Educators Serving Special Needs Youth Populations Strong BrainWise Users
Posted On: September 1, 2015The ACR/JAMS grant provides an opportunity to highlight school psychologist Karyn Singley Blair and the 15 years she has spent
CREATIVE BRAIN CONFERENCE” WASHINGTON, D.C.
teaching BrainWise to high school students at Aurora Central High School in Colorado, including those with who are blind, hearing impaired, having autism, emotional disabilities, executive functioning difficulties, cognitive impairment and other emotional and physical limitations. She teaches BrainWise because it gives her tools to help her students deal with the challenges they face daily, and worked with the teacher who developed the Wizard Brain/Lizard Brain in yarn with Braille descriptors to teach BrainWise to blind students.
The educational team at Wesley Spectrum Highland Services School in Pittsburgh, PA have been teaching BrainWise to children and youth with special needs for over seven years. Gary Swanson, M.D., medical director of the inpatient/outpatient facility, says that BrainWise is easy to teach and helps children, youth, parents and staff understand “that behavioral and emotional problems are not all due to chemical imbalances or ADHD, but rather the results of developmental connection problems that can be addressed both through therapy and medications.”
Teachers notice that today’s students are in greater need of psychological support, and say they find that teaching the 10 Wise Ways helps students understand how to take responsibility for their behaviors, identify support sources and how to contact them, and recognize why problems happened and how to prevent or manage them.
