Hi, I’m heather!

I love connecting with people, and making sure those around me feel seen and heard has always been a core value. That, combined with my deep passion for education and serving others is what motivates me to help my clients not just navigate the process, but feel supported and cared for from start to finish. As part of our empathetic, educational counseling,  consulting, and career support, I have been providing individualized live-online instruction since 2015! I hold an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, as well as a Master’s degree in Varying Exceptionalities, and a Bachelor’s degree in English Education. Additionally,  I am a certified teacher with Reading Endorsement as well as a certified Executive Functioning Coach. I am also endorsed by College Board to proctor and teach SAT/ACT and AP materials. My main focus is on students who are ADHD, have dyslexia/dysgraphia/dyscalculia, spectrum disorders, and other Specialized Learning Disorders (SLD). I am trained in Orton-Gillingham and hold the title of Fellow, as well as trained in Wilson and Linda MoodBell modalities of learning. My goal is to help your student reach their true potential through an educational intervention that is a structured, multi-sensory approach to teaching reading, writing, and study skills.

 

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT THERAPY AND SERVICES

Our Educational Development Therapy services include tutoring by a licensed learning specialist, test/college preparation, executive functioning skills training, and therapeutic methods such as therapeutic listening to help students relax, focus, and perform better academically. Our tutoring service focuses on interventions for learning disabilities such as dyslexia and spectrum disorder. We offer informal assessments to determine what instruction students will benefit from the most.

Private hourly sessions available. Rate is determined on a case by case basis.

 
  • Executive functioning skills are crucial to academic success. We focus on the following skills:

    Working Memory: Working memory impacts student’s ability to achieve success academically, that is why this type of training includes strategies that can be used to improve skills in this area.

    Social/Emotional/Inhibiting: The roles of social, emotional, and inhibition in learning are addressed. We evaluate how these three areas affect one’s outlook toward life in general and how they are perceived by others. It also includes strategies that can be used to improve skills in this area.

    Organization, Prioritizing, Sequencing and Time Management: We include strategies that can be used to improve these areas and “pull it all together”.

    Attending, Initiating and Focusing: This addresses the importance of helping students get started on assignments, attend to the desired stimulus, and sustain that attention to completion.

    Cognitive Flexibility, Communication, and Shifting: This topic will emphasize the role of executive functions in communication and will include strategies for written, spoken, and nonverbal language. In addition, this module addresses cognitive flexibility and shifting, including strategies for flexibility in thinking and strategies to help with transitions.

  • Our licensed learning specialists all hold not only teaching degrees in all subject areas but accreditations and certifications from nationally known programs such as Orton-Gillingham, Linda Mood-Bell, and Wilson. We offer tutoring services for home schooled students and traditional students who need assistance with reading, history, foreign language, and AP classes from grade school through college level.

  • SAT/ACT and general test preparation sessions are offered on an hourly basis. Our College Prep Program provides the resources and guidance to navigate the application process confidently from start to finish. We begin with the finalization of a school list and then advance to application strategy, major selection, essay development, financial aid applications, and everything in between.

  • Listening plays a vital role in the sensory integration process. In fact, some believe that the auditory system is the ‘missing link’ in sensory integration modalities. Both research and clinical experience have shown that using sound-based interventions for clients with sensory processing difficulties can increase treatment effectiveness. Sound-based intervention has proven especially effective on students with sensory processing disorders and visual-motor delays including spectrum disorder. Our therapists will work with your student using Therapeutic Listening modulated audio selections (available on CDs, digital music players, and some mobile devices) to create individualized, home-based programs individually selected.

 

Let us help you set your child up for success

  • Are you the parent of a child who is struggling to function as a result of reading, and/or language deficits? Do they have difficulty maintaining grades or keeping up with their peers even though you see them working their hardest?

    Perhaps you worry that their inability to read and comprehend information is causing them emotional or social distress. Similarly, maybe the disappointment of getting bad grades despite constantly trying so hard is damaging your teen’s self-esteem and sense of confidence.

    When a child is having trouble with reading, comprehension, and math, it can negatively impact their life in powerful ways. Feeling so different from others, they may have a hard time forming and maintaining friendships. The fear of being called on in class or taking an exam can trigger anxiety or panic attacks.

    They may lose focus easily because they’re bored with the material they don’t understand—or they may lash out in frustration. In some cases, their behavior may even be misinterpreted as defiance or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) when, in actuality, they just can’t process the information they are given.

    We know exactly how discouraging it can be to deal with a learning disability—both for the child and parent alike. We also know that our educational interventions offer children a life-changing experience that can improve math computation, language processing, and reading comprehension across the board.

  • One of the biggest reasons why so many children with dyslexia and other language difficulties struggle in school is that they aren’t being taught how to process letters and words in a way that their brains understand. That’s because most children naturally pick up language skills during their early development that allow them to process information easily, which frequently leads to a certain status quo in education. As a result, children who have trouble learning to read through traditional methods are often left behind because educators simply don’t have the tools or awareness to do anything about it.

    That is where we come in.

    Our programs teach children how to read in a way that is radically different from what is traditionally taught in classrooms. We understand that a majority of children with learning disabilities have trouble decoding information (reading words) and translating symbols into language. So our educational intervention programs present reading in a way that children with dyslexia and other reading disorders can process.

    We also realize that many children with a learning disability exhibit symptoms that often overlap with other challenges, such as ADHD, which is why we provide diagnoses as well as treatment. That way, regardless of what your child is dealing with, you can get concrete answers and support. So whether your child has problems with reading, comprehension, or computation and language processing in math, our research-driven interventions can help them discover their potential for success.

  • Our instructional intervention programs are validated by years of research, and they’re extremely effective because they help children draw tangible connections between imagery and written/spoken language. And given that your child will receive consistent, focused attention in our sessions, they’ll make progress much faster than in a traditional setting. Our educational interventions are structured to create results as we personalize our programs for each child based on their unique situation.

    During the intake process, we’ll meet to discuss your concerns, your child’s history, and the challenges they are experiencing. At that point, we’ll recommend an evaluation to determine a baseline for their reading level and to identify any gaps in their learning. And if we find that your child is lacking certain foundational skills, such as phonemic awareness, we can go back and supplement those areas where they need the most support.

    Our goal is to identify the core issue behind your child’s educational deficits and provide remediation through specialized instruction that focuses on imagery-language connection. That means your clinician will use specific language to trigger an imagery-language connection that will enable your child to make sense of what they are seeing.

    We also approach our instructional interventions with an error-handling perspective that encourages children to imagine and identify their own errors so they can make corrections accordingly. In this way, kids learn to self-monitor, self-correct, and eventually become independent readers. On the other side of the spectrum, some children can read words off a page, but they can’t process the information’s meaning, so our interventions also include a strong comprehension element. And because math is essentially a language of signs, symbols, and verbal prompts that can be hard to translate, we provide math interventions for improving children’s computation and language processing skills.

    Over time, your child will learn to see language in a different way as they begin to explore reading on their own. You may see them telling stories confidently, imagining the spelling of a word, and potentially participating in class more. Week by week, we’ll make sure to highlight their accomplishments, marking the milestones of progress—from Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words to multisyllabic words to reading stories on their own.

    With our educational interventions, it is possible for your child to learn how to read and thrive in their academics. And with your investment, you’ll be giving your child the best chance they have at living a happy, healthy, and successful life in which they feel confident and capable.

If you would like to transform your child’s life and ensure their healthy development and well-being, Heather Thomson can help. Please use our contact page to set up your free, 30-minute phone consultation. We can discuss the problems your child(ren) are having in school, the different types of special education interventions we offer, and answer any questions you have.