Understanding the Role of an Educational Therapist

Understanding the Role of an Educational Therapist: The EmpowerKidz Cognitive Skill Development Approach
As parents, you are often guided to provide your child with proper academic support; however, when regular tutoring does not ‘step up’ or solve more fundamental learning problems for your child, it is a good time to seek an Educational Therapist. At EmpowerKidz, we focus on helping children with unique learning challenges through the targeted cognitive skills forming the very foundation of how they learn.

Who is an Educational Therapist?
An educational therapist is a professional trained in the individualized interventions for children who are diagnosed with learning differences. Educational therapists are not quite like a typical tutor, because it tends to focus mainly on the aspect of improving grades in certain subjects; educational therapists go further to identify and help the child recognize cognitive skills that may be holding him or her back. Areas of potential concern might include memory, attention, processing speed, or executive functioning. Educational therapists have personalized plans to address not only academic issues but also behavioral, emotional, and social ones that a learning difference can cause.

What Does EmpowerKidz Do?
Specialized services: EmpowerKidz offers the assessments and interventions of cognitive skills in overcoming specific barriers to learning. We believe that every child is unique and that a holistic approach targets building the core cognitive skills absolutely necessary for academic success. Here’s how we do it:
1. Cognitive Skills Assessments
We start with a holistic assessment of your child’s cognitive skills to understand where his or her learning challenges are coming from. These include assessments by the SOI (Structure of Intellect) and ReadON programs, which can measure critical areas such as memory, attention, reasoning, and problem-solving. Through this, we are able to identify specific weaknesses and strengths in your child’s learning profile.
SOI (Structure of Intellect): This test identifies cognitive strengths which include figural reasoning, symbolic reasoning, and semantic understanding. We prepare an intervention plan specific to the test results.
ReadON Program: ReadON is a game-based, digital tool that measures processing speed, working memory, attention, and reading fluency. This will measure your child’s current level of performance in real-time and guide the intervention applied.
2. Cognitive Skills Interventions
Upon administering the tests, our learning therapists prepare a unique intervention plan that helps address every specific area where your child may be weak with cognition. Areas of intervention are improvements in Working Memory, Processing Ability and Speed, Attention, Focus, Visual Perceptual Skills, Problem solving and Critical Thinking Skills.
3. Perceptual Motor Training
Knowing that cognitive skills are one of the motivating forces of learning, EmpowerKidz utilizes perceptual motor skills-the integration of visual and motor functions-in learning activities like writing, reading, and navigating a school environment. The latter forms of training would affect hand-eye coordination and spatial and balance-related abilities, which children must have a foundation for first before other school learning.
4. Fast ForWord Program
We offer the Fast ForWord program at EmpowerKidz, which, scientifically proved, enables the child to overcome his or her linguistic and reading failures from their origins. Focusing on areas in auditory processing, memory, attention, and language, these exercises build up the brain’s ability to process sounds and words, which reflects outwardly into reading comprehension and academic performance. This type of program supports children who are suffering from dyslexia, language processing disorders, and poor fluency in reading.
5. ReadON Program
In addition to the assessment, ReadON offers intervention programs that can enhance a child’s fluency in reading and cognitive processing. The interesting activities designed by ReadON and developed into game-based exercises are wonderful for equipping children with key reading and thinking skills.
Why It’s Effective: By skills in processing speed, memory, and attention, ReadON ensures children will not only read more fluently but also comprehend and retain what they are reading.
Real-time Tracking of Progress: Since the program tracks the child’s progress in real time, our educational therapists are better positioned to make data-driven choices about adjusting the intervention plan.
6. Advanced Brain Technologies’ The Listening Program (TLP)
We also have The Listening Program, which is the music-based auditory intervention that helps a child to improve their level of functioning by enhancing the appropriate brain functions and learning ability through the development of auditory processing capabilities. TLP proves significantly useful for children with sensory processing disorders, attention deficit conditions, and issues with auditory processing.
How it Works: TLP applies clinically proved music and sound therapies that activate the brain and stimulate new neural pathways that are involved in listening, attending, and regulation of emotions.
Who It Helps: The children who participate in this program can have an inability to follow instructions, maintain focus, or process audio quickly.

Empowering Your Child’s Learning Journey
At EmpowerKidz, we’re proud to help each child through their unique learning journey. With the application of an integrated and holistic approach using cognitive assessment, targeted intervention, and state-of-the-art programs like Fast ForWord, ReadON, and The Listening Program, we look forward to helping you unlock the full potential in your child.
Our aim is not merely to make a child perform better in academics but work on the core cognitive skills, which are to be used in the long run.

Connect with Us
Do you want to know about how EmpowerKidz can help your child through cognitive assessments and targeted interventions? Let’s get in touch and, together with you, we shall develop an appropriate plan tailored according to the child’s unique needs and set them up for success.