Grasshopper New Media Presents...

A Bit About The LD Podcast from Whitney Hoffman, Executive Producer.

The LD Podcast is billed as a podcast for parents, by parents of children with learning disabilities. The idea for the podcast came from the simple fact that many of my friends who have children with learning problems, or kids who were struggling in school, often felt alone. They didn’t know where to turn to get help for their kids, and also felt they had wasted a lot of time looking for miracle cures that simply don’t exist. We all chased specialists, tutors, experts, therapists, and ran around like maniacs, looking for the one thing that would “fix” our kids. And we felt embarrassed that our children weren’t perfect, and that we had to search for things to brag about, competing with Polly Perfect and her brood of budding geniuses next door.

What we found is that all kids aren’t perfect. Many have problems, but if you address the problems early, they don’t have to be life sentences of difficulty and failure. Ignoring problems, or assuming they will simply grow out of them over time actually makes the problems worse, rather than better. And learning about how a child develops and learns lets you understand how your child sees the world, helping you to be a more compassionate and understanding parent.

Knowing that you aren’t alone helps parents feel their problems are manageable. There are others in the same spot, and we can work together to make education work for our kids. But we also need to learn to be successful advocates and partners in our child’s learning, not passive observers on the sidelines, whose only job is to review report cards and pass out criticism.

As a mom of two kids with learning disabilities, I’ve amassed over a decade worth of experience ranging from early identification of learning problems and developmental delay, to how to break down reading into its component steps, to how to put learning into a meaningful context for kids. I have read endless books about learning, education policy, parenting, and child development, trying to understand my children and how to help them-and through the LD Podcast, I can help you help your children as well.

My undergrad degree is in developmental biology from the University of Pennsylvania, and I later went to law school at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law. The LD Podcast lets me use my expertise in science and in the law to help parents understand how learning works, and how to navigate the complex legal waters of special education. Yes, parents need to know their rights, but they also have to know how to work with educators, experts, therapists and others to make sure their child is getting the best education possible.

The LD Podcast is ultimately about learning to learn. This is important for all kids, but especially for those with learning disabilities, who need to know how their brain learns best, and how to take advantage of the way their brain functions. Children with LD not only need to be active and engaged learners, they need tools to be more efficient and effective when learning can be harder and take longer than for others.

We all want our children to be active and engaged students. A life long love of learning will do more to help a child succeed than an “A” on any assignment or report card. Kids with learning disabilities or those who struggle in school too often get the message that “they are just no good at school” and can give up on themselves, assuming they are just “Stupid” or “dumb”, rather than the truth- that because of the way their brains are wired, they learn differently than other kids. Once these children learn the secrets to how they learn best, their performance, and their self confidence increases dramatically. No longer are they stumbling in the dark, wondering what they need to do to “get it”- we can show them how to “get it” and give them a formula they can use to succeed.

The LD Podcast will bring you information not only about specific learning disabilities, but about learning in general. Did you know that handwriting and proper penmanship is important early on, because it can drastically affect a child’s ability to compose their thoughts in writing later on? Do you know that our working memory has two components that affects our ability to multi-task? Do you know why medication that is viewed as “uppers” like Ritalin seems to calm down a child with hyperactivity? Do you know that the root cause of dyslexia may be based on a fundamental difference in the wiring of the brain? Did you know that if a child has problems identifying their colors, that this can be an early warning sign of reading difficulty? These are but a few of the questions we help you understand and get answers to on the LD Podcast.

We feature interviews with experts, ranging from psychologists to psychiatrists to educators. We strive to bring you the best information about learning to learn, and the tools to help your child improve in school, in a format that is genuine, heartfelt, and fun.

I’d like the LD Podcast and all of its listeners to form a community about learning. What works, and what doesn’t. How we can help each other help our kids. How we can simply laugh at the crazy day to day problems we all have, in a format that is fun, real, and helpful. Let me know what you think about education, learning and school.