The results of this type evaluation usually provide enough information to identify specific learning disabilities/differences as well as to pick up on clear psychological distress that is affecting a child’s functioning. A psychoeducational evaluation does not provide the clinical or psychometric data required to reliably capture cognitive difficulties associated with attention or executive functioning weaknesses (e.g., ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder, or more subtle psychological/social difficulties. This type of evaluation will provide recommendations for very general learning and counseling support.

A neuropsychological evaluation includes a detailed investigation of a child’s developmental, medical, social, and psychological history and an extensive testing battery that examines a child’s intellectual, academic, attention, executive functioning, language, visuospatial, visuoconstructional, memory, and fine motor skills. A detailed investigation of a child’s psychological/social functioning that includes both a clinical interview and a series of standardized parent, teacher, and self-report measures (if appropriate) is completed. This type of evaluation typically includes anywhere from 6 to 12 hours of testing. For many children, the inclusion of a direct classroom observation period is ideal and should be provided. The results of a neuropsychological evaluation are intended to identify not merely any intellectual or learning differences, but also any other cognitive or psychological difficulty that may be contributing to a child’s profile (e.g., language disorder, fine motor difficulties, attention problems). Data obtained in a neuropsychological evaluation will provide the information needed to generate a very comprehensive description of the child’s learning and support needs. This description should be used to identify the specific learning/therapeutic interventions that will work best to support the explicit needs of the child.

Dr. Lindsay Whitman conducts comprehensive neuropsychological assessments with children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 4-21). A neuropsychological evaluation is most helpful to parents who suspect that their child or teen may be struggling with a learning difference, developmental delay, intellectual disability, or is experiencing difficulty with memory, attention, or executive functioning skills (organization, planning). This type of comprehensive evaluation may also be helpful for children who may be struggling with behavioral, social, and/or psychological difficulties (anxiety, depression) that seem to be interfering with cognitive and/or academic functioning. Neuropsychological evaluations may be indicated for a child or adolescent in whom the reason for difficulty is largely unclear.

lindsaywhitmanphd.com

Voice disorders result in changes to pitch, loudness, and overall vocal quality. Most childhood voice problems result from vocal abuse, e.g. yelling, shouting, and/or inappropriate vocal strain. Voice problems are also medically based, such as allergies or reflux. These changes tend to interfere with communicative abilities. Parents might say their child has lost his/her voice, voice sounds hoarse or raspy, or that their child seems to be using a lot of effort to speak. Research reports that children and adolescents felt their voice disorders resulted in negative attention and limited their participation in activities.

Intervention for voice disorders will include a full assessment (subjective and objective data collection), indirect and/or direct treatment (depending on the age of the child), and teaching of strategies for improved voice use, elimination of vocal abuse, and management of voice related medical conditions (reflux). Parent education and training is a crucial part of voice therapy, as parents will be responsible for implementing behavioral programs in the home for best voice recovery.

Lisa Rubin M.S. CCC-SLP is a licensed speech-language pathologist specializing in voice disorders. She provides assessment and treatment services for children from birth through adolescence who exhibit various forms of communication disorders (voice, speech, language, and fluency (stuttering). She received her Bachelors of Science in Communication Disorders at Boston University and then earned her Masters of Science in Communication Science from Hunter College (CUNY). Lisa holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and is licensed to practice in the state of New York. Currently employed by The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Lisa brings a medical focus to behavioral intervention. In addition, Lisa has held the position of Adjunct Professor of Communication Sciences at Hunter College since 2006, where she has taught courses in the anatomy and physiology of speech production, speech science, phonetics, and voice disorders. Currently, Lisa works with children ages birth to three years for speech and language stimulation therapy, the pre-school aged population (3-5 years) for speech, language, voice, and fluency intervention, and the school-aged and adolescent population for fluency and voice intervention.

Lisa Rubin M.S. CCC-SLP travels to your Manhattan home (Upper East Side, Midtown East, Murray Hill, Gramercy, Union Square, East Village, Soho, Upper West Side, Midtown, Chelsea, and West Village) and she makes Brooklyn home visits (Fort Greene, Brooklyn Heights). She involves the family in the treatment process as much as possible and she works with babies, preschoolers, and school age children and adolescents.

For more information, please contact Lisa Rubin M.S. CCC-SLP at lisa@brooklynletters.com

Self-regulation is critical to a child’s learning and development. Self-regulation is a person’s ability to maintain their arousal level and a level of alertness that is appropriate for the demands of the environment. Children and adults use various strategies and techniques to maintain self-regulation throughout their daily lives. Many of these strategies are sensory based and help our nervous systems sustain physiological regulation in order to participate in social activities, daily living activities, and other age appropriate activities. Sensory processing is a key ingredient to a child’s self-regulation.

Sensory information that our bodies process includes:

• Proprioceptive input: Gives our bodies information of body position and where our body is in space.
• Vestibular input: Provides information to our body about movement and changes in head position.
• Tactile input: Sense of touch through our bodies, hands, and mouth; allowing us to interpret what we feel.
• Auditory input: Sense of hearing, allowing us to interpret what we hear.
• Visual input: Sense of vision, allowing us to interpret what we see.

Our bodies take in sensory information from the environment and process that information, resulting in a behavior in response to the environment. When children have difficulty processing sensory information or have difficulty adequately registering the sensory information, difficulties in self-regulation can result.

Just a few examples of how adults sustain regulation on a daily basis using sensory strategies include:

• Chewing gum to help sustain attention.
• Going out for a massage or engaging in physical exercise when feeling stressed.
• Lying under a heavy blanket when relaxing and falling asleep.
When a child has difficulty with self-regulation, it can impact the child’s ability to participate in school activities, in activities of daily living, social activities, etc. For example, if a child has difficulty sustaining an optimal level of arousal and is very active they will potentially have difficulty listening to classroom instruction, difficulty following the classroom routine, etc. Another example is a toddler who has difficulty tolerating transitions and difficulty self-soothing. This toddler may have difficulty utilizing tools or strategies to assist with self calming, like engaging in a calming movement activity, getting a hug for comfort, knowing what to expect through a visual schedule, etc.

Here are a few questions to consider when looking at a child’s functioning and determining whether difficulties with self-regulation may be contributing to your child’s learning potential:

• Does your child have difficulty staying seated or sitting still during tabletop tasks?
• Does your child have difficulty transitioning between activities?
• Does your child have difficulty sustaining attention to a conversation, activity, or task?
• Does your child have difficulty self-soothing when upset?
• Does your child have difficulty filtering excessive noise resulting in difficulty sustaining attention?
• Does your child have difficulty following multi-step directions or multi-step activities without requiring assistance?
• Does your child have a low activity level?
• Does your child seem to get lost while completing a task, delaying his/her ability to complete it in a timely manner?

These are only a few questions related to possible self-regulation difficulties. If difficulties with self-regulating is impacting daily life and your child’s ability to participate in age related activities to their fullest potential, an occupational therapy consultation or evaluation may be beneficial. Occupational therapy can assess a child’s individual sensory needs and self-regulation capacity to assist with increase in functional independence.

Here are a few examples of techniques that an occupational therapist could utilize to assist you and your child with their self-regulation:

• Create social stories: creating a story about the child and identifying their arousal level (our bodies move slow, just right, and fast).
• Creating a sensory diet that is specific to the child’s sensory system and needs, to help provide needed sensory input to maintain regulation.
• Increasing a child’s self-awareness and ability to identify their own arousal level.
• Providing sensory rich experiences for the child to engage in to increase opportunities for the child to receive the sensory input that they may need.
• Engaging in sensory based community activities that provide the sensory information that the individual child may benefit from.

Dr. Neeha Patel is a licensed occupational therapist who offers a holistic approach to therapy, drawing from evidenced-based practice techniques, sensory integration theory, neurodevelopmental treatment, family-centered care, and a play-based approach. She is Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests (SIPT) certified, and has extensive experience helping children from birth to 16 years old with sensory processing delays, fine and visual motor delays, social skills, pre-writing and handwriting skills, as well as in their primary activities of daily life. She has worked with varying diagnoses including autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, developmental delays, developmental coordination disorder, cerebral palsy, disruptive behavior disorder, and down syndrome. Neeha has special interest and completed her doctoral work in the area of cultural sensitivity when working with children and their families. Neeha offers home, school, or community visits in Brooklyn and Manhattan (Upper West Side, Midtown, Chelsea, Clinton, West Village, Soho, Tribeca, Union Square, Murray Hill, Gramercy Park, Upper East Side).