From Salt Lake City to Ogden, Park City, and St. George, NACD has provided thousands of children with customized, science-based educational and developmental programs. Whether a child has been diagnosed with autism, down syndrome, ADHD, learning disabilities, or simply needs help reaching their full potential, NACD offers individualized programs designed to help each child maximize their abilities in both education and life.

How Utah Families Are Finding NACD—From Across the Globe

Despite being headquartered in Utah, many of our local families have discovered NACD through referrals from parents in other countries. Families in the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Brazil, and beyond have firsthand experience with NACD’s impact and frequently recommend us to families in Utah through Facebook groups, special needs communities, and word-of-mouth referrals. Parents from all over the world recognize the effectiveness of NACD’s approach, often before Utahns do.

It’s incredible to think that families on the other side of the world actively refer Utah families to NACD—yet many local parents are unaware that they have access to this life-changing program right here in Utah. NACD’s international headquarters is located in Washington Terrace, a short drive from Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Park City. We also have an additional evaluation site in St. George, providing in-person services to families in Southern Utah. In addition, families throughout the entire state can work with NACD remotely via video conferencing.

For families seeking the best possible educational and developmental resources for their children, NACD is already trusted by families across the globe—and it’s right here in Utah, available to you.

NACD: A Utah-Based Resource for Child Development & Education

For Utah families searching for the right educational and developmental support, NACD is a local resource that provides world-class expertise. Unlike one-size-fits-all therapy programs, NACD takes an individualized approach, designing a custom program for each child based on their unique strengths and challenges.

We work with children who have:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• ADHD & Attention Issues
• Learning Disabilities
• Down Syndrome
• Speech & Language Delays
• Processing Disorders
• Brain Injuries
• Accelerated & Gifted Learners
• Homeschooling Families – Watch Our Free Homeschool Seminar

In addition to working with children with developmental and learning challenges, NACD also helps homeschooling families, typical children, and those struggling with behavioral challenges reach their full potential. Whether a child needs help excelling academically, improving focus, addressing behavior, or enhancing processing and cognitive skills, our individualized approach is designed to support their education and overall development.

NACD & Utah Scholarships

We know that finding the right resources for a child’s education and development can be overwhelming, especially when cost is a concern. That’s why NACD is an approved vendor for the Utah Fits All Scholarship, making it easier for families to access our services. We are also an approved vendor for the Children First Education Fund, providing additional financial support options for families.

You can find NACD listed as an approved vendor on the Utah Fits All website here.

For Utah families looking for individualized educational and developmental support, NACD is a world-class resource that has been hidden in plain sight. Families from all over the world trust us—now it’s time for more Utah families to discover what’s available right here at home.

Learn More & Get Started

Want to see if NACD is a good fit for your child? Learn more about our Get Started Process or contact us at info@nacd.org to schedule a free informational call.

Check out real success stories, expert insights, and more on our NACD YouTube Channel.

Don’t miss out on this life-changing resource that’s been right here in Utah all along!

The post Utah’s Best Resource for Child Development & Education appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

Many parents of special needs children, as well as children with attention and learning related problems, mistakenly believe their children are receiving a good, real opportunity for development and education from the schools. With rare exception neither public nor private schools are equipped to provide these children with a real opportunity. What does opportunity look like, and how do we help the children realize their innate potential?

A sad reality is that the typically perceived potential for all our children, and particularly our special needs children, is not truly based on their innate potential, but rather it is defined by the very limited opportunities provided by public schools, and most private schools, and the outcomes they produce.

Opportunity Defines Potential and Determines Outcomes

The range of individual function in a typical or special needs classroom is tremendous. In a typical classroom the reading, math, and other educational levels range in years, not months; but everyone is generally placed in the same curriculum and at the same spot in the curriculum. The instruction is based on the month and year of where the class is in the curriculum. In addition to the huge range of educational levels in the classroom, the level of individual processing abilities (short-term and working memory levels, the ability to process and understand the information) varies tremendously, as do the individuals’ actual knowledge base, and learning strengths and weaknesses. Our children are all unique; and the more targeted their education is to their specific needs, the more effective.

The greater the developmental and learning challenges, the greater the variability of function, the more specific their requirements, and the greater the need for targeted intervention– “targeted” as in designed for the individual child and administered one to one.

How does the public education system determine potential and define opportunity?

Perceived potential defines what is determined to be appropriate educational and therapeutic opportunity, as defined by the public educational system. The potential is based on expectations and prognosis, while the prognosis is based on the past failures. The past failures in turn are the reflection of the realities of limited opportunity, the result of budget restraints and previous outcomes.

The Reality of School Aides

If your child is “fortunate” they are provided with a 1:1 aide. Parents generally mistakenly believe that the aide is providing a targeted program designed for your child. This is rarely the case. Often the aide assists your child in walking through a dumbed down version of the school curriculum or a version of the “special” curriculum. Aides generally assist and prompt the child through whatever is deemed appropriate work, rather than providing targeted teaching. They are not teachers and are not expected to be. They aid, as in assist, which often impairs rather than facilitates real education and often results in prompt dependency.

Physical, Speech, and Occupational Therapy

Many parents believe that their children who need specific therapies need to attend school so that they can receive the therapy they need. The reality is that one or two twenty to thirty minute sessions of “therapy” per week is not enough to produce significant change and certainly does not define a real opportunity. Very few school therapists would really define what they are providing as adequate. But, once again, outcomes predict potential and thus determine what is considered an appropriate opportunity. Sadly, the same criteria has been used by insurance companies to define appropriate opportunity, and thus limit how much therapy they will cover. Fortunately, most children with developmental issues do not need rehabilitation therapy; they need developmental opportunities that generally do not require a therapist.

Neuroplasticity

All individual development reflects and is the result of neuroplasticity, the process by which the brain changes in response to stimulation. The foundation of neuroplasticity is targeted input delivered with frequency, intensity, and duration.

Targeted input refers to specific input, specific as to the child; and because every child is different, the program needs to be designed around a comprehensive understanding of the whole child. All children are complex; and the more specific issues the child has, the more complex they are, as are their needs.

Labels

When schools started providing “special” services for special needs children and those with attention and learning challenges, the need existed for them to have administrative labels, so as to classify the children. The labels and classifications served as a means for the system to lower expectations and an excuse for the system to fail. One hundred or one hundred thousand children labeled as dyslexic or as having attention deficit, as an example, are all different and are categorized and stigmatized by a symptomatic label. They don’t have a disease, let alone an incurable disease; and they are all different. If they are all perceived as the same, then their needs are perceived to be the same, and their opportunities dictated by the expected outcomes. All the children with these labels are unique and complex, as are all labeled children, each with a multitude of different significant pieces that need to be understood and addressed if they are to be given a real opportunity to achieve their unique potential.

The Whole Child

You cannot successfully address a piece of a child without a comprehensive understanding of the whole child.

Who are the world’s greatest authorities on a specific child? The parents.

It is impossible to understand a child and provide a child with a real opportunity without the parents being in charge, the parents who know the whole child and who are ultimately responsible for the future adult. A dysfunctional 30-year-old child is not going to be living with their old teacher, or school principal, or therapist; they are going to be living with their parents or in some form of institution

What is the whole child? To understand the whole child, you must know and understand their history from birth to today– their birth history, their medical history, their developmental history, their educational history, their social and behavioral history. Who they are today is a reflection of their entire history and much more, including: any and all neurological/structural and physical issues, their sleep, their diet, current medical issues, behavior issues, social function, how they are on days when they don’t feel well or didn’t sleep well, what their relationship is with their parents, siblings, grandparents, extended family, friends, with their church or other organizations, what is fun, how do they engage themselves, how much screen time do they have, how is their vision, their hearing, their auditory and visual processing, short-term and working memory, do they have any executive function, exactly what do they know and understand, what are they afraid of, what do they like, what do they hate and on and on and on. All of these factors and many more need to be part of the consideration as to what they, these unique children who have never existed before on the planet and never will again, need. How do we target them?

How do you look at a label and determine what is appropriate for any child? You simply cannot define potential nor adequately work with a piece of a child without understanding the whole child.

Public education may pay some lip service to parents, but parents are generally perceived as the people the school sends the child home to at the end of the school day.

Reactive vs Proactive

Schools apply a reactive management strategy to the child’s development and education, meaning that the goals and thus the applications are not based on a long-term vision of what can be based on appropriate opportunity, but what is based on limited opportunity. Examples range from a perspective that the child really doesn’t have the potential to be functional in reading and math, therefore the “reading and math” programs provided aren’t really expected to produce a long-term result of someone who can actually read and understand math. If the perception is that a five-year-old really isn’t going to be able to speak and use language, then augmentative communication is the reactive approach. If the perception is that the child will never be an independent walker, then the reactive approach is not aimed at that goal, but rather life in a wheelchair or possibly a walker.

To work with a child proactively means that you are doing things today understanding and anticipating the long-term effects. What is seen as potential dictates the steps needed to achieve it and to work proactively, not reactively.

Shared Vision and Goals

Everyone involved with a child needs to share a common vision and goals. The primary voice in determining the vision and goals needs to be that of the parents. Parents can be assisted in this process with the help of those who have worked with and through families and their whole children for many decades.

A Better Way: Plan B

Home/Family Based Whole Child Comprehensive Programs

NACD (National Association for Child Development) has for over forty years been at the forefront of redefining opportunity and potential and has developed a toolbox of over 3000 specific techniques that can provide targeted intervention within the home and applied by parents, siblings, and caregivers. NACD focuses on providing individualized, home-based programs to children with special needs, those with learning and attention issues, as well as “typical” children, optimizing opportunity, changing perceptions and outcomes. This approach offers several advantages over public schools:

1. Individualized attention: NACD programs are tailored to the specific needs of each unique child, rather than labeling and plugging the child into an “appropriate” curriculum.
2. Home-based programs: NACD programs are best done at home five days per week. Each comprehensive targeted program maximizes neuroplasticity through short, intense activities that can be provided many times a day, rather than a couple of times per week.
3. Flexible scheduling: Parents can choose when to work with their child, which allows for schedules that work best for the family. It also provides the opportunity for targeted social interaction outside of the school walls. It’s not the quantity of time that a child spends in the company of other children, it is the quality and structure of the time. The reality is often whether or not a child can survive the social world of schools, not if they have learned how to appropriately interact and have developed positive social skills and lives.
4. Holistic approach: The NACD program focuses on the whole child, not just their academic needs, by addressing health and nutrition, motor skills, cognitive skills, speech, social and emotional development, behavior and much more–the whole child, and the whole child within the context of the family. NACD is constantly developing, exploring, and assessing new methods and treatments, bringing state of the art information and resources to bear on the child’s issues and needs.
5. Targeted input, delivered with the needed frequency, intensity, and duration by the people who know and care the most defines a new opportunity and changes outcomes.
6. Tri-annual evaluations and ongoing support, coaching, and interaction help keep everyone on target, working effectively and efficiently, and moving together to achieve the vision.

Learn more about how the NACD Program helps parents homeschool children with special needs:

      Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 36 No. 3, 2023 ©NACD

The post Homeschool & Special Needs Children appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

Whether you have a gifted or typical child, a child with learning or attention issues or special needs, parents need to understand what their role is, and the role, if any, of schools.

More and more parents are realizing that the one size fits all education—just plug them in and let the chips fall where they may—just may not be doing the job for their children. Some parents are ready to explore the options and are looking for a long-term plan, while others want to help their children catch up or give them a boost so they can return them to school, but at the top of the heap.

This may be the time for a change.

Questions every parent should ask themselves:

Is parental involvement in a child’s development important?

Absolutely, and the more the parents are involved with their child’s development and education, the better. Parental involvement is the single greatest factor affecting a child’s development, education, and future.

Can parents be educators/teachers?

Parents are the child’s first, best, and most important educators/teachers. Who teaches children to understand and speak their language, a foreign language? Who teaches your children how to take care of themselves from feeding themselves to toilet training, to dressing, bathing, and grooming, etc.? Who teaches your child how to behave appropriately? Who teaches your children how to throw a ball, set the table, do the dishes, mow the lawn? Who teaches your children about family, respect, compassion, responsibility, faith, religion, and probably at least the basics of reading and math and more and more and more? The truth is that on graduation from high school, measuring what your child has learned as opposed to what they were “taught” and have forgotten, the odds are that what the children actually learned from involved parents significantly outweighs what the schools “taught.” Your child’s future as an adult is more a reflection of lessons learned from parents than schools. 

Who knows your whole child best?

Involved parents know their child the best and are the only people who know their whole child.

Do teachers, therapists, psychologists, and doctors know your whole child?

No, they temporarily deal with pieces of your child, not your whole child. How often have you had a new teacher or any other professional for that matter go out of their way to ask you, the experts, about your child?

Who needs to be in charge and steering the ship, those who only think they understand your child, looking at pieces, or parents who know their whole child?

Parents. Those dealing with pieces of your child never do or can understand your whole child.

Whose vision of the child should be directing the outcomes?

Parents, your child is your child. Those working with your child should be helping you fulfill your vision.

Have parents been largely encouraged to abdicate their roles to the professionals over the last 50 years?

Yes, the trend has been to let the professionals take charge. Parents are often perceived as irrelevant or even as interfering pieces of the equation.

Are the teachers, schools, psychologists, etc. responsible for your child’s education and future?

These folks will often tell parents that they, the experts, are responsible, and you need to trust their training, their vision, and that you and your child need to follow their direction. The system doesn’t grade the teachers, psychologists, and therapists based on how your child does, they grade your children. They, the professionals, don’t fail, your child does. While they are well meaning, their role is limited and transient. Transients working with pieces of your child are not responsible for your child’s future. If they fail in their job, your child won’t be living in their basement when they’re thirty.

Should schools be viewed as a tool in the parent’s toolbox that they can choose to use or not, and if so to what extent?

For many families today, school is an option, not a foregone conclusion. Some families do not have a choice, but for those who do, school needs to be perceived as optional—there if and when needed.

If you take your child out of school, how hard is it for them to return?

In most states if you decide to take your child out of school, you can do it tomorrow. Just let the school know that you are going with another plan. In a few states it is a tad more involved, but not much. And generally, to put them back in requires nothing more than contacting the school. For some children a placement test may be part of the process; but every child can attend public school when the parents choose, with the possible temporary exception of children who have been expelled. The bottom line is that it is rarely an issue to remove your child from school or to put them back in. 

Ultimately who is responsible for your child and their future?

You are!

Do children with learning and attention problems, with special needs or the gifted require schools to address their specific individual needs?

The reality is the educational system is not able to individualize and provide for “typical” children, let alone those with greater needs. Children in need of specific therapies need those therapies multiple times per day, not once or twice a week for 30 minutes. That is what the school can provide, not what the children need. At best schools can plug children into different levels of their curriculum or change the pace, but they do not and cannot create curriculums to fit individual children.

Is group/classroom, or set curriculum an efficient, effective way to educate?

Group/classroom instruction is a means to mass education but is by no means the best way to educate an individual. Individual targeted education is by far more efficient and effective, and the younger the child the more important it is. Two minutes of targeted 1:1 education for younger children or those with special needs can easily be more effective than an hour of group, set curriculum-based education.

Do children need to attend schools for their social development?

Social interaction in most schools occurs at minimally supervised times, such as recess, in the hallways and restrooms. If your child is not learning how to interact socially at home, they will often have social issues at school. And school provides a great opportunity for bullying, and the greater your child’s need for positive social interaction, the greater the targets they are for exclusion and bullying. There are many supervised social opportunities that exist outside the school setting that afford better opportunities for social engagement than school, including church groups, Scouts, 4H, community sports, and martial arts, not to mention family, extended family, and so on

What education can and should be: home-based education

Many parents who had previously just assumed that their children had been receiving a good, if not quality, educational opportunity are starting to pay attention. “Virtual” schooling gave many parents a better look into their child’s curriculum than ever before; and many were rather shocked at how inappropriate much of it was for their child and how far it was removed from fitting or targeting their child.

The reality is that mass education, schools, and set curriculums are not producing good or what should be considered acceptable results for most children, even if our children apparently are doing well. The United States in 2018 ranked 30^th in math, 8^th in reading, and 11^th in science internationally. So much for the myth that we have a great educational system. It is certainly nothing to brag about. And to maintain perspective, think about what countries might rank above the U.S. and how good their educational systems actually are.

Many families are beginning to really examine school as they now see it to be and are considering alternatives. At the same time many work and home situations have changed; and as a result, more and more parents are finding that they can work from home for at least part of the day, or that they can do fine on one salary,weighing a new car when the old one runs just fine against assuming a more active role in their child’s education and future. If one parent could be home educating the children, even if for part of the day, it opens alternatives that may not have been perceived before. We tend to forget what was, but to gain perspective, in 1967 49% of mothers were stay-at-home moms. That number dropped to 23% in 1999 and has climbed a bit, but is still only 29%.

Many parents see their options as perhaps more limited than they need to be. The options list often includes public school, charter schools, or private schools, which are often prohibitively expensive and not necessarily better than public schools. Or there are home-based online schools that just plug children into a curriculum and keep them attached to a screen all day. Or traditional homeschool that tends to take up most of the child’s and parent’s day and just replaces one packaged curriculum for another. Packaged curriculums that children are plugged into are the bane of education and disregard our children as unique individuals. They ignore neuroplasticity and the value of targeted input, the child’s interest in and relationship to the input, affecting the intensity of the input and the effect on the brain.

What most folks think of as homeschool is not at all what home-based education started out being or can be. Homeschool as most parents think of it is essentially recreating school at home. A ton of curriculum/”stuff” that no one really expects the child to learn, nothing targeted, nothing specific to the child, and like school, most likely to produce less than stellar results.

What’s the latest U.S. literacy rate?

There is one huge piece missing from school and many homeschool curriculums—the child. What is taught, when, and how should be based on the child, the child’s level of development, their processing ability (link to Processing article), the child’s level of academic function, the child’s interests, the understanding of the needs of the whole child, and the vision. The needs of the whole child go way beyond curriculum, including turning the child on to learning, making them readers, and learning to love learning, learning that they don’t need to be hand fed to learn (they can do it themselves), teaching the child how to think, be responsible, including owning chores, and how to take care of themselves from cooking to laundry. From how to earn, save, invest, and how to learn about and even engage in entrepreneurship, to having an adult rather than peers teach them about appropriate behavior, morality, faith, respect, values, family, etc. Providing them with an opportunity to develop strong processing, short-term and working memory, which translates into greater maturity, better executive function, and simply, being smarter; and to have the encouragement and flexibility to explore and develop their interests, talents, and passions.

Achieving our vision for our children requires much more than classes and grades, and if we understand the reality of the needs of our whole child, we understand the reality that the time and energy required by school or packaged curriculum does not leave the time and energy to put together the whole package, the whole child. Targeting academic education to fit the child is so efficient that the time needed to educate them per day is a fraction of what school or typical home school requires.

The parent’s job is to turn their children into happy, well adjusted, successful, contributing adults who have the tools to succeed at something they are passionate about. Giving birth is just the beginning; the job, the responsibility, and the privilege of parenting involves years of active participation.

Unfortunately, many parents do not start off with a vision. But all parents need a vision of what their child—this wonderful, unique new person—can be. Start with that vision, then actively work with your child, getting to know them and permitting them to learn and understand, and you can then together continue to develop the vision and bring it to fruition.

As someone once said, “Look where you’re going and go where you’re looking.” Take responsibility and take charge.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 35 No.2, 2022 ©NACD

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The post Educational Options 2022 appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

I wish I could say how great it is to be back to normal, how happy we all are to be done with Covid-19; but we’re not. Fortunately, here in Utah things are back pretty close to normal, but that certainly isn’t true in a lot of the world.

As you are evaluating life as it is today, I suggest you take a few moments to consider some options that you may not have considered before. Many of you have been forced to work from home, and quite a few folks and businesses have learned that working from home can be a good thing. Many have discovered over the course of the last year and a half that school and education isn’t all you might have thought it was cracked up to be. Many parents here in the U.S. have had their eyes opened a bit. One rather shocking bit of news was discovering that our “wonderful” U.S. educational system was ranked about 26^th internationally.

Many families are now actively exploring alternatives to the traditional public school. Charter schools and private schools are looking more attractive, as is homeschool. As you explore options, I would suggest that you explore one other option that requires significantly less time per day, is very affordable, and which should produce superior results.

To find out more about NACD Home Based Education, I recommend you watch this video:

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, September 2021 ©NACD

The post Another Educational Option appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

I work with children all around the world who are having difficulties learning, typically due to issues with auditory processing and working memory. These children come to us with many different labels and diagnoses but when it comes to education the significant factor is processing, the relative weakness of the short-term auditory memory and the correlating weakness of the working memory and executive function. A huge compounding issue, however, is the absolute wrong mindedness of the curriculum approach.

I sometimes think that the people designing the curriculum that I see in countries around the world have never actually worked with a diverse group of students. Not only are these curriculum approaches wrong-minded but there are a thousand different things we could be teaching these children instead of wasting time dragging them through educational approaches that do not make sense.

I can take a year, and have, attempting to alter this wrong curriculum approach to make some sense to a child with a processing delay and we end the year with the child having the weakest understanding of what he just “learned” and very little knowledge of anything else. Why are we doing this? The educational approaches used in the fifties, the much-maligned mastery curriculum approach, taught the basics of reading and math in a very concrete manner. Children, in fact, spent an entire school year mastering individual steps in mathematics. In the meantime, because the teaching of math was clear-cut and we were not teaching five different ways to solve one problem or piling language into what is basically a visual task, there was time for literature and the building of vocabulary as well as learning a great deal about our world.

We read whole books and lots of them. The teachers took time and read to us. It was a wonderfully rich input of language. We didn’t spend time working on written expression until we had a great foundation in literature modeling for us how language should and could be used. We weren’t asked to interpret the motivation of the characters until high school. We weren’t writing paragraphs about how problems in stories compared to each other so much as reading and listening to more stories and poetry. As a result of this enriched auditory environment, we became good listeners and readers with strong vocabularies. This approach allowed and enabled our processing to develop. It gave us time to build better working memory and executive function. There was a lot of what we call input and a lot less output.

Now I can look back on the amount of literature we were exposed to, the level of our vocabularies at a young age, and the habit of reading and understanding what we read, and I marvel at it. Take a look at one of the common short stories for students in those days, stories by Washington Irving. You’ll laugh or cry at the level of vocabulary that was commonly understood by students. Not only did we understand the vocabulary, we were entertained by it.

As we work to try to pull struggling students through a curriculum that baffles many parents, we end up not teaching them so many other things that are interesting and relevant. Children love learning Geography. It’s fun and easy to teach. It’s interesting if taught well and surely it is relevant to this world in which we live. Children love to learn about Science if they can see what it is about and how it works and impacts on their day-to-day life. The world is fascinating and waiting to be discovered by each generation. Children with processing challenges are at little to no disadvantage when it comes to learning so very many interesting things about our world. Why aren’t we teaching it to them in a way that they can learn it? Why are we withholding the world in favor of attempting to teach five different ways to do a long division problem particularly when the child could have learned ONE way to do it in about 5 minutes?

How many great books are the children missing? Listening to books is one of many ways that we build vocabulary, auditory attention and an understanding of grammar. Reading content that is interesting and adds new vocabulary gradually serves multiple purposes. Whether we are teaching Fibonacci numbers in nature which is so much fun, or where a comet goes when it leaves our galaxy, or how battles were won and lost, or what the bones in a whale look like we are teaching a love of learning, a curiosity about the world and an increased ability to think and learn. Intensity has a huge impact on learning. It is an essential part of learning.

Let’s face it. If a child doesn’t succeed at math and isn’t successful in reading and building vocabulary, then we haven’t succeeded in preparing that child for adult life. In addition, if we don’t present that child with a world that is full of wonders, problems, and a vastness to be explored, we have boxed them in to a smaller existence and more limited possibilities. It is essential for children with processing difficulties to get help improving this processing and while we are doing this it should be the right of every child to be educated well.

We are on the wrong path and a lot of us know that. Let’s fix it. 

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 33 No. 10, 2020 ©NACD

The post A Thousand Different Things: What’s Wrong with the Current Curriculum 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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In the midst of the pandemic, there perhaps has never been a greater time to actually evaluate the education your children have been receiving and look at some options.

Education has unfortunately become almost synonymous with curriculum. Whether we are talking public school, private school, or even homeschool, the first question asked is, “What is the curriculum?” The perception is that the difference between schools and success is the curriculum. I would like to give you a bit of a different perspective. Let’s substitute the word “stuff” for curriculum.

In reality a huge part of curriculum/stuff that is thrown at our children doesn’t stick. And truth be told, no one really expects it to. I imagine that most of you have heard the old saying that on graduation day most graduates have already forgotten 99% of what they “learned” over the preceding years. I would substitute “what was thrown at them” for “what they learned,” for if they had in fact learned it, they would know it.

What tends to get lost in all of the curriculum stuff is an education—teaching our children what they need to know to become successful functioning adults, including functional literacy and working knowledge.

Please go through the following educational checklist to gain some insight as to whether or not your child is getting the education they need:

This list of questions largely represents the foundational pieces that can affect a child’s future success. If you answered “no” to only a couple of these questions your present educational plan is doing pretty well. If you have more than four or five “no” answers you child’s present educational plan is not really addressing the foundational pieces and if you have more than five “no” answers you really need to look at another plan.

Perhaps sitting in a classroom for six hours a day and then adding on homework is not actually doing the job. And, what about distance learning? Lets substitute the hours in a classroom to sitting in front of a screen. How is that going to work out?

If you are open to another plan there may be no better time then the present to explore options. It might be time to bring your child back home and discover how easy it can be to actually educate your child and prepare them for their future.

NACD has been designing individualized home-based educational programs for over 40 years. With a targeted academic program and a plan addressing your whole unique child it is possible to turn these no’s into yes’s. With a program designed specifically for your child we can educate and train you to work with your child. We provide you with daily coaching and support so you can generally accomplish at lot more in a lot less time per day then you might think.

If you are really interested in turning no’s into yes’s and producing a good outcome for your child, explore NACD home education.

* If you don’t know what these are its because virtually none of the schools are addressing these foundational pieces.

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

The post Is Your Child Getting the Education They Need? appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

For those exploring options and asking questions about NACD Home Education or interest in homeschool for your child, we have collected a list of questions and answers that may help you with your decision making process.

The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about our NACD Home Education (Homeschooling) program:

What is NACD Home Education? 

NACD Home Education is a proven, time flexible, efficient, effective, home-based educational program for those choosing to homeschool. 

NACD Home Education is an individualized, dynamic, targeted, and comprehensive developmental/educational program designed to accelerate every child’s rate of development and education. Using the science of neuroplasticity, it is possible to accelerate important aspects of development, cognition, and education in significantly less time per day than traditional school or homeschool. NACD Home Education programs are applicable for children across the developmental spectrum, including those with special needs or learning issues, as well as typical and gifted children. For over 40 years NACD has been a leader in cognitive development and working with the whole child within the context of their family. NACD works proactively with the family, working in unison to help our children develop into successful adults. We have a long history of working with homeschoolers. 

Helpful links

T.H.E. Targeted Home Education: https://www.nacd.org/t-h-e-targeted-home-education/

Targeted Home Education – T.H.E. Way Forward: https://www.nacd.org/targeted-home-education-the-way-forward/

NACD Targeted Home-Based Education: The Vision and the Plan: https://www.nacd.org/nacd-targeted-home-based-education-the-vision-and-the-plan/

Helping your child establish the foundation that will help them become successful adults.

Although curriculum has become almost synonymous with education, it is not. Education is a process by which we teach and develop the whole child. The foundational pieces that are addressed by NACD Home Education include:

• Improving your child’s cognition, including short-term memory, working memory, executive function, and maturity—making them smarter
• Improving your child’s reading
• Teaching them to love reading and turning them into lifelong readers
• Accelerating your child’s math abilities
• Teaching them that math can be easy and to love it
• Helping them learn how to love learning and become independent thinkers and motivated learners
• Providing a functional, comprehensive academic education
• Teaching your child how to be highly capable, be responsible for chores, and to contribute
• Building their self-esteem, confidence, and independence
• Physical and emotional health and wellbeing
• Helping you establish a strong, positive, healthy relationship with your child
• Helping your child discover and pursue their strengths, interests, and passions
• Educating the child in the family’s social, spiritual, and philosophical ideals.

Is NACD a homeschool program?

Yes, NACD is home-based, but not a typical curriculum heavy homeschool program. 

NACD provides a home-based education, administered and implemented by parents, family, and caregivers, that addresses the needs of the whole child within the context of the family and the family’s vision for their child. NACD home-based education does not have a specific curriculum and is not curriculum heavy, but rather curriculum specific, individualized, and targeted. With NACD home-based education your child is not plugged into a specific packaged curriculum, but rather the educational approach and content is built around your child, which among other things permits you to accomplish more in much less time per day.

Helpful links

Who We Help – NACD Homeschool & Home Education: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/homeschooling/

Is Home Education the same as homeschool? 

No, NACD Home Education is not the same as homeschool.

Many homeschool programs are simply curriculums. Homeschool programs are often built around specific curriculums much like schools. Your child is plugged into a curriculum whether or not it fits them, just as it is done with typical brick and mortar schools. It is not targeted, not specific, and not time, energy, or outcome specific. NACD Home Education Programs assist the parent in every aspect of the child’s development and education, reaching far beyond curriculum.

Helpful links

How to School Your Child: https://www.nacd.org/how-to-school-your-child/

How long per day does it take to do an NACD Home Education Program?

The time commitments per day are flexible and based on the goals and the family’s available time for implementation.

NACD has been designing home-based programs for forty years and has learned how to accommodate a broad range of needs, circumstance, time, and manpower availability. Because each program is individually designed to fit each child within the context of their family, there is great flexibility. Programs have been designed that take minutes per day, hours per day, or that structure the entire day. Programs can be accomplished by stay-at-home parents or parents who work from home or leave the home part time, or even have full time employment. Home education programs have even been implemented by families not just within their homes, but also within their businesses, offices, or as multi-family teams. NACD works with the families to identify the child’s needs and then explores a range of program options and manpower needs, including getting help from grandparents, siblings, college students, and others. We enjoy being creative.

What are NACD’s goals for the children being home educated with them?

Our goal is to help the family create a vision for their child and help them achieve it.

Success is not just not just being able to read or do math or recall a lot of curriculum, but to develop the whole individual. Sadly, whether a child is attending a brick and mortar school or doing a typical homeschool curriculum, the focus is on the curriculum, most of which is quickly forgotten. Our goal is to work with the family to help and develop the whole individual, including development of super cognitive function, a strong academic foundation, and to turn the child into a lifelong reader and independent lifelong confident learner, to teach responsibility, help them become highly capable and to learn service, and to provide the child with the opportunity to discover and build their talents and passions. 

What this entails is close coordination between the family and NACD—a highly individualized, targeted program. So whether the student and family’s goal is to overcome learning or developmental problems for medical or law school, nuclear physics, liberal arts college, trade school, or maybe building a business of their own, NACD will provide the support and guidance to develop that plan. Success is not defined the same way for everyone, but being able to maintain and sustain an independent and successful adult life is important for everyone. However that is defined, NACD is there to assist the student and the family in achieving that dream.

What curriculum does NACD use? 

NACD does not use a packaged curriculum, but creates an educational program designed to fit each specific child.

For decades education has focused on curriculum—what is being taught, not what is being learned. NACD acknowledges and values our children’s uniqueness and works with the family to provide a comprehensive, targeted education that fits the child and focuses on outcomes. NACD does not use a packaged curriculum and develops each child’s educational plan and approaches so as to teach them as effectively and efficiently as possible. Through targeted education more can be taught in significantly less time per day than is typically done in schools or through typical homeschools.

Helpful links

The Sweet Spot: Optimizing Education & Developmental Intervention: https://www.nacd.org/sweet-spot-optimizing-education-developmental-intervention/ 

NACD Articles About Curriculum: https://www.nacd.org/?s=curriculum

If NACD does not follow a specific curriculum, what education materials do you use?

NACD uses a broad range of educational content.

Providing a targeted, individualized education requires an understanding of the learning strengths and weaknesses of the student, targeting and developing their weak areas while taking advantage of their strengths. This necessitates the use of many different materials and different techniques to teach each subject. In addition we need to target the materials for each subject so as to fit the individual’s specific level and to teach to their academic “sweetspot.” Fortunately, between materials created by NACD and the range of books, programs, and online materials and courses available today, we are able to tailor the curriculum to the child. NACD works to target each child’s program to fit their unique needs. 

Do parents need to purchase additional materials?

Yes, at times parents will need to purchase specific books and materials that are recommended. 

Most educational materials needed are very low cost, but effective materials. With high school level students, specific coursework may be recommended depending upon the needs and function of that particular student, as well as requirements by specific states. It is important to keep in mind that the educational plans are truly individualized so we cannot make broad statements as to what specifically will be needed at each level of education or how the materials are to be used.

Is NACD a school?

NACD is not a school in the traditional sense. 

NACD assists parents in providing a home-based education, addressing the needs of their whole child. This includes cognitive development, nutrition, physical and emotional development, teaching the child how to be highly capable; all while accelerating education and turning them into lifelong readers and learners. Through tri-annual evaluations that are carried out in one of our national or international evaluation sites or via Skype or Zoom and access to daily coaching, NACD can assist any child anywhere on the planet.

Does NACD have a facility where I take my child? 

No.

NACD provides only home-based programs that are designed by NACD and implemented by family and caregivers, in the home environment, under the direction of NACD and with the training and support of NACD staff. 

Does NACD replace going to school? Can my child go to school and NACD?

NACD Home Programs can replace school or work in conjunction with schools.

Every child is unique, every family is unique, and for every family in every area the school opportunities are unique as well. Most of our families do entirely home-based programs. Some children attend school full time and do an NACD program either before or after school or on weekends. And some families do a hybrid program, part time home and part time school. As an example, some of our special needs and typical children as well attend part-time school primarily for the social experience. In some enlightened states, such as Utah, home educated students can participate in any school classes or sports that they wish, so they can go play on the highschool football team or take a physics class. Because every NACD program is individually designed, there are many options.

Does NACD follow the academic guidelines of my state?

Yes.

States and countries all have their specific requirements. NACD works with the family to create a program that meets each state or country’s requirements.

Who actually implements the program with my child? 

NACD staff teach the parents and caregivers how to work with their child and coach them through the process.

NACD home education programs are designed to be implemented primarily by parents and caregivers. For 40 years NACD has successfully trained parents and other non-professionals to implement our programs. Parents primarily work with their child at home each day and receive unlimited support from their NACD coach and NACD Developmentalist. In some cases, the parents are not able to work with their child. College students, nannies, grandparents and other relatives, and older siblings have implemented NACD programs. It does not have to be the parents; however, we do strongly encourage that parents play an active role in managing their child’s programs, ensuring that the activities are being implemented correctly by the person responsible for carrying out the child’s program. 

What does “teaching the parents” mean?

In NACD Home Education Programs NACD works with the parents and the family. The family and caregivers under NACD’s guidance and coaching implement the NACD designed program. 

In an NACD home-based program, parents and caregivers are trained to implement the programs that are designed specifically for their child by NACD following an assessment. Parents are given access to their child-specific online portal that contains their child’s assessments, their programs with implementation videos and instructions for parents, and a chronology of videos that are used to communicate with the child’s evaluator, demonstrate program implementation for parental training, and to document specific educational and developmental problems and progress. Parents and caregivers are given daily access to a coach who provides support and who coordinates and provides ongoing communication with other NACD staff.

Helpful links

Parenting 101 – A Child’s Education Begins with Educating the Parents: https://www.nacd.org/parenting-101-a-childs-education-begins-with-educating-the-parents/

Does NACD give any assistance to parents when the child isn’t cooperating with learning?

Absolutely.

We do. Raising children and improving their function is not always an easy task. NACD evaluators and coaches are there to help with issues as they arise, providing support and guidance when and as needed to help resolve and prevent behavioral problems that may impede progress. We will walk you through those tough times and help develop the cognitive and behavioral foundation that helps avoid most behavioral or compliance issues.

Helpful links

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say: https://www.nacd.org/say-what-you-mean-and-mean-what-you-say-part-2-educationbehavior/

Does NACD help when the work is too hard for my child?

Yes, NACD addresses and resolves these issues.

If “schoolwork” is too hard, the material and approach is not targeted to the child. To varying degrees if a child is being plugged into a curriculum, it is not going to be targeted to fit them. We help by working with you to improve your child’s processing and working memory so that they are simply smarter, and we provide assistance to target where they are academically and to accelerate their pace to get them to a point where the work is not difficult. We create education plans that are designed to target your child’s current processing level so that the work is not too hard; plus we write plans that address the issue of motivation as well. This process is most easily accomplished if the child is doing a home-based NACD program, but can also be accomplished, although a slower process, by working around and with an existing school program.

Helpful links

Does School Remediation Result in Success?: https://www.nacd.org/does-school-remediation-result-in-success-2/

Can I use NACD Home Education if my state or intended college requires sports, music, art, or things like hands-on science labs?

Yes.

With a home-based NACD program, you can access many resources and your program can be customized to help you meet virtually any specific requirements.

Does NACD work with preschool kids?

Yes, NACD works with infants and preschool children.

Because an NACD program is developmental and because the foundation established in the first five years of life can both shape a child’s future and avoid most learning and attention issues, the sooner we can start working with a child and a family, the better. 

Helpful links

NACD Preschool: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/preschool/ 

When should I send my child to preschool? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Y63vqyme4

Does NACD work with elementary school children? 

Yes, NACD works with elementary school age children.

NACD believes that targeted developmental and educational support and help is optimal virtually from birth, and therefore provides programs for all children regardless of age. NACD has demonstrated for decades that the early years are incredibly important and that the stronger the foundation, the easier the entire educational experience and the better the educational and life outcomes. Being proactive in the early years (birth through elementary grades) means that the vast majority of learning, attention, and cognitive issues can be avoided. The focus can be on creating excellent learners, lifelong readers, children who love and excel in learning, and who become successful middle, high school and college students, and become successful adults. NACD’s forty plus years of experience has permitted us to follow individuals literally from birth to adult and parenthood. We are proud to be working with many children whose successful parents were on NACD home-based and homeschool programs themselves.

Helpful links

NACD Parent Testimonial: https://www.nacd.org/testimonial-from-the-parent-of-three-nacd-graduates/

Does NACD work with middle school/junior high children?

Yes, NACD works with middle school and jr. high children.

NACD works with children and adults of all ages. Many children come to us in the middle school and jr. high years because of learning, attention, attitude, and behavior issues that are not being addressed by school or homeschool, or simply because parents are aware that their child is not being given the needed opportunities to achieve their potential. These can be challenging years for many children and parents alike, and parents’ daily access to coaches and staff can be the difference between success and failure or mediocrity and excellence. 

What can NACD do for my high school child?

NACD can make a world of difference in the lives of high school children.

Families often start on NACD home-based programs for their high school students because they have discovered that issues identified in elementary school were never actually addressed and remediated and accommodations were doing more harm than good. Many parents at this time realize that their vision for their child has become clouded, and there are questions about where their child is going, their future. Other parents realize that they have high school students who lack a love of reading and learning and have not had an opportunity to explore and develop their own interests and a direction. And other parents realize that their visions for high achievement and success are not being realized through their child’s schooling. High school is not too late. Processing and cognition can still be developed, children can still be taught to be responsible, children can still be turned into active participants, and areas needing remediation can still be taken care of, and there is still time to excel. NACD has worked with countless children who lacked a foundation and a vision for their futures who have learned who they are and put together the pieces to become successful in college and in professions, successful entrepreneurs or whatever their chosen career path, successful whole adults.

Does NACD work with college students?

Yes, NACD works with college students.

Once in college students may discover that they lack the cognitive foundation to compete or excel. Some work way too hard for the results they are achieving, or they are even working hard and failing. NACD’s cognitive programs, including the online Simply Smarter program, can often produce rapid change in cognition and help make a poor student a good student and a good student an excellent student, providing them with the edge they need to excel. In addition many bright children get through K-12 without obvious identified issues, but when they reach college and face much greater challenges both in and out of the classroom, things begin to fall apart. It is not too late.

Helpful links

NACD Articles about College: https://www.nacd.org/?s=college

Will NACD work with my child with dyslexia?

Yes, NACD has worked with thousands of children over the years that were identified as dyslexic.

What we find is that each one of them is unique and needs a very specific program designed to address and eliminate their underlying issues, along with an individualized reading program to accelerate their development in reading. We do not take a “one size fits all” approach with any child and do not see “dyslexia” as a permanent issue. 

Helpful links

Read about NACD’s views on dyslexia here: https://www.nacd.org/dyslexia-what-is-it-and-what-can-you-do-about-it/

NACD Program for Dyslexia: https://www.nacd.org/who-we-help/dyslexia/

My child is in special education. Can they join NACD?

Yes, NACD can work with children who are currently in special education.

Many families, once they discover NACD, often realize that they can do more with NACD’s help at home and pull their children out of school. Others do not have the option of home-based education or homeschool, and NACD works with the family and the school to provide as many opportunities as possible.

NACD has been designing and supervising home-based developmental, therapeutic, and education programs for special needs children for over forty years. Our founder and director, Bob Doman, began his career as a special education teacher in 1969 and by the age of 25 was the Education Director of a large special needs school and the United Cerebral Palsy Organization. In this capacity he was designing and supervising the special education programs and overseeing the speech, physical, and occupational therapy programs. While still in his twenties, Bob was designing home-based programs for special needs children from throughout the United States and in Spain and Israel. Since 1979 when NACD was founded, NACD has been innovative in the development of cognitive, academic, and developmental programs for special needs children. NACD is and has always been home-based, designing targeted programs that often replace not only schools but the need for other therapies as well, teaching and supervising parents and caregivers in the implementation of targeted programs for their special needs children. Part of the foundation of NACD’s success has been an understanding and application of the proven principles of neuroplasticity, acknowledging the importance of very targeted input (NACD utilizes over 3000 specific methods and techniques), frequency (specific input provided often numerous times per day, not once or twice a week), intensity (programs implemented by parents, the people who know the child the best and who are the most vested in seeing them progress), and the importance of being dynamic (constantly changing to remain targeted; NACD provides daily access to coaches and staff). NACD provides home-based, targeted programs designed around the parents’ time and resources for the full range of special needs children, including those on the autism spectrum, Down syndrome, brain injury, cerebral palsy, and many others.

Helpful links

NACD program for homeschooling children with special needs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URcjTLPcKd8

NACD Articles about Special Education: https://www.nacd.org/?s=special+education

Does NACD work with adults with special needs?

Yes, NACD has vast experience helping adults with special needs.

NACD has a long history of helping adults with special needs and literally changing their lives. As children, most of those with special needs were provided with an “appropriate” education. Unfortunately, this means that the program was lowered and the expectations limited and opportunities provided based on the perceived potential. The outcomes were self fulfilling prophecies. Expect less, provide less, and get less. Rarely if ever are efforts made to even develop cognition, the foundation of all learning and function. Fortunately, NACD has been developing cognitive function in both children and adults, based on the science of neuroplasticity, for decades and has produced often amazing outcomes. It’s never too late, and unfortunately, as many parents of special needs adults are realizing, they are either doing things to improve their function and abilities or their adult children are regressing. One of our main goals with an adult with special needs is to increase their independence and maturity. The need for help for those with special needs may never be greater than it is for the adult with special needs. 

Does NACD work with babies?

Yes, NACD works with typical babies as well as those with developmental issues.

If NACD could design programs for all babies and have parents and grandparents implement them, we could change the world. Without a doubt what can and should be done before a child ever enters school will impact the rest of their lives more than most anything that can happen in subsequent years. Virtually every hour of targeted input a parent provides a baby forever changes their brains and lives. It is vital that children with special needs are addressed and helped as whole individuals, not as pieces, and that they receive daily intervention, not a session or two a week. Learning and attention problems are referred to as developmental problems because they are mostly the reflections of steps and opportunities having been missed in the first few years of life. LIkewise, smart children are not created in schools and colleges as much as they are created before they ever go to school.

How much does NACD Home Education cost? 

There is a one time initial evaluation fee, followed by a monthly membership fee. 

To view our current fee schedule, please register for our get started process here. NACD.org/get-started. 

Are there any scholarships available for NACD? 

Yes.

NACD has scholarships available to help with the initial fee to join. To learn more about any potential scholarships available, please complete our get started process here: NACD.org/get-started

How do I join the NACD Home Education program?

To begin the process of joining the NACD Home Education program, the parent first goes through the free Get Started (https://www.nacd.org/get-started/) section on our website that helps them understand the philosophy and mechanics of our program. The family then completes and submits a comprehensive application/history of the child. The application is reviewed by NACD staff and is followed up by an interview between a staff member and the parent or parents. The interview is to determine if the family and NACD are a good fit. Following the interview the family will be given a list of any additional information that may be needed. This list varies from child to child and varies depending on whether there will be an in-person evaluation or Skype. Included in the list of requests are specific tests to be completed, as well as records and videos to be uploaded to our Family Portal. 

After everything has been submitted, the child is evaluated by an NACD professional evaluator, and with the aid of the parent, a developmental profile is completed and an overall direction and game plan is agreed upon. The NACD professional evaluator then designs the home education program, which along with the evaluation and profile, is posted on the NACD Family Portal, with written and video training materials for the parent. 

Every family is provided with a coach who is available to assist and guide them. The coach is available to the family Monday-Friday. The coach also acts as the family’s communication link to their evaluator. Within two weeks of starting the program, the parent is requested to video implementation of the various aspects of the child’s program and post them on the Portal for the evaluator’s review, comments, and modifications.

The child’s program is dynamic, and through ongoing communication with the coach and the evaluator and videos, the programs are modified on an ongoing basis as needed.

Every four months the child is re-evaluated and program modifications made.

Is there a question about Home Education or Homeschool that we missed?

Let us know by contacting us at: info@nacd.org or by leaving a question for us using the support chat feature in the lower right corner of your browser window. We are happy to answer any questions you might have!

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, August 2020 ©NACD

The post NACD Homeschool & Home Education FAQ appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

The Simply Smarter® program is built upon the foundation of neuroplasticity, utilizing the science of targeted input, frequency, intensity, and duration.

Targeted

The program constantly modifies itself to keep you right at the sweet spot, the spot that is targeted for you to achieve maximum benefit.

Frequency

To take advantage of neuroplasticity, we need to keep triggering the firing of neurons and reinforcing neural networks. Everyone is encouraged to use the program once or twice a day and preferably four or more days a week.

Intensity

This is an incredibly important piece. The importance of intensity cannot be overstated. How you or your child approach every session is going to determine how much the program impacts, changes, and develops the brain. Just doing it isn’t enough; you must do it with real intensity and with intention. Every activity is very short. It was designed that way so that you could create and maintain maximum attention and intensity for the seconds needed to complete each piece that you are asked to process, to watch, or listen to. Approach every sequence of every activity with the intention of remembering it, of nailing it!

If your children are using the program, sit with them, if you can, and cheer them on. The program has built-in rewards and acknowledgement, but a parent’s power is much greater, and we encourage you to provide very meaningful, big rewards for new high scores or higher digit spans. These changes can be life changing, treat them as such.

We realize that it’s not reasonable for many parents to sit in while their child does Simply Smarter®, so we have built in the means to send email and text alerts so that Mom, Dad, grandparents, coaches, whoever will know when the child did well; and each can provide their own congratulations, making every step forward all that more meaningful. Dad coming home from work and immediately acknowledging Johnny’s new high score or a call from Grandma can be very powerful.

For adults be honest with yourselves. Sitting down with good energy, intensity, and with the intention of knocking it out of the park each time is difficult. You are not only allowed but encouraged to set up your own rewards program—rewards for all new high scores. Set digit span and processing power goals, and when you hit it, reward it. It’s only your life and future that you are changing!

Duration

To change the brain, we need to keep causing those networks of brain cells to keep firing together. The longer we do it, the greater the change. Keep in mind that generally without specific intervention the development of processing, short-term memory and working memory, slows virtually to a halt at about seven years of age, creeps a tiny bit forward from then until we are in our twenties, and then usually begins a slow decline that continues throughout our life unless we target it, address it, and build it!

Simply Smarter® is an invaluable tool that has the potential to change the lives of your children, your parents, and yourselves.

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

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As we start the first tentative steps to come out of the COVID-19 lockdown, there is a lot of discussion as to what this coming school year is going to look like. It is perhaps time to become proactive and establish your own course for this coming school year. I suggest that you look at 2020 as an opportunity to change your child’s life. A year of Targeted Home-Based Education could do that.

It’s a bit tough to create social distancing in a classroom full of children, and no one is seriously thinking about kids spending their school day wearing masks or regularly washing their hands. The data would indicate that healthy children are not at great risk of serious consequences from the virus; but how about the children with compromised health and the rest of the family, including the grandparents? I posed this question a couple of years ago: “What do your kids get from preschool?” The answer was, “They get sick.” We are all familiar with the goodies that kids bring home from school. This fall we are certainly going to be at even a greater risk, with even more significant consequences.

Best-case scenario, the schools are going to be spending a lot of time figuring out what to do and then a lot more time actually working out how to implement it. And let’s face it, for many of our children school hadn’t worked out so wonderfully when everything was “normal,” particularly for those children with attention or learning issues or special needs.

If you had perhaps given some thought to homeschool, and even if not, now would be the time to stop thinking about homeschool and spend the year doing NACD Targeted Home-Based Education and accomplishing some major goals. Even if you only home educate for a year, you can make significant life altering changes.

• Significantly improve your child’s short-term memory, working memory, executive function and maturity—make them smarter.
• Improve your child’s reading.
• Teach them to love reading and turn them into a reader.
• Accelerate your child’s math.
• Teach them that math can be easy and to like it.
• Help them learn how to love learning and become independent, motivated learners.
• Teach your child how to do chores and how to be responsible.
• Build their self-esteem, confidence, and independence, and teach them how to be highly capable.
• Establish a strong positive, healthy relationship with your child.
• Help your child discover their strengths, interests, and passions.

It really is possible to change your child’s life in a year. Raising and educating a child really is all about putting a unique package together. It’s about your whole child. It’s about your unique child and putting the pieces together to really help them become successful, happy, contributing adults. If you spend the year doing NACD Home-Based Education and choose to send them back to school next year, you will be sending back a different child. This new child can be smarter, have a whole different attitude toward learning, responsibility, and themselves, and go back functioning higher academically—a different child, a different student, and perhaps a child with a different future.

For the child with challenges—whether behavioral or problems associated with attention or learning—this year could be the year to really target and address their issues, not just make accommodations for them.

The special needs child receiving a session or two a week of attention from a school speech, physical, or occupational therapist may fit the school’s definition of an opportunity, but it shouldn’t fit a parent’s. A child with learning problems being permitted to sit in class with their peers, even though they are at a significantly different level, doesn’t really constitute an opportunity. The reality is, what constitutes an opportunity is based upon how you perceive potential. You need only to look at a psychological assessment of a child with a learning or attention problem or special needs to see that the focus is on how many labels/limitations they can attach with virtually nothing said about how to address, let alone eliminate, them. Limited perspective of potential, including the limitations of “normal/average,” dictates what is perceived as an appropriate opportunity and leads to self-fulfilling prophecies.

For decades NACD has been helping parents produce very different outcomes. NACD’s successes are predicated on an understanding of the principles of neuroplasticity and the power of parents. We understand that parents are almost universally the most highly motivated people to help their children, are the people who know and understand their whole child, and who can often provide better 1:1 input for their children multiple times per day than the teachers and therapists at school could ever possibly provide. Given a targeted program designed for their child and then trained and given daily access to guidance help and support, parents are uniquely positioned to make real substantial change.

Parents, please consider a commitment of just one year of an NACD Targeted Home- Based Education program or a Targeted Developmental Intervention program and in so doing create an opportunity to change the trajectory of your child’s future.

As the Founder and Director of NACD and having worked with many thousands of children and families from around the world for the past fifty years, I get to see what can be. Seeing the realities of how potential is typically perceived, and the resulting outcomes is nothing short of a tragedy. We need to redefine potential and work to realize that potential.

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

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