"The four elements represented within the figure eight emphasize NILD's comprehensive approach in developing the ability to learn. We believe all learners can be taught to think better."
- National Institute for Learning Development (NILD)
Deficits in perception and/or thinking skills (cognition) impact the learning process and create uneven academic performance. The learning process is represented in the diagram below, depicted as a wall of various components or academic building blocks. Perceptual and cognitive skills form the foundation. If any areas, such as visual/auditory memory or abstract/logical thinking are vulnerable, the wall is unstable, all academic areas become affected, and future learning is diminished.
Educational therapy helps to strengthen perceptual deficits and thinking skills, evening out and strengthening the wall, and making the learning process functional and efficient. Students are able to learn independently. Like physical therapy or speech therapy, NILD Educational Therapy boosts weaker or vulnerable systems.
Intervention
Students of all ages with learning struggles come to the Idaho Learning Center twice a week for NILD Educational Therapy. This intensive mediated approach to learning brings the student up to grade- and ability-level, giving them confidence and competence for life-long learning.
NILD Educational Therapy is unique:
- Deficit Stimulation: Strengthen learning skills that are weak
- Non-Tutorial: Learning skills, not specific content
- Integrative: Stimulating both perceptual and academic skills
- Individual and Intense: Affecting lasting cognitive change through skilled mediation between therapist and student
- Non-Compensatory: Intervention to strengthen a weakness rather than merely to compensate
- All Ages: Enhancing thinking for individuals at all stages of life
Assessment
A complete series of psycho-educational tests are used to identify areas of cognitive strengths and patterns of weaknesses. Based upon initial and annual assessments, an individualized program of NILD Educational Therapy is designed for each student to stimulate cognitive functioning.