Back To School

Berg is optimistic that the Detroit
Congregational Initiative will provide
a forum through which schools can
develop programs appropriate for
their own clientele.
Shoshana Ben-Ozer, education
director of Beth Shalom, said she is
also optimistic that Federation sup-
port will benefit synagogue schools.
"I see that Federation is recognizing
that the key for continuity is not
speeches but learning, and learning
can happen only if we teach the new
generation the way they're used to:
with a hands-on approach, using
tools that make it fun for them."
Ben-Ozer hopes the Detroit Con-
gregational Initiative will enable local
educators to develop and share com-
prehensive learning materials, noting
that she saw impressive examples of
such projects — financed by commu-
nity federation grants — at last week's
Coalition for the Advancement of
Jewish Education (CAJE) conference
in Texas.
"I'd like to see the Federation here
,going more into developing hands-on
materials and a yearly curriculum that
teachers can adapt," she said: "A lot
of teachers in the field are new or
part-time and aren't willing to put
lots of time in outside of class. To
maximize the five hours they're teach-
ing in the classroom, you have to
have materials available."

• Are you battling with your
child over food?

• Is your child sneaking food?

• Is your child gaining too
much weight?

• Do weight problems
run in your family?

C C WM

Center
for Childhood
Weight Management

8/21
1998

❑

Let the
professional
staff of
The Center for
Childhood Weight .
Management help you
and your child.

For more information about
classes and locations, call:

(248) 661.-6625

"Healthy Kids Are Happy Kids"

110 Detroit Jewish News

Identifying
Learning Disabilities

ALISON ASHTON
Special to The Jewish News

A

ccording to the American
Speech-Language-Hearing
Association, more than 2.4
million children have a
learning disability that significantly
impacts their academic life. And the
National Institutes of Health estimate
that up to 15 percent of the popula-
tion is affected by learning disabili-
ties.
But observant parents can spot the
signs of a disability long before it
impedes their child's progress in the
classroom.
"Learning disabilities do not sud-
denly appear at ages 8, 9 or 10," says
speech-language pathologist Katharine
G. Butler. "They often are a continua-
tion of speech and language problems
from the preschool years."
Certain learning disabilities can

make it tough for kids to learn to
read, write, reason, listen or work
with numbers. These disabilities often
have nothing to do with a child's
intelligence.
Dyslexia is one example of a lan-
guage-based disability that has afflict-
ed some of the most creative and
inventive people in history, including
Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein,
Henry Ford and Alexander Graham
Bell.
You might assume a wordsmith
like romantic poet W.B. Yeats would
have had no trouble with language
but, he, too, was dyslexic.
Potential learning problems mani-
fest themselves early, and parents who
read with their children are likely to
spot problems with language develop-
ment. Among the clues are:
• Delayed spoken language. If a
child has not started speaking by 1,
parents should be concerned.

Early signs of
learning
problems.

• Difficulty expressing thoughts
orally or in written form. Dyslexics,
for example, are visual thinkers, so
putting their thoughts into words is
difficult.
• Difficulty learning handwriting.
Problems with reading comprehen-
sion. Again, if a dyslexic child can't
form a visual image of what he reads,
he'll have a hard time understanding
it.
• Trouble with numbers, such as
following a sequence of steps to solve
a math problem.
• Difficulty following directions.
• Lack of physical coordination.
Kids with learning disabilities may
also be clumsy, and confuse left and
right.
Of course, not all children display-
ing one or two of these traits have
learning disabilities. A child who
doesn't talk much, for example, may
just be shy. But any child suspected
of having a disability should be evalu-
ated.
Once hearing or vision problems
or other factors - have been ruled out,
children can learn the skills they need
to overcome their disability and keep
up with their classmates. ❑

Copley News Service