At the Time Out Learning Centre the cause of a learning difficulty is of paramount importance. What dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Irlen Syndrome, auditory processing disorder, or just a teaching problem. The most important person apart from the child, are the parents. While all people in this area of expertise rely on generalities, parents know intimately what their child is having problems with at school and deserve to be listened to carefully.
We book in a General Assessment for children, so they can be observed as they are working and then what is wrong or difficult can be understood. Is the problem that they:
- Do not understand an instruction easily;
- Do not know how to do the task;
- Not know how due to a brain misfunction, a memory glitch (trauma, ADHD, Irlen, CAPD etc.), or poor teaching?
- Have inattention;
- Because they are bored, have possible ADHD, or having mini seizures which only show up as vagueness – and how can you tell?
- Are having behaviour issues because of home/family environment, ADHD, ODD, or absence of boundaries;
A report is generated after testing which outlines the child’s academic standing and what we are seeing as problems and recommendations for the parents to follow.
So the question is, “Why would a normally intelligent child, who really wants to succeed, be failing to manage at school and think they are not as good/intelligent as their peers”?
The Time Out Centre is a holistic Centre working with families and children to uncover and remediate the problems a child is experiencing. We work with other health professionals (psychologists, doctors, counsellors, etc.) as well as having our own Counsellor, who specialises in helping children with difficulties, as well as with adults. The first step is to find the cause, and then a plan for remediation. Since the brain is a multi-faceted organ, it is rare that only one problem exists, as there is a ‘shuffle down’ affect when one part of the brain is not functioning optimally. The Time Out Centre does not promote tests for allergies, gluten free diets, or other modalities like this, not because we don’t believe in it, but because we are not skilled in what works and what doesn’t. We are quite happy to refer clients to works by scientists like Dr. Campbell McBride: “GAPS – Gut and Psychology Syndrome” or Steven Porges “The Polyvagal Theory”, if they are interested in such things, but consider that there are specialists in these areas and we would rather refer you on to them. It is worth noting however, that both Autism and ADHD have been recently related to microbiota imbalances in the gut.
