Strengthening the EXECUTIVE FUNCTION SKILLS of Your Students With Special Needs: Strategies to Increase Organization, Maintain Focus, Develop Working Memory, and Self-Regulate Behavior NEW Seminar Presented By Linda Davidson Outstanding Educator, Author, and Nationally Recognized Speaker

Specifically Designed for Special Education Staff, Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, General Education Classroom Teachers, School Psychologists, Counselors, and Other Educators Working with Students with special needs in Preschool - Grade 12

• Help your students with special needs improve their executive function skills in these key areas: organization of tasks and personal space, time management, task initiation and completion, impulse control, emotional self-regulation, and working memory
• Dozens of easy to implement practical strategies to help students with special needs who have difficulty maintaining attention and organizing their time, tasks, personal space, and materials
• Practical ways to adapt your instruction to enhance students’ ability to develop and use key executive function skills to increase their success in the classroom
• Activities, examples, and much more, including a comprehensive digital resource handbook you can take back and begin using immediately with your students

Practical Strategies and Materials

There has been a marked increase in the diagnosis of students who have weaknesses in executive function skills. Common characteristics can include difficulty with task initiation, prioritization, task completion, and the ability to think in an organized way to manage belongings, schedules, and assignments. In this NEW fast- paced seminar, Linda Davidson will demonstrate how to recognize the impact on behavior and learning and most importantly, give you a toolbox filled with practical strategies to help your students with executive function difficulties increase organization, maintain focus, develop working memory, and self-regulate behavior. You won’t want to miss this day filled with highly effective ideas and classroom proven interventions to help your students with special needs become more independent, develop greater control of their time, tasks and materials, and realize greater success in school.

Ten Key Benefits of Attending

1. Practical Strategies to Address Executive Function Weaknesses
   Learn how to more easily recognize and address executive function weaknesses … Discover new ways to teach your students who struggle how be better managers of their time, tasks, schedules, assignments, and behavior
2. Tools and Strategies to Teach Independence and Emotional Regulation
   Learn how to help students become more independent with strategies that teach steps in planning, implementing the plan and self-evaluating when finished … Strategies students with special needs can use for behavior regulation
3. Easier Ways to Adapt Your Instruction and Classroom Structure
   Receive tips and techniques to adapt your teaching that works for all students, but especially those that have difficulties with executive functioning skills … Quick and easy ideas for setting up routines and your classroom structure
4. How Executive Function Skills Impact Student Behavior and What You Can Do About It
   Understand and learn practical solutions for impulse control, self-regulation, and self-management … Help your students with special needs develop situational awareness to stop, think and plan before they respond negatively
5. Learn How to Use Visual Strategies to Teach Executive Functioning Skills
   Learn quick and easy ways to create and implement the use of visual strategies that help students better understand their environment to gain and retain information
6. Discover Practical Strategies to Organize, Plan and Prioritize
   You can help students with special needs process information in a more organized and logical way to select the tools and strategies they will need to plan for success
7. Practical Ideas for Your Unprepared Students
   Your students may appear to be unmotivated and apathetic, but we now know that many lack basic executive function skills … Learn practical strategies for teaching those skills to students who lack them
8. Discover the Connection to Brain Research: What It Teaches Us About Best Practices for Instruction
   Learn executive functioning strategies based on current research on how the brain takes in, processes and stores information … Learn the practical application of this research and how it will greatly benefit your students with special needs
9. Strategies to Help Your Students Improve in Key Executive Function Areas
   Increase students’ learning through greater time on task and more organized thinking … Learn practical strategies to help your students who have difficulty in these areas so they can experience success and become more independent
10. Receive an Extensive Digital Resource Handbook
    Each participant will receive a comprehensive digital resource handbook developed specifically for this seminar filled with strategies, ideas and research-based techniques that will support you when you return to your classroom and school

Specific Topics

• Strengthen your students with special needs EXECUTIVE FUNCTION SKILLS
• Dozens of practical strategies designed to increase attention, focus and impulse control
• Recognize and strategize to teach your students who struggle to think and act in an organized way to manage their time, tasks, schedules, assignments, and behavior
• Quick and easy visual strategies to support the development of executive functioning skills
• Executive function skills to increase student success in social emotional functioning
• Flexible problem-solving strategies to fit the needs of specific students
• Emotional regulation strategies you can use immediately
• Simple yet effective systems for study skills
• Memory strategies for studying, test taking, homework, and long-term project planning
• Clearly define key executive function skills and how they impact academic and social success
• Easily prepped strategies you can use immediately in the classroom or resource room
• Proven ideas to help students plan their homework, manage short and long-term projects/assignments and carry out tasks to completion

A Message from Your Seminar Leader

Dear Colleague:

Do you ever hear any of these statements about your students?
“He’s very smart, but he is just not motivated.”
“She has difficulty transitioning.”
“If only she would pay attention during class.”
“He explodes immediately over any little thing!”
If you have heard or thought any of these statements, you will want to join your colleagues for this seminar that will provide a specific toolbox of strategies, ideas, and solutions for these issues.

Research has exploded in the diagnosis and treatment of students who have difficulties in executive functioning. Executive dysfunction is thought to be the underlying neurological difficulty in disorders such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, traumatic brain injury, drug and alcohol exposure, behavioral and emotional disorders, as well as learning disabilities. The exciting news is that current research clearly indicates that this deficit can be effectively addressed with properly designed and implemented strategies.

In this stimulating and interactive seminar, designed for Preschool-Grade 12 inclusive and special education settings, you will learn how to recognize executive functioning deficits, assess their impact on learning and behavior, gain a toolbox of practical strategies for working with students. You will leave with dozens of quick and easy next day ideas. Strategies in self-awareness, work completion, task initiation, planning, organizing, and goal setting will be shared, as well as ideas for impulse control, motivation, self-regulation, and more!

You won’t want to miss this opportunity to understand how executive functioning or dysfunction makes or breaks students’ ability to be successful in school, both academically and socially. Come and learn new strategies and interventions that will make a significant difference for all your students with special needs.

Sincerely,
Linda Davidson, Ph.D.

P.S. I know you have options when choosing a professional development day that will meet your needs for the year. I promise, you will not be disappointed!

Who Should Attend

Special Education Staff, Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, General Education Classroom Teachers, School Psychologists, Counselors, and Other Educators Working with Students with special needs in Preschool - Grade 12

ASHA - CEUs

This course is offered for 0.50 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).

ASHA-Required Disclosure Statement for Linda Davidson:
Financial:
Presenter for the Institute for Educational Development and receives honorarium compensation.
Nonfinancial:
No relevant nonfinancial relationships exist.

Special Benefits of Attending:

1. You'll Receive an Extensive Resource Handbook
   Each participant will receive an extensive digital resource handbook specifically designed for this seminar. The handbook includes:
   • Step-by-step strategies for meeting the needs of your students with executive function deficits
   • Multiple resources and next day ideas for organization, impulse control, memory, behavioral regulation, and attention
   • Ideas for planning long-term projects, studying for tests, homework completion, as well as organizing space, materials and time
   • Easy techniques for teaching situational awareness, social planning, estimating time, and anxiety management
   • Teacher-tested ideas to help students with special needs focus on academic tasks
   • Ideas for specially designed instruction and accommodations
   • How trauma and stress effect executive function performance and how to help
   • Dozens of practical strategies for inclusive and special needs settings
2. Meet and Share:
   This seminar provides a wonderful opportunity for participants to meet and share ideas with other educators interested in strengthening the executive function skills of your students with special needs.
3. Consultation Available:
   Linda Davidson will be available at the seminar for consultation regarding your questions about the unique needs of your own students with special needs program.
4. Semester Credit Option:
   Graduate level professional development credit is available with an additional fee and completion of follow up practicum activities. Details for direct enrollment with University of Massachusetts Global, a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Massachusetts, will be available at the seminar.
5. Meet Inservice Requirements:
   At the end of the program, each attendee will receive a certificate of participation that may be used to verify hours of participation in meeting continuing education requirements.

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