Transcript It`s all About the EYES and EARS

It’s all About the EYES
and EARS
Diane Geerlinks
Certified Educational Therapist
Director, NILD Canada
BASIC BRAIN FACTS
PLANNING
AND THINKING
SPATIAL ORIENTATION
VISUAL
PROCESSING
AUDITORY PROCESSING
MOVEMENT
AND COORDINATION
SENSORY REGISTER
Our brain takes in more information from our environment
in a single day than the largest computer does in a year – all
detected by our five senses.
All sensory stimuli enter the brain as a stream of electrical
impulses that result from neurons firing in sequence along
the specific sensory pathways, through the RAS (Reticular
Activating System).
EYES AND EARS
VISUAL
AUDITORY

Discrimination

Phonemic Decoding


Eye Movements(Saccades,
Pursuits)
Prosody (Intonation,Pitch)

Visual Motor

Sequencing

Visual Memory

Auditory Memory
Laterality

Figure Ground


Reversals
WARNING SIGNS – Auditory Processing
WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE HEAR

Has trouble following oral directions

Has trouble understand speech in a noisy room

Often asks you to repeat or misunderstands you ‘huh’ ‘what’

History of ear infections

Seems easily distracted

Fatigues easily during auditory tasks

Is late identifying and producing specific sounds

Weak short term memory

Sensitivity to excessive sound

Problems with comprehension, language, spelling vocabulary,
reading or written language.
AUDITORY SYSTEM
TEACHING STRATEGIES - Auditory

Reduce extraneous background noises

Sit at left front of class

Simplify verbal instructions

Insure child’s attention BEFORE giving instruction

Use visual materials to supplement auditory instruction

Ask questions to check comprehension

Use a buddy system to check notes, assignments, etc.
WARNING SIGNS – Visual Processing
WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE SEE

Uses finger to keep place (after 3rd grade)

Wiggles, moves, talks, zones out, touches

Writing is poorly spaced or crowded

Messy handwriting/printing

Misaligns columns or series of numbers

Cannot stay on ruled lines

Rubbing of eyes
VISUAL SYSTEM

More information is
processed through the
eye than all of the rest
of the body at a given
moment. Vision is the
fastest method of
processing information

The visual system is 5x
larger than the entire
auditory system
TEACHING STRATEGIES - Visual
Vision and Movement – Go hand in hand

Hart Chart

Find missing

Marsden ball

bdpq Charts

Line Walk

Jumping Jacks

Directional Arrows

Find alphabet lines
THE READING BRAIN
“We were never born to read.” MaryAnne Wolf, Proust and the Squid, 2007
MaryAnne Wolf
Unlike language, reading has no specific set of genes
to set up its circuitry or dictate its development.
Joanna Christodoulu
Two routes of reading:

PHONOLOGICAL

DIRECT
The typical healthy reader is thought to use both
routes constantly and interactively.
RESOURCES

Proust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf, 2007

Mind, Brain & Education, David Sousa and et, 2010

When the Brain Can’t Hear, Teri James Bellis, 2002

Developing Ocular Motor and Visual Perceptual Skills, Lane, 2005

How the Brain learns to Read, Sousa, 2014

Overcoming Dyslexia, Sally Shaywitz, 2003