How to Help Your Child Have a Happy Holiday
The holiday season is a time for family togetherness, joy, and friendship. But children who struggle socially can feel lonely and excluded. How to Help Your Child Have a Happy Holiday has a dozen ways to help your child join the fun. For example:
- Help your child prepare for holiday parties by sharing important details — such as the schedule and the names of the guests.
- Role play scenarios with your child.
- Prepare relatives and friends for actions of your child that might be misinterpreted.
- Consciously include your child with a learning disability in conversation and other activities.
- Make a plan to handle "meltdowns."
- Tactfully accommodate your child's difficulties.
- Give your child a role that helps him to shine.
- Ask your child to do good deeds and contribute to the community.
Awards Available for LD High School Students
Do you know or mentor a high school student with LD? If so, let them know about these awards, which may help them with college costs.
The deadline — December 31, 2007 — is approaching fast for the Ann Ford Scholarship Competition. $10,000 dollars will go to a high school senior who intends to pursue a college education and is willing to be a role model for other people with learning disabilities.
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The 2008 Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities Youth Achievement Award nomination deadline is January 31, 2008. Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities gives $1,000 to a high schooler or younger student with learning disabilities and/or ADHD who has a notable accomplishment in any field — math, athletics, art, and so on.
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The Marion Huber Learning Through Listening (LTL) Awards deadline is March 3, 2008. Six high school seniors who are members of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic will receive cash awards in recognition of extraordinary leadership, scholarship, enterprise, and service to others. Three students will receive $6,000 each, and three will receive $2,000 each.
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You Asked. We Answered.
Our experts answer some of your challenging questions about learning disabilities:
- Larry Silver, M.D., a well-known author and psychologist, talks about how to recognize when your child has dyslexia. And he tells you how to evaluate a learning program — will it be effective for your child or is it just the latest fad?
read more >> - Matt Cohen, Esq., special education attorney, tells you about your children's rights — their rights to accommodation and their rights to effective instruction.
read more >> - Tracy Gray, Ph.D., our tech expert, talks about technology that helps students with central auditory processing disorder and dysgraphia.
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Do You Ever Wish Your Child Came with an Instruction Book?
Then consider writing one. Rick Lavoie tells you how in Designing a Dossier — An Instruction Book for Your Child. This excerpt from The Motivation Breakthrough discusses how to develop a one-to-three-page memo on your child's strengths and limitations. Help your children's teachers, neighbors, relatives, or other adults in their lives understand them.
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LD OnLine Remembers Sally Smith
Sally Smith, founder of the Lab School of Washington and Baltimore Lab, passed away December 2, 2007. This is a tremendous loss for the field of learning disabilities. The Lab School has served as a model on educating people with learning disabilities. Watch these scenes from the lab school where students put together a video production about what it is like for a student with a learning disability to learn to read.
Watch "Reading Rocks: From Zero to Hero" for a peek inside the Lab School >>
This holiday season, reach out and motivate the children in your life!The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child 
Motivation is the key to learning. But very few parents and teachers have an effective arsenal of techniques at their disposal. Enter educator and acclaimed author Rick Lavoie, who arms all those who deal with children with proven, effective tools and strategies they can use to encourage any child to learn and achieve success. |
Featured Articles
For All of Our Readers
- Toolkit for Parents: Making It Stick
Teach the child with a learning disability how to remember those rote facts they need for tests at school — and practical facts such as knowing the days of the week in order. Learn the three memory strategies — repetition, imagery, and patterns (RIP) — that can really help improve recall. This article is helpful for educators as well as parents.
For Parents
- Understanding the Special Education Process
The PACER Center helps you understand the special education process, from your initial request to the day your child receives services. Learn the steps the school is supposed to take to help your child.
For Teachers
- Spelling and Students with Learning Disabilities
Read some suggestions for spelling instruction for students with learning disabilities. For example, did you know that letter tiles are more helpful than the traditional spelling bee?
For Adults with LD
- The Why, When, What, and How of Disclosure in an Academic Setting After High School
Should you tell your professors about your learning disabilities in order to get accommodations? And what is the best way to do that? Find out the new rules of disclosure now that you've graduated from high school.
In the news
- The Teacher at the Head of the Class
- Experts Examine New Findings on ADHD
- Learning Disabilities and Entrepreneurs
View more headlines in LD News >>
New in Our Yellow Pages
Schools
- The Hill Center
- Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes Learning Center (Edina, MN)
- Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes Learning Center (Las Vegas, NV)
- Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes Learning Center (Los Angeles, CA)
- Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes Learning Center (Monterey, CA)
- Oakland School
- Woodlynde School
Products
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All the best from LD OnLine!
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Newsletter Editor: Dale S. Brown