Quite a few of you know my story and journey with NACD, but for those of you who do not here it is in brief: We started our journey with NACD in December 2008. At the time my son Grant, who was five years old, was completely non-verbal, developmentally delayed, a flight risk, very stimmy, and had behaviors out of control. My husband and I were desperate for change and NACD gave us hope that one day our son might be able to first and foremost communicate with us and secondly live a happy and fulfilling life. I am very pleased to say that through our journey with NACD these hopes have become reality. He is fully conversational, a delightful young man, and living his best life. We continue to push forward and raise the bar on the expectations of him reaching his full potential.

In December of 2021 my dream job came to fruition, working for NACD as a coach, supporting families just like mine. As coach and now well into evaluator training, I have gained a different perspective through working with both evaluators and families. This has caused me to reflect on my personal journey with NACD and through reflection there are some things I wish I had understood more fully earlier on.

I wish I understood then just how important processing activities are as the critical foundation to global development. The background information I brought with me had me convinced I needed to prioritize other activities I felt were more important, like reading and math. These things are of absolute great value and importance, but the reality is the higher the processing is in a child, the easier these subjects will be to learn, and not only to learn, but to retain. Push to build the processing and the academics will fall into place much more easily.

I wish I realized that each activity on my child’s program is put on program with a specific intent and purpose. There are no “fluff” activities on program. Each activity is an important piece in building your child’s brain. Your evaluator has reason and intent behind each activity as to why it plays an important role. If you are unsure what an activity is accomplishing or why it is on your child’s program, ask us! The more you understand your program, the more successful you will be at implementation.

I wish I embraced the concept of pushing chores, responsibility, and self-help skills earlier on. I had my children learn chores, but I did not quite fully understand the bigger picture of what is accomplished through having a mindset of increasing the list of things my children can do. When it comes to chores it isn’t so much about what kids can do but more about what is happening through the act of doing chores. Chores build confidence and independence in kids. The more confident and independent kids are, the more intrinsic motivation they have to not only take on learning new things but are not intimidated doing hard things. Confident children have a “can do” mindset and this mindset overflows into academics as well. When this happens, they aren’t intimidated by working a tough math problem or learning something new, but instead they readily take on the challenge and with joy! There is another big piece of development that occurs through building the list of things a child can do, and this is maturity. Maturity comes with doing things for oneself and through doing things for others. We are raising highly capable adults. Highly capable adults are confident, independent, and mature. Keep raising the bar on the things your child can do!

Lastly, what I would tell my younger self when first starting our journey with NACD: Know your child’s program thoroughly. Watch the video tutorials and read the handouts from time to time, not just when you get a new program. You will learn something new every time you do. Ask questions if you are unsure about any activities or if something just doesn’t make sense to you. Take time to educate yourself by reading Bob’s articles in the newsletters and watching his YouTube videos. There is so much to be learned and the more you know, the better you will be at implementing program. Your time and efforts working with your child will be more efficient and your greatest work will be right before you, your amazing and unique child well on his way to reaching his full potential!

The post Reflections From an NACD Mom & Coach appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

NACD is a program designed to improve the development of the whole child. So we are addressing cognitive development, physical development in terms of fine and gross motor skills, behavioral development, academic development, and other aspects of your whole child. Our approach to home education (or homeschool) is, for many reasons, different from everyone else’s approach.

Let’s talk about some details. The design of each child’s academic plan is based specifically on where that child is in many areas of development. Why? The plan is designed to take advantage of how that child is able to process, store, and utilize information at the time that the plan is written. As the child’s processing level improves, the plan changes with the child. This allows us to make the most of the time spent teaching so that we are not teaching above the child’s level of processing, but also not teaching below the child’s level. This allows us to keep the child’s interest and allows learning to be easy and interesting.

NACD works with children not only across the United States, but in countries all over the world. NACD home education plans are designed to meet home education requirements where the child lives, whether that is in Ireland or Illinois, Australia or Arizona. The NACD staff monitor each child’s progress on a regular basis to ensure that we are making the gains we and parents expect to make.

Throughout the child’s academic career, the NACD program addresses improving short-term and working memory, as well as executive function. In the early grades, NACD’s academic program typically focuses on developing reading skills and a love of reading; developing a love of math and a perspective that math is really pretty easy; and an interest in learning all kinds of things about the world, including science, geography, and history, as well as learning responsibility and accountability. It’s designed to improve the child’s level of fitness and health. It is also designed to support developing interests and talents.

In middle grades, NACD’s academic program continues to emphasize reading and advancing math skills and understanding, but also includes vocabulary development, grammar, organization of written expression, appreciation of literature, as well as addressing subjects including science, history, geography, technology, and other subjects required by their state, region, or country. There is a continued emphasis on building highly capable skills, independence, and responsibility.

At the high school level, NACD’s academic program continues to be designed to suit the needs of the individual while meeting the requirements of the Department of Education where they live. The plan often includes higher-level math, literature, written expression, sciences, history, and other required courses based on their requirements, but also based on their individual needs and future plans.

For all of NACD’s academic programs, the parent is the key educator. NACD designs individual plans, identifies specific resources, and monitors progress through frequent communication with the parents. Formal evaluations are typically completed on a trimester basis. NACD coaches are available via email, phone, Skype, or Zoom to provide support and answer questions. NACD evaluators provide the evaluations and programs and respond to all questions and concerns on a timely basis.

What NACD home education programs are not:

• They are not a virtual instruction program.
• They are not a one-size fits all academic plan.
• They are not taught by an NACD instructor.

What NACD home education programs are:

• Whole child programs
• Totally individualized programs
• Cognitive development as well as academic programs
• Parent-supportive programs
• Totally responsive to changes in the child programs
• Efficient and effective programs

Additional information:

• The length of the instructional day is based on the child’s ability to process information.
• The instructional day is typically much shorter than other home education plans.
• The instructional day includes physical activities designed specifically for your child, as well as chores.
• The instructional day is flexible so as to fit into parents’ employment needs and other responsibilities and availability of help from family, friends, nannies, and other caregivers.

To learn more, visit our NACD Home Education & Homeschool FAQ

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 9, 2020 ©NACD

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by Bob Doman

My son won’t do what I tell him to do.

Mom said, “Stop it!” for the ten-thousandth time.

Why should I?

The kids are out of control.

You’re not the boss of me.

Susie won’t sit at the table and finish her meal.

I can’t get him to do anything.

Many parents feel powerless to get their children to obey. They try rewards and every “punishment*” under the sky, but the kids still ignore them and do what they want, when they want.

Even though I’ve heard it perhaps thousands of times, every time I hear an adult, a parent, tell me their little thirty-pound child won’t listen to them and that they can’t get their child to obey, follow directions, stop doing something harmful or dangerous, or do something important for their development and education, I am a bit taken aback. Whether your child is two, ten, or a teen you have power—if you wish to exercise it—to gain control.

Your child can’t eat something unless you buy it; they can’t watch TV, listen to music, play a video game, use an iPad or any screen for that matter unless you let them. They can’t go to the park or do many things unless you facilitate or permit it.

The things your child really likes are the things that provide you with parent power; if you are willing to use your power. Access to favorite foods or treats, access to screens, music, special toys, extra or special events, etc. are not in the category of necessities. They are things you as a parent can choose or not choose to provide. These things need to be perceived by you as special things you are providing for your child; not having them is not deprivation.

If I suggest to some parents that they need to withhold favorite items or activities and use them as rewards for compliance, cooperation, or trying, I will hear comments such as, “Johnny will throw a fit if I limit his screen time!” A parent who is afraid to control their child is the parent of a child who is doing a better job of using rewards and consequences with their parents than the parents are with them.

A rule of thumb with children’s behavior is that they do what works, regardless of how self-defeating it may appear to be. If you tell Johnny he can’t play with the iPad and he throws a fit, he is doing it because throwing a fit works; it gets you to do what he wants. He is punishing your behavior. When you need Johnny to keep himself occupied and stay out of trouble and he quietly spends hours on the iPad, he is rewarding your behavior of letting him do what he wants. If Johnny’s fits didn’t work, he would stop having them. The typical parental response to this is, “I don’t let it work, I don’t give him what he wants.” My response to the parents is, “How consistently do you not give in and let it work?” Even if the parent’s response is, “most of the time,” that isn’t enough. If Johnny believed you, he wouldn’t do it because he knows it’s not going to work. Kids are terrible with odds. You wouldn’t gamble on something with lousy odds, would you? It depends, doesn’t it? You might buy a Powerball ticket with odds of 1 in 292,201,338 with the chance of winning millions. Guess what? To your five-year-old, getting the iPad right this minute is more significant than 100 million dollars to them (at least in part because they may have spent so much time on it that they are now addicts).

Historically I haven’t found that taking everything away from children to be productive. It is and feels to them to be punitive and it doesn’t work. But controlling their one favorite thing, or a few of their favorite things, and having them earn them does work. There is a difference, a significant difference.

There are a few important principles for parents to learn in dealing with their child’s behavior.

Behavior Principle #1

First is the concept of opposite incompatible behaviors. If you take advantage of this concept, in many, if not most cases, you can reward a behavior rather than punishing an opposite behavior. Rewards almost always work better than punishments and they make us as parents feel much better. They also move us toward creating a positive environment.

Examples of Opposite Incompatible Behaviors:

• not staying in bed/staying in bed
• not doing a chore/doing the chore
• siblings fighting/siblings not fighting
• not cooperating/cooperating
• having a lousy attitude/having a good attitude

Behavior Principle #2

Second, if we are trying to start a new behavior, we start with a small demand and a big reward. In the category of behavior, we have everything from a child saying “please”, to a child playing nicely with a sibling, to taking off their socks, to working hard on a processing activity. As we get the new behavior started and are establishing a new behavior pattern, we decrease the intensity/size and the type of the reward.

Behavior Principle #3

Third, always couple a tangible reward such as a treat, a special privilege, or even money, with a “social” reward. A social reward means praise, a hug, a high five, etc. As we build the habit of the new behavior, we decrease or phase out the tangible reward and maintain the “social” reward, albeit perhaps at a less intense level.

Behavior Principle #4

Fourth, if we are using something they like and that is important for them as a reward, if that thing can only be accessed as a reward, it has much greater power than if it is just a way to get more of whatever.

How to Implement These Principles

Let me give you two examples of how to implement these principles:

Example 1:

You have taught little Susie how to make her bed and the expectation is that she will now make her bed before leaving her room in the morning. If Susie does not make her bed, do we come up with a punishment? Do we punish this “bad” behavior or find a way to reward the opposite incompatible behavior? After we have taught her how to make her bed independently, we tell her that we want her to make her bed by herself before she leaves her room and comes to breakfast. To help this brand-new behavior along, we kick-start it with a BIG reward. So, for example, you tell Susie what you want and that you are going to be very proud of her if she does this grown-up thing. If she does it, you will make her pancakes for breakfast with syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream. Then after breakfast, you will go to the park. When she comes out for breakfast, you go into her room with her to see if she has completed her job. If she has, you cheer, pick her up, twirl around and give her a big hug, then proceed to make her pancakes, and then head to the park, all the while taking opportunities to tell her how proud you are of her for making her bed. If it turns out she did not make her bed, say something like, “I’m sad you forgot to make your bed. I was going to be so happy to make you pancakes and go to the park, I bet you can remember to do it tomorrow. Without mentioning it, plain eggs for breakfast and no trip to the park; also do not make a big deal of it all. Any attention has the potential to be rewarding, so drop it and move on.

As we continue with Susie making her bed, we slowly decrease the size and frequency of the tangible reward and to some degree the intensity of the “social” reward. Day two of success may earn the pancakes with all the fixings and the trip to the park. Day three, the pancakes, without the strawberries and whipped cream, but no park. After day six or so, start making the pancakes randomly every two to three days, always praising her for the good job she is doing, and then slowly phase out the pancakes, leaving a new behavior pattern and small social rewards, shifting emphasis to new behaviors. We can now avoid the unhealthy pancakes again or save them to help start another new behavior, but only make pancakes when they are being used to build a new behavior—they’re special and have special power.

Example 2:

Sean spends every possible minute he can watching YouTube on the iPad and when you try to take it away so he can do some reading, chores or other productive activity, he throws a huge fit. Sometimes he wins immediately, and you give up and let him watch his favorite videos. Other times you take it away and fight with him for an hour until he sort-of does what you want and then is immediately back to his screen. Do we punish the negative behavior of throwing a fit and not giving up the iPad, or do be find a way to turn the iPad into power?

In Sean’s case we actually have a few issues. He is addicted to watching/perseverating with YouTube videos, he is being defiant, and he is wasting his day doing an unproductive and harmful activity rather than being present, engaged and learning. To compound the problem, the constant negative attention he was getting from fighting and often winning was making his world extremely negative. The negativity was teaching Sean to work for the negatives, not the infrequent positives. It was defining him to himself and others as a negative, unhappy, and uncooperative child. Used correctly, the iPad could not only provide us with power, but it can be used to develop new positive behaviors.

The first thing I would do with Sean, is to take away the iPad completely for a week or two to start breaking the addiction and to teach him that you, and not he, are in control. Take it away, lock it away, and tell him that he has been watching it too much and that it has become bad for him. Period. No further discussion, no arguments. Of course, he will throw a massive fit, but don’t argue, discuss, or give in. As soon as you convince him that he isn’t getting it (if you have an option like going with him and leaving the iPad at Granddad’s house, use it), he will stop fighting. Kids do what work, and when he decides that you aren’t giving in and that his fit isn’t going to work, he will stop. After a few days of peace, it’s time to use the power.

Our goal is to turn the negative behavior of Sean watching endless YouTube videos into the opposite incompatible behavior of working, cooperating, and doing things that are positive for his growth and development. For Sean there is probably a long list of things you would like to see him do, from specific chores, to reading, working on processing, to math. In the past, every one of these things had become negative and he would either have a tantrum and win or throw a fit and eventually sort of do what was asked, but neither well nor as an active participant.

To start on the road to the new Sean, we would define a task that is definitive, that is clearly accomplished correctly. Examples include things like doing five math problems correctly (make it easy), taking the trash out, or emptying the dishwasher. Sean is told that when he accomplishes his task well he will be permitted to play on the iPad for 10 minutes. If Sean enjoys playing good games or doing things other than watching YouTube, I encourage removing all of the offensive material, including YouTube, from the iPad before giving him access. Upon proper completion of the task, give Sean a lot of positive praise and then set a timer for 10 minutes and immediately let him play for the ten minutes. As you proceed with Sean, you would add more and more projects for him, and while maintaining all of the positive social rewards, you would also increase the demands and decrease the iPad time and start looking for other perhaps healthier rewards. As Sean’s world becomes more and more positive, he will hopefully start perceiving himself differently and being happy, while you are moving the tangible rewards in better directions and slowly phase them out completely. You should also be able to decrease the intensity of the social rewards. It’s important to note that another term for “social rewards” is “adult rewards.” As we teach Sean to be a positive active participant and how it feels to receive positive acknowledgement for his efforts, we are also teaching him to appreciate adult reinforcement and to become more mature and responsible.

Parents, learn not to jump when your child says, “jump.” If you are tired of your child pulling the strings and if you would like to gain control, help your child develop, and make his or her world and your world more positive, use the “power” and remember to use the four principles.

*Punishment—a consequence to a behavior that decreases the frequency of the behavior. If you continue to “punish” a behavior and it is not decreasing or being eliminated, you are in fact not punishing, but may be reinforcing a behavior with attention, possibly being abusive or punitive and definitely creating a negative environment.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 7, 2020 ©NACD

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We are often asked, “What does a day doing NACD Home-Based Education look like?” Let’s see if we can help you get the picture. The truth is, the picture looks different for every family and almost constantly changes. Every child and every family are different and so are most days. A typical day for a child with a brain injury is going to look dramatically different from that of a child on the autism spectrum, as it is from a child with a behavior/compliance issue, or a learning or attention problem, or a typical child. And the typical day of a preschool child is much different from that of a teen. The other significant variables involve the family’s situation. Who is home and how much time do they have to assist? Is mom home, does she have the day “free,” or is she working from home for part of the day? Is Dad available, or Grandmother or Aunt Susie? The nice thing about creating Targeted Home-Based Developmental and Educational programs is that each and every program is designed and modified based on the child’s and family’s needs. There is nothing close to one-size fits all anything. In fact, NACD Home-Based Educational programs don’t even need to be accomplished at home. More than a year of each of my two sons’ NACD Home-Based Educations were conducted at our NACD offices.

One of the very valuable things I have learned after 50 years of working with children and families is that we have to start with a vision. Your vision defines your goal and your direction and helps establish the road map to get there. When it comes to education, most parents are working from the perspective of their memory of school, which tends to establish their vision of what education is—it becomes the vision. Since most of us attended school, our vision of education is school, with all the good and bad elements. For most of us it’s difficult to create a vision of something that we haven’t experienced. For those who take the leap and decide to homeschool, it’s not surprising that the vision of homeschool is a replication of “school,” just without the big building. It involves lots of curriculum, lots of “work,” and lots of time per day spent on curriculum, not much fun, not much excitement about learning, and not much of an opportunity to target and individualize. “No pain, no gain,” right? No, not right!

In this article I’m not going to go into all that I believe is wrong, illogical, ineffective, negative, and virtually self defeating about “education” as it has become; but for the moment let’s create a new, a different vision of what can be. Let’s meet the Thompsons and their daughter, Katie.

As you follow Katie through her day, it may sound like she is the “perfect” child. At this point in her story, she is actually pretty close to the ideal, and most parents would give their right arm to have such a child. A nice vision! But as you read about her typical day, I would like you to realize that most of our “Katies” did not start off as this Katie is today, nor did most of our parents start off as the Thompsons are today.

Our typical Katie comes to us at about age seven with a variety of issues. She is pulled out of second grade or starts with us at the end of a terrible year in school. Our typical Katie (or Tommy) generally has processing issues and the global maturity of children closer to five than eight. She is not doing at all well academically or socially and behaviorally. She hates reading and math, wouldn’t know a chore if it jumped up and bit her, and is generally a very unhappy camper.

Typically, Katie’s parents are frustrated, and the vision they have of their child’s future is not pretty. They have bought into “more is better” and “no pain, no gain” and push the academics really hard; and it just gets more and more ugly and more negative by the day. The primary thing that Katie is learning is that she hates it all, that she is stupid, and life stinks. To turn this all around, step two after we create a new vision, is to educate and guide the parents so that we can turn their heads around. And we can.

Certainly not all families who come to us wanted to home educate because their child has issues; many come because they want to help their child excel. But for those families whose children have issues, the plan is to be proactive not reactive.

Being proactive, we are mindful of the vision, of where we want to go, and we understand that we need to put together the pieces to get there. If we are reactive we get it backwards. “Johnny is way behind in reading so we are going to read more and more.” No! That only reinforces everything that is wrong and broken and leads to bad outcomes. Proactive often means that you take a step back, identify the issues that created the problem in the first place, address those issues, and start the process by going very slowly and gently, and in tiny short sessions go about teaching Johnny to like, then love, reading, math, etc.

Catch up is easy once we have identified the issues affecting learning, and we’ve addressed them and are working to develop a strong foundation and create a positive environment and are turning the child into an active participant. Then we start moving into excellence.

The proactive plan requires steps:

Step 1 – Create a new vision.

Step 2 – Educate the parents and create a new perspective.

Step 3 – Identify any underlying issues.

Step 4 – Proactively address issues and develop a strong foundation for learning.

Step 5 – Create a learning environment that is conducive to teaching the child to love learning.

Step 6 – Work to put the whole package of the whole child together. See education as much more than curriculum.

The Thompson family has two children. Katie is eleven and her little brother, Max, is five. Let’s take you through Katie’s day.

A Day in the Life of Katie Thompson

7:00 a.m.

Katie’s alarm goes off. She gets out of bed, takes care of herself in the bathroom, and after her shower picks out her clothes for the day, dresses, makes her bed, and tidies her room.

7:30

Katie lets Scout, the family dog, out and starts preparing breakfast of scrambled eggs for the family. She gets the table set, brings Scout in, feeds him, and gives him fresh water.

7:50

Breakfast is ready, and the family joins her at the table and enjoys their breakfast. They talk about their plans for the day.

8:30

Katie has cleared the table, put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and cleans the kitchen counters. Katie, Max, and Mom head out for their morning walk/run.

9:00

They return home, and while Max does his morning dust buster search for whatever dirt, dog hair and bugs he can find on the floor and then tides his room, Mom works with Katie on some of her cognitive/processing activities (that are now at very high levels). Then following a protocol designed for her, they together read a short two-page non-fiction article that is targeted at her reading comprehension level of ninth grade and discuss the vocabulary and the story—short, sweet, and interesting.

9:30

Katie works on her typing. She is typing at 45 wpm and wants to hit 50 by the end of the month. She likes writing stories and knows that the faster she can type, the easier it is to get her thoughts down on paper. She has learned that she is getting pretty good at writing stories. The typing takes ten minutes and then she spends some time working with Max on his reading and math programs. Five year-old Max is already reading at a third grade level and starting multiplication with the NACD math program. Most of Max’s specific activities only take a couple of minutes each and are separated by a minute or two of physical activities like hopping and skipping, part of Max’s targeted physical program.

10:00

Katie checks her daily chore list and begins her list for the day. At eleven years of age Katie has assumed most of the household cleaning duties and loves that she has ownership of these “adult” jobs and can do them well. This morning she has the two upstairs bathrooms to clean and vacuuming of the upstairs bedrooms and hallways. While doing her cleaning Katie likes to listen to audio books; right now, she is into the Hobbit.

10:45

Time for another short session with Mom, and this time she is working on her math. They have just completed the NACD math program and are now working on algebra with Khan Academy. They watch the video showing the process they are working on and then do a couple of problems together and are done.

11:00

It’s time for another reading session of a targeted non–fiction story. This one is about Ulysses S. Grant. They review the new vocabulary, then Mom reads the story aloud, then Katie reads it aloud, and then they talk about the story. Today’s discussion goes on longer than usual because Kathy has done unit studies on the Civil War and already has a good knowledge base. She is grappling with the whole issue of slavery, race, and trying to understand where things are today. These issues are often the subjects of dinner discussions.

11:30

Time for Katie’s calisthenics program, which takes her ten minutes, and then she has some free time, which she chooses to spend reading a story to Max.

12:00 p.m.

Lunch time and Katie is teaching Max how to set the table for lunch, while she is heating up the chicken vegetable soup that she and her mom made in a big quantity together and froze. Mom, Max, and Katie have lunch together and talk about what they need to do in their vegetable garden after lunch. Max learns how to rinse and load the lunch dishes into the dishwasher, while Katie wipes down the table and the countertops.

12:30

Mom, Max, and Katie go out to work in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds, watering, and inspecting everything. As they work they talk about the vegetables. Max finds a cool beetle, and Mom takes a picture of it.

1:00

Katie pulls out their books on insects and bugs and Mom jumps online so they can check out the beetle that Max found. Turns out it’s a leaf beetle and Max is really excited and wants to know everything they can find out about the leaf beetle. Mom reads what she has found to Max and Katie, and they explore what other kinds of beetles might be in their garden and which ones are harmful. Max has become a bit of a beetle expert since he discovered dung beetles and spent a month exploring them with the help of his mother and sister and his Dad who got into it as well. Max already has his own little library on nature and fortunately can already read well enough that he can learn on his own.

1:30

Katie completes one of the two math process review tests she does each day, each time completing five problems of five different math processes she has learned. After completing the test, mom checks it and marks each of the four problems she got correct and sees she needs to do a quick two-minute review regarding division of fractions. Katie redoes the problem she missed, and it gets marked correct as well. Following the math test she and Mom do some shared high interest reading.

2:00

Katie completes her second math process review test for the day, then she has time to work on her exploration of Pablo Picasso. Unit studies for the Thompsons simply mean exploring things that are interesting to the depth at which they are interesting, which can vary significantly. Their studies by design are not structured and are fun. The word “work” is reserved for things like cleaning toilets and such, not learning. Katie’s interest in Picasso grew out of her study of Spain, which started with the study of explorers from one of the stories she and her mom read together. Katie is working on her painting and experimenting with trying to make her work look like Picasso. Her dad has learned to politely smile and encourage her when she shows him her creations. Katie works on her own and calls her mom in after awhile to get her opinion on a painting and to ask her about Antoni Gaudi, a Spanish architect whom she wants to study next. Mom tells her that she doesn’t know anything about Gaudi so they can learn about him together. Katie and her mom are learning Spanish together with an online course and actually use it together throughout the day. Max is doing well learning it from them as well.

2:45

Time for Katie to go online and do her NACD Simply Smarter program. Katie works hard to build her processing/cognitive abilities and looks forward to the acknowledgement and rewards her dad gives her for each new high score. She understands that it is her great processing ability (auditory and visual short term and working memory) that makes learning easy for her and thus fun. She enjoys the opportunity to work on it, and her parents appreciate having an eleven-year-old daughter with the maturity and executive function of someone many years older.

3:00

Time for violin practice. Katie has been playing the violin since she was five and has a weekly lesson and loves it. She practices for about half an hour. Unlike most kids her age, Katie wears a watch and stays acutely aware of time.

3:30

Katie’s two neighborhood friends are home from school and they play together outside for awhile and then come into the house to play a game. The three have become great friends. Between the neighborhood kids, kids in homeschool groups they interact with, the kids at church and on her basketball and soccer teams, Katie has a good group of friends and a healthy supervised social life.

5:00

Katie’s friends go home and she has some time to read before dinner. She is really into her book and doesn’t really want to stop to help Mom fix dinner, but she does so without complaint.

5:30

Katie and Mom prepare dinner together. Katie is becoming quite the cook and often prepares one of the items from her expanding recipe box all by herself. Her dad thinks she is going to be a better cook than her mom.

6:00

During the family dinner, there is some discussion on beetles, Spain, and Katie’s wish to be able to go there some day, followed by the bit on the news about the tornado in Oklahoma and what it must be like for those people living there.

6:45

Dinner is done and the dishes cleaned up. Katie, Max, and Dad go outside to shoot some hoops and practice basketball. Katie plays on her community league basketball team and really enjoys it.

7:15

Family movie time. Tonight, is a Disney movie targeted more to Max, but fun for everyone. As they sit down to enjoy their movie, Katie comments that her friend told her that she had hours of homework she was going to have to do tonight and how much she hated it. Doing her homework after dinner was the price she had to pay for playing with Katie and her other friends after school.

9:00

Katie gets ready for bed and has time to read before lights out.

10:00

Katie sets her alarm and lights out.

The end of another NACD Home Education day.

Katie’s days can and do vary significantly and are seen as flexible. Katie’s mom has the freedom to wake up in the morning and decide it’s a good day for a field trip or the weather is nice so they can go help Grandma with her garden. They also have the flexibility to go somewhere for long weekends or even accompany dad on his business trips and go explore new places while he works. As much as they permit themselves to be flexible, they do try to create a plan and a schedule for each day at home and try to adhere to it. The children are both excelling, and keeping everything positive and doing all they can to keep learning fun and on a good pace is paramount. The Thompsons have a vision for their children’s education and a vision for their futures. Their goal is for their children to have many options and to help their children develop their interests, talents, and passions with the goal of them becoming happy, successful adults. They are looking at the big picture, their children as the unique whole individuals they are, and are proactively putting the pieces together.

You need a vision and a proactive plan. We don’t get a “do-over” with our children.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 6, 2020 ©NACD

The post NACD Targeted Home-Based Education: The Vision and the Plan appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

He was very worried about the testing particularly in math which he explained was a real problem area for him. With great hesitancy he worked his way through part of the test before reaching problems that were foreign to him. He looked disheartened. Aside from schoolwork, Tim was an amicable conversationalist on a variety of topics from his family’s business to his hobby, magic tricks. Spending time with him had an immediate impact on me. We needed to help him resolve any obstacles that were in his way. With the help of his interested and enthusiastic mom, we were sure to get this done.

At his first evaluation, Tim was falling behind where his mother expected him to be. He was generally confident at a 6^th grade level in math and a ninth-grade level in reading recognition yet his vocabulary was strong. His auditory processing, however, was below the expected level and his working memory was quite weak. In addition, there was some mixed visual dominance. This combination of weaknesses resulted in his finding schoolwork hard. He wasn’t great at following directions. His attitude toward the work was often not good because he really wasn’t finding that he was very successful at it.

So, here was Tim, an exceptionally nice guy, with a very supportive and enthusiastic family. He’s perfectly intelligent, great with kids, great with elderly people and a complete pleasure to be with having lots of trouble with school. With auditory processing just below where it needed to be and working memory weak but still working and the dominance just slightly mixed, why was Tim finding things this hard? In reality, this is the perfect storm for a lot of kids like Tim. Slight weakness in auditory processing combined with a weakness in working memory and with the addition of some mixed dominance produces a struggle with schoolwork. Tim was certainly finding this to be the case.

Let us fast-forward 8 months and meet Tim again. His mom and Tim have done a great job and worked as a team to bring both processing and academic levels up. By November of 2019, he had pulled his math scores up to a 10^th grade level and his reading level up to above high school levels. He tests out of two reading comprehension tests at above 12^th grade level. His auditory processing is above average. His working memory is also stronger than average. He’s happy and confident.

The last time I saw Tim was in March of 2019 when he graduated from NACD. I really enjoy spending time with Tim and will miss seeing him. He’s volunteering with the local fire department, helps a lot with the family business as well as doing his schoolwork and still does really great card tricks. Most of all he is just a super nice guy who can go on with his education and his life knowing that he is competent and smart, knowing that he can pursue what he chooses to pursue without doors being closed to him because he finds something too difficult. He still doesn’t like writing essays, but he can do it. He still has slightly mixed visual dominance, but it isn’t standing in his way. We need more people like Tim in the world and it was my pleasure to get to know him.

Too many schools and parents fail to help kids like Tim who don’t present with glaring issues but are clearly having some struggles. The reality is that by failing to help resolve what is causing these problems, we fail to help them become who they really are. We restrict their lives by allowing them to think they are not as smart as those around them. I applaud families like Tim’s who take the time and the trouble to find solutions.

The truth about Tim is that he is a smart guy with lots to offer and a great person to know. I wish him the very best!

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, March 2020 ©NACD

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A lot of folks, particularly in the USA, have a hard time describing where in the world Romania is or are able to tell you much of anything about Romania (which unfortunately speaks to our educational system); but ask about Transylvania and everyone’s interest perks up and they conjure up visions of Dracula.

This last month I spent almost two weeks in the mountains of Transylvania with about 200 of our NACD family members from five different countries. We were practically under the shadow of Bran Castle, or what is widely known as Dracula’s castle.

This event was made possible through the efforts of many folks, but particularly little Tudor’s mom, Andreea Dumitru, and Teodora Pop, our NACD Romanian Coordinator.

Andreea’s efforts resulted in the advertising company Blitz TV sponsoring the event and arranging for free rooms and breakfasts for all of the families at the Cheile Gradistei Resort. Without this help many of the families would not have been able to participate.

There were two primary reasons for orchestrating the Transylvania Experience. The first was to provide a venue for an in-person evaluation for the children in the region, particularly Romania and Bulgaria, and the second was to provide an opportunity for the families to spend time together. To varying degrees families with children with developmental and genetic issues find it difficult to integrate their children into many, if not most, social situations. Getting to spend time with other families with similar issues who understand, permitting them to share support, encouragement, and to just be able to relax, accept, and socialize was a great unique experience. Sadly, Romania and the surrounding countries are often not very accepting of many of our children; so it was particularly important to hold this event in Romania.

Our Romania chapter, which includes many Bulgarian families, is certainly our most proactive NACD chapter, doing everything they can to support each other and to educate other families in their countries about the hope that NACD offers. Our families travel from around the country to participate and share their NACD experience at every possible event that they think might help another family learn about the hope for their children. They understand that NACD’s family-centered approach means that any family in any place in the world is only a call, an email, or a Skype visit away from their coach and evaluator on any day and that they can help their children irrespective of what may or may not exist in their area.

The feedback from the event from the families was outstanding, and everyone wants to repeat it next year, even with the understanding that we may not have funding assistance. At the families request, I have happily committed to coming back again next year (I didn’t have a chance to visit the castle on this trip, so I need another visit to Transylvania) and we will hopefully return to the same spot and show off and share the children’s progress and help generate some new memories to add to those we created this year.

Personally, it was a bit demanding. It took twenty-two hours to get there, arriving in the evening and starting the evaluations first thing the next morning; but it was truly a marvelous experience. These are incredible families! Being able to relax and interact with the families and share meals and a little down time outside of the evaluation process was extremely rewarding. Perhaps some of my greatest memories are of watching the children with issues and all of the typical siblings interacting together as naturally as if they had know each other forever. The typical siblings were amazing to watch. They instinctively knew how and when to help and how to communicate with or just be with a new special needs child they had just met minutes before. Speaking of communication, the majority of the parents spoke English and often an additional language or two, as did the children. I loved all the “Hi Bob”s I heard from so many of the kids who were just learning to talk as they walked in for their evaluations.

We have some hope that other NACD chapters and groups around the country and the world will come together and do more to help build their regional community of NACD families.

Lesson to be learned: We do better as part of a community that shares a common approach, common ambitions, and a belief that the primary responsibility for our children and the best people to help our children are we, the parents. We can make a difference and change the lives and futures of our children.

As always it is an honor and a privilege to be involved with such incredible families and children.

For more photos and a daily journal of Bob’s trip, please visit our Facebook page!

Testimonials from our Romania Attendees

TEODORA POP

I also wanted to write a few words about this experience, but it is so hard to write about everything in a couple of phrases.

For me it was an amazing and different and new experience, even though I am with NACD for 2 years and a half now and I´ve been before to Bucharest to help Bob with translations. This time I also took part in the organisation of the event and it was amazing. Meeting families for the first time, seeing other again and listening to everyone´s story, sharing opinions and advises and being there with Bob during the eval was a HUGE learning experience for me. I am confident that my decision to stay in Romania and dedicate myself to this cause and to the NACD families in Romania was the correct and the best one! I am honored and humbled working with the NACD staff and with all of you here in the Romanian chapter!!!

IOANA GRECU

The experience in Cheile Gradistei was beautiful and full of emotions. We waited eagerly for this moment. We couldn’t wait to meet Bob Doman, and the impression of him is a great one. We feel that he is a very good person and very involved in what he is doing. The kindness with which he is looking at the children makes you trust that what he is saying is good for the little ones. The parents are great, full of hope and positive. We left the place trusting in the NACD program and trusting in ourselves as a family that we took the best decision when we joined the program. The landscape helped us to relax and to spend some family quality time. Even though we had to leave earlier than scheduled, the presence of the other kids and parents made the days feel very short and filled with great moments. Thank you for everything!

IOANA RASPOPA

I need to say that we are grateful for a great weekend. Yes it was beautiful, but meeting with Bob (this time Matei was OK and awake comparing to last year) was a huge reinforcement for us. We also got really useful information from Teo and from other parents that gave us courage to push for more changes for Matei.

RALUCA BUSUIOC

You know what the experience at Cheile Gradistei makes me think at? We are thought that from the 3: frequency, intensity and duration, the most important is the intensity. So this experience was not as much duration as is was high intensity! Exactly like in the NACD activities: high intensity, so that you will want more!!! So that it will be forever in your mind and in your heart!

FELICIA TUSLUC

It was a great experience, both because of meeting people with which we share the same vision of recovery and of the joy in our children’s eyes enjoying the fresh air with us and other children like them. Meeting Bob face to face again revived our hope and trust in the complexity of the program and in our capacity to obtain great results.

PAULA SERBAN

For me this experience was revealing! I saw my child with different eyes and my soul was filled with hope. Meeting the other parents was as important, feeling their support and full understanding. To be able to talk with people that totally understand was something that I wished for for a long time. Besides the NACD family it is very difficult to find so much understanding and good advice. Now I feel that I have recharged ‘my batteries’ and we can keep going with so much hope. Thank you so much NACD!

RALUCA MANEA

It was wonderful seeing Bob again and getting to meet old friends that we have known merely in the on line. The children had a great time and loved to make new friends. It was a great time of connecting and reconnecting.

ALEXANDRA ANGHELINA

For us it was a first on multiple levels. Our first evaluation, first time meeting Bob Doman, first contact with a community of this type, first time seeing how a program looks like. So far we are loving everything that we discovered. We start this road filled with trust and extremely motivated to learn how to implement the program correctly.
The experience of meeting other NACD families was a great and interesting one. I can only bow in front of all this people that I got the chance to meet. They are an example worth following.

Thank you so much for this experience. And we cannot wait to see you all next year!

ANGELA HLATCA

For us, the Hlatca family, this year evaluation was another reason for hope and joy: after one year of vacation we finally were able to start the program again. We were happy to see Mr. Bob Doman again and he encouraged us and gave us new hopes for Tudor. This year´s location was a very beautiful one and we felt great there. The evenings were the best, having the opportunity to meet new NACD families and spend time together, to share experiences and to enjoy our beautiful children with which we played a lot. Mr. Bob Doman spent some time with us in the evenings and he is such a warm and very friendly person. A big thank you also for those who organised this very successful event!

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, July 2019 ©NACD

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For many children and young adults with whom we work, it is summer. For our families in the Southern Hemisphere school has recently resumed, but there will be those rather long school breaks. Parents often question what to do with these “breaks” and vacation times so that they really feel like fun and are rejuvenating.

There are some very basic rules here. If you stop doing something and your child rapidly forgets what they have learned, then that isn’t a good idea. When you resume working with your child, you will find that you then have to waste a lot of time reteaching what they had already learned before the break. Whether it is mobility, vision, speech, cognition or academics, if you are going to lose ground, don’t skip the activity! This applies most obviously to math. Reading is also an area, with our beginner readers in particular, where if you don’t use it you lose it. Having to start all over again with math or reading is really discouraging.

If you just moved up in processing or knee walking, crawling or creeping don’t stop now! Mobility can be done anywhere as long as you have a few things that you might need, a yoga mat, a blanket, an incline or a beach, there are ways to adapt to get these critical activities done without just staying home.

The most portable activity of all time is auditory processing. This take-anywhere, do anytime activity can just be rolled in with whatever is going on as long as the child is awake and alert. Get your inspiration from your environment. Whether it is numbers and letters from car license plates or colors you see in the woods around you, objects they can see at your vacation spot, or ingredients in your special meals, processing is adaptable.

So how do we make this work so that the children don’t feel like they are missing all the fun, and we are gaining improvements and not sliding backwards? Actually, it is really easy. We input review information quickly. We ask for brief output and we keep moving. This works well with math and sight words. It is fast and fast is pretty fun.

With my granddaughter, I love to show her a word card just for a moment and take it away. It always makes her laugh and she almost always gets the word correct after thinking for a minute. There are many ways to turn these fast reviews into play. We’ve had parents who had the children bounce a ball on a word and say it or squirt a water gun at a word the parents asked them to find. Words are portable, so take them wherever you go.

Reading is a fantastic activity whether you are reading to your child or he or she is reading with or to you. If you are traveling, you can read about where you are going. If you are enjoying a holiday, you can read about that. Funny books are great for breaks, funny poetry books or joke books are great for breaks as well. Reading books that you, the parent, love will make the summer or holiday more special for you and your child. Nothing makes a trip better than books on audio so don’t forget those!

Many parents and children agree that math is definitely not fun. Fortunately, there are plenty of math fact games and math operation games that make output a bit more interesting. I have had several parents do a very high-intensity strategy with math facts and greater than or less than. Using some very valued food snacks, the child is presented with either a math fact or a greater than or less than question. If the child gets the wrong answer, the parent eats some of the snack, if the child is correct, he or she gets to eat the snack. That’s high intensity.

When there are program activities to be done that don’t lend themselves to fun, check with your coach for ideas and also look at getting much of the program done early in the day, leaving the rest of the day to feel more like leisure time. During those times look for opportunities to do things you don’t normally do or go places that you don’t typically go. Uniqueness and novelty are good for all of us. It engages our attention, stops rumination and opens up opportunities for wonder and discovery.

I often hear parents refer to program as work. In many ways it is work for us and for the children. I would like you, however, to present it as an opportunity rather than work. It is an opportunity to win, to do something better today than you have ever done it before now. It is an opportunity to have a reason to celebrate. It is an opportunity to reach a goal that you have set. If we want children and young adults to feel empowered, we help set very short-term goals that are reachable. Each time a goal is reached, it reinforces to the child and to you that this progress is something you can achieve.

Today I talked with a mom whose child followed a one-step verbal direction that she had never been given before and this was a huge triumph. This turning point with a child demonstrating an understanding of language and a verbal direction for the first time was achieved through months of effort and determination. It was a victory and opens the door to many other victories to come. The brain is able to change through, you know the line, frequency, intensity and duration of the right input. So, it is not about breaks but about input.

There is another key feature of vacations and holidays, they offer opportunities to show off to other people. Whether your child is showing that he can now creep to his cousins or showing his grandmother how he can pick picture cards, read sight words or name things in a book, this is a wonderful opportunity for your child to get some high intensity, positive feedback and encouragement. It will do you good too as it rewards you to show others the gains that your child is making.

Childhood and young adulthood are wonderful times and we all have great memories of our summers and our holidays. Let us help you adapt what needs to continue to be done to suit your situation. After all, your child and your family are unique, and we endeavor to adapt the program to that uniqueness. We also have decades and decades (in my case decades, decades, and decades) of experience making program activities efficient, effective and often quite fun.

We share your impatience for success and improvement. In order to achieve this, we need continuity of input for sure. This input can often be done quickly. This input is often portable, and this input can sometimes be done while doing other things. So do not feel that you must either abandon your program entirely because you are on a break or struggle through it the same way you have always done. We are really here to help, just an email away. We have not only our own ideas and suggestions, but also the many, many great ideas that parents have shared with us over the years.

Summer breaks and holiday breaks are wonderful times when we can spend more time together as a family doing fun and relaxing things. Working together, we can help you find ways to incorporate what needs to get done with the things you hope to do. I encourage you to share your summer and holidays with us by posting on our Facebook page about your progress, your fun times and your wonderful child. Please stay in touch with your coach so that we can help make this your best summer or break ever.

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, June 2019 ©NACD

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Back in the ‘80s I traveled around the country, lecturing to parents and professionals. On many of these occasions I spoke to them about the importance of understanding and utilizing neuroplasticity, which with rare exception none of them had ever heard of. I also spoke about how the model of providing therapeutic intervention on a weekly or biweekly basis was contrary to what was needed to really utilize neuroplasticity. I also emphasized the importance of working with the whole child, understanding the whole child, and coordinating efforts based on the whole child.

 When I refer to the whole child I mean exactly that, not just “important” or “broken” pieces, not just what is obviously relevant to gross motor (physical therapy), fine motor (occupational therapy), speech (speech therapy), behavior (psychology), reading or math (education), or those pieces that are the specialty of everyone else from the neurologist to the ENT to the dentist.

Working with the whole child requires working closely with the parents, the people who know their whole child best, and gathering the information about the entire child. This includes their developmental and medical history, health, diet, sleep, self-help skills, sense of responsibility, chores, daycare, academic function and interests, schools, baby sitters or caregivers. Also important are the specifics regarding therapies and therapeutic approaches; interests, from playing with cause and effect toys to video games; activities, from church groups to horseback riding; sports, behavior at home and away, and their daily schedule. And then there are the specifics relative to how they see, hear, feel, and how they perceive what they should taste and smell; gross and fine motor function; how they swallow, drink, chew, articulate, and communicate, as well as all aspects of cognition which provides a global overview of where they are and should be functioning. Every piece is significant to the whole; and combined, the sum is greater than the collection of pieces. This defines what is referred to as the “gestalt.” If children are not viewed as whole and unique, they tend to be viewed as disassociated pieces and labels, not as unique individuals. This is only one of many significant pieces that underscore the importance of understanding the whole child.

The more issues a child has, typically the more pieces the child is broken up into, and the more people are involved in addressing those pieces individually, mostly in isolation.

Back very early in my career in the mid ‘70s, I was the Educational Director for the Center for Neurological Rehabilitation outside of Philadelphia. In many respects I was doing what our staff and I are still doing today, except with a much smaller toolbox, which is designing comprehensive targeted home-based programs for a wide range of children. Back then part of our team included neurologists and neurosurgeons, headed by the brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon Eugene Spitz M.D., who amongst other things was the developer of the shunt for hydrocephalic children. The structure back then was that the evaluators would each meet with our respective families and their child and conduct the evaluation so that we could create a profile/picture of the child. The profile was the foundation for creating their individualized program. The majority of the children would then go through a battery of tests that had been ordered by Dr. Spitz and his team, which were all carried out onsite and included everything from comprehensive blood work to CAT scans, EEGs, and cerebral blood flow studies. Following the testing Dr. Spitz would then meet with me and discuss the results of my evaluation and the testing that had been done. He would then call in the family so that he could make his recommendations, following which I would create their neurodevelopmental/educational program. This process was incredibly educational for me and for Dr. Spitz as well.

Being in a position not only to re-evaluate the children every 3-4 months as we did, but also to compare what I was seeing functionally to what Dr. Spitz saw with his testing, was invaluable. The tests and the EEGs were no longer these isolated pieces of data; they were part of a complete picture. One example of many of what turned out to be learning experiences for both Dr. Spitz and me was the observation I made that when kids were having dental issues, their EEGs were worse, often substantially worse, and that those kids who were prone to seizures often had more seizures. After observing this a few times, I very tentatively mentioned to Dr. Spitz that I was seeing this correlation. He listened to me, and he acknowledged that not only did it make sense, but he realized if it had not been for my knowledge of the broader issues, he would not have thought to ask the family about such issues. This piece of information affected how he adjusted medications and opened the door to our making other associations between health related issues-triggers and what he saw on EEGs and how the children were or were not medicated.

There are many examples of how a view of the whole child can have an impact on medical treatment. One of the more glaring issues that I have written about before is the effect of chronic middle ear fluid and its impact on the development of auditory processing and language. Another piece of this is that some speech therapists will make the recommendation to teach a child to sign, rather than working at getting the child to speak, not understanding the effect and ramifications of the child’s middle ear fluid, and not understanding that the child’s auditory and visual processing (short-term and working memory) determines their global level of function, not their chronological age

Well-meaning teachers generally perceive children with developmental issues as their chronological age, rather than where they are really functioning as reflected in processing ability and global neurological maturity. A six-year-old who is neurodevelopmentally three should not be expected to do the same work as their neuro-typical peers. If the educational input is not targeted to the developmental and educational level of the child, it is going to be ineffective at best. Inclusion is great, I fought for it for many decades; but if the instruction is not targeted to the individual, it really is only pretend education.

The group of people with their fingers in the pie that exists for most special needs children is presented as a team; but that is very rarely, if ever, true. A team implies a group working together in a coordinated fashion. Most therapists work in relative isolation from every other therapist who is working with the child. Each therapist establishes their own priorities, even though when viewed from the perspective of the whole child many of their “priorities” would not reach the level of even being significant. Some would define this as fine; however when viewing the total child, it is important that priorities be the whole child’s hierarchical priorities so that time, focus, and energy can be directed when and where it is needed most. There are only so many hours in the day, and we can only ask so much of a child in a day if we are going to maintain any respectable level of intensity. For a child with a developmental problem, we are always fighting time. They can ill afford to be directing minutes, if not hours, working ineffectively in the wrong direction.

Historically the educational, therapeutic, and medical treatment of children with developmental issues has become more and more compartmentalized. The net result is that vital information is often not shared between players, and the various people involved remain ignorant of significant correlative information. Furthermore, it is impossible to target, prioritize, and coordinate efforts and to raise and meet higher expectations without the direct involvement of parents and coordinated efforts focused around the whole, intact, total, and complete child.

Effectively and efficiently helping any child reach their potential requires targeted coordinated intervention that is not only mindful of the whole child, but that is led by an understanding of the gestalt. The child is more than just the sum of their pieces.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 3, 2019 ©NACD

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On January 26th I was given the honor of providing the keynote address for the Winter Home School Conference in Layton, Utah. The conference was a great success with a couple thousand in attendance.

As I was preparing for the conference, I realized that I needed to address an underlying systemic issue with homeschool, which was simply that the majority of homeschool families were simply replicating school, the very thing they were trying to replace. Just a couple of nights before the address, I realized that the key to this problem had been staring me right in the face. The foundation of the problem was, in fact, the very term “homeschool.”

I titled my speech “Targeted Home Education-T.H.E. Way Forward.” My presentation was aimed at helping parents understand all of the underlying problems and issues associated with turning their homes into mini institutions/schools. I helped them understand how building home education on the foundation of a curriculum, which is an anathema to everything we know about learning and children, was taking them in the wrong direction.

Home education provides an opportunity to individualize education, to build the foundation of learning, short-term memory, working memory, and executive function, the pieces that permit all of us to learn, think, and function in the world; and they are the pieces that can make all of our children smarter, much smarter. Home-based education should permit us to work with the “whole child” and help our children discover themselves, learn how to learn and to love learning, to pursue their passions, and become happy, successful adults with a sense of independence, service, and values. If we target what we are doing with home-based education, we can do so much better and even do it in less time than with a curriculum-based approach.

All of our NACD staff who were present and I were pleased with all the folks coming up to us throughout the afternoon and evening and announcing:

“We’re home educators, not homeschoolers; and we want to do it better and smarter.”

NACD Newsletter, February 2019 ©NACD

I wrote an article expanding on these concepts if you are interested in learning more:

T.H.E. Targeted Home Education:
Homeschool Renamed, Re-envisioned, and Given a New Way Forward
by Bob Doman

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Free with your NACD membership

NACD Math was designed not only to teach children how to do math, but also to help them learn that math is easy, that they are good at math, and to enjoy it.

NACD Math is now made available online for our NACD clients through the NACD Family Portal. The new updated NACD Math replaces Modular Math, as well as supplemental math books.

Lyn Waldeck and Sara Erling, along with John McCallum, have been working for the last two years to bring together the pieces of NACD Math. NACD Math is targeted for the special needs population, particularly for those children with Down syndrome, those on the autism spectrum, and children with learning disabilities who have historically had difficulty with math. The program has also been used with great success for typical children to establish initial math concepts and to teach them math processes from initial number and quantity concepts through sixth grade computation.

NACD Math has a long history of development and has been used with thousands of children internationally.

Math education for special needs children has been an issue, except for those who have been using Bob Doman’s Modular Math program. The reason our program has been so effective is that it is built around how children learn, whether they are on the spectrum, have Down syndrome, or simply are young. Historically math instruction requires a lot of words. A lot of words are not something any of these children process or understand well. Our math program is very visual and teaches the child just one step at a time; and it is designed to avoid the need for, or dependency on, prompts.

NACD Math has been designed so that virtually anyone can teach it. The program incorporates video step-by-step instruction, so the teacher, parent, or even a sibling can watch a short video and then replicate/teach the simple steps. Each math computational process builds on the previous processes, creating simple transitions from one process to the next.

NACD Math has permitted many hundreds of children with Down syndrome to start learning math even before their typical peers and often to stay ahead of them for many years. With the solid NACD Math foundation, children with DS have been able to move into algebra and higher math. To say that NACD Math has been helpful for this population is a gross understatement; it has been a game changer. NACD Math builds a math foundation and understanding that has permitted special needs children to advance into higher math and has established a foundation for typical children that gets them off to a running start and puts them way ahead of their peers.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 10, 2018 ©NACD

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To Get Started with the NACD Program,
please visit our NACD Get Started page

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Three Sets of Concepts

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Video Instructions for the Parent or Instructor

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Handouts with Examples of Each Concept

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To Get Started with the NACD Program,
please visit our NACD Get Started page

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