I would bet the first time you heard the phrase “educational therapy” (ET) you were immediately confused and intrigued. When I first heard of ET, I immediately took to the internet to try and answer my ever-growing list of questions but found pretty generic definitions. Some therapists have websites and social media, so that was helpful. It wasn’t until I met with an educational therapist that it all clicked, and my brain went “well we have no choice, this is what we are doing now. It was made for us.” So now that I have been on that journey, have the answers, and am running my own ET practice, hopefully I am able to make your own journey to understanding educational therapy (ET) a bit easier.
According to Association of Educational Therapy,
"Educational Therapy is a form of therapy used to treat individuals with learning differences, disabilities, and challenges. This form of therapy offers a wide range of intensive interventions that are designed to resolve learners' learning problems. These interventions are individualized and unique to the specific learner."
If you are thinking that definition is pretty broad…well, you are right. And it makes sense that it is. Educational therapy is meant to be customizable to the needs of the client. A 5 year old’s needs are likely very different from those of a 29 year old's. Regardless of a therapist’s specialties or the supports they offer, educational therapy’s purpose is to answer the question: Why isn’t this person learning and how can I support that?
An adult may have learning disabilities which makes it difficult for them to acquire a job. A child may have a reading disability which ends up impacting some or all academic areas. Or maybe the student just really doesn't like school. The possibilities are endless.
The Association of Educational Therapists (AET) has set guidelines and best practices for educational therapists. Although an educational therapist is not required to be a member of AET, all ET’s should be informed of these best practices. An educational therapist is someone who has professional credentials in the field of education, special education, speech therapy, or other related fields and has relevant experience enabling them to work with students in their credentialed area. For example, I am a licensed special education teacher with experience teaching K-5 students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) (such as autism, Down Syndrome, Cortical Vision Impairment, Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, etc.). Therefore, UnmaskEd supporting K-5 students with IDD is the natural step to take. An educational therapist with a background as an occupational therapist may focus more on removing learning barriers caused by unmet sensory needs. A educational therapist with a background in speech therapy may also focus on sensory needs, as well as phonological awareness (letter sounds). The key here is that the educational therapist bases their practice on their own strengths and credentials.
So what exactly does an educational therapist do?
We provide evidence based interventions to support a student’s learning. Within one practice, it is possible one student’s interventions are vastly different than the next. Learning is so much more than reading and math. There are so many skills and variables that need to be accounted for. To better understand this, let’s take a look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Notice self-actualization, where learning occurs, is at the tippy-top.
You can apply this concept to yourself. Imagine you woke up late and had to rush to get ready. You decided to skip breakfast to make sure you made it to work on time. Most likely, you are able to work productively for an hour or two. But by 10:00, you are so hungry and starting to get a headache since you skipped you morning coffee. Are you going to be as productive right now as you would be if you came to work well fed and with your daily caffeine? Probably not. This is the same for children.
A neurotypical child who skips breakfast might come to school grumpy, but doesn’t have the interception (sensory awareness of internal needs, such as hunger) to realize the correlation between being hungry and grumpy. A grumpy student at school is very likely to misbehave, get distracted, or not remember what they are trying to learn. If their teacher notices this and sends the student to the cafeteria to get a school-provided breakfast, that need has been met. That requires the teacher to have a relationship with the student where they understand the student’s behavior cues, history, and the skill to observe this while teaching the entire class.
The list of examples of possibilities and strategies used by an educational therapist are truly endless. Any missing piece of Maslow’s Hierarchy can cause any number of barriers to learning. And what happens when someone has multiple pieces missing?
So…the broad definition of educational therapy is broad by design. Every person is unique, meaning their strengths, needs, and interests are unique.
UnmaskEd’s key takeaways of what educational therapy is:
uses a therapeutic approach to remove barriers to learning
is based on the needs of the student
is unique and evidence based
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