Community General Foundation Gala
(Adults only) October 22nd, 2010 (6:30 PM to 11:00 PM)
Hotel Syracuse. 492-5079.
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(Adults only) October 22nd, 2010 (6:30 PM to 11:00 PM)
Hotel Syracuse. 492-5079.
View all calendar events
Sandwich on a stick
Ingredients: Bread, cheese, diced ham, grape tomatoes, lettuce, pickle, olive. Directions: Cut up cubes of bread, cheese, and ham. Slide the cubes onto a skewer with other foods your child likes... More
Ingredients: Bread, cheese, diced ham, grape tomatoes, lettuce, pickle, olive. Directions: Cut up cubes of bread, cheese, and ham. Slide the cubes onto a skewer with other foods your child likes... More
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LDACNY partners with parents, educators to help children succeed
Posted on Wed, January 6th, 2010
Written by: Jennifer Wing, Editor
email: editor@syracuseparent.net
Patricia Cerro-Reehil, watching her son Ethan, 3, play and interact, became concerned.
“… we noticed some deficit and were worried,” Cerro-Reehil said. As he grew older, the concerns also grew. “He had difficulties with his numbers, holding a pencil and focusing,” she said. “We knew we couldn’t ignore it.”
Upon entering school, Ethan, a good-natured, well-liked child, began noticing a difference between how he was learning in comparison to his classmates.
“It affected his self esteem,” Cerro-Reehil said. “He’d see one of his friends accomplish something and would ask, ‘Mom, how come I can’t do that?’ It was heart-breaking.”
They had Ethan evaluated and heard words that made their hearts sink.
Ethan had a learning disability.
What is a learning disability?
Ethan is certainly not alone in his struggles. According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 15 million children, adolescents and adults have learning disabilities.
Learning disabilities are frequently a “hidden handicap,” where the effort required to process information causes the individual to respond differently.
According to the Learning Disabilities Association of Central New York, individuals with a learning disability may demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:
✓ Difficulty with reading, writing, speech and mathematics
✓ Difficulty with perception of time and space
✓ Problems with concentration and attention
✓ Impulsive behavior, difficulty with short-term memory
✓ Socialization problems
✓ Difficulty with fine motor coordination
✓ Low self-esteem
✓ Difficulty with organization
How can parents help?
Three years ago, when Cerro-Reehil and her husband, Roy, worried about Ethan’s progress, they met with their son’s school psychologist.
“We had had an IEP Individualized Education Program done for Ethan, which helped to pinpoint what he needed,” she said. An IEP is created when parents, teachers, other faculty and the student come together to design a program to help the student become involved in the general curriculum. An IEP can be used to figure out what supports and services the student needs.
“Until we understood the problem and looked at his IEP, we felt lost,” she said.
The school psychologist then guided them in a direction that would prove pivotal in helping Ethan by referring them to the Learning Disabilties Association of Central New York (LDACNY).
“We met with Dennis Killian-Benigno, an educational consultant at LDACNY,” she said. “It was that first meeting with Dennis that really helped. He said he felt the SAIL program would benefit Ethan.
SAIL, or Summer Adventures in Learning, is designed to help learning disabled students ages 6-14 to succeed and maintain skills during the summer months. Taught by teachers trained in learning disabilities, classes are small and there is an emphasis on self-advocacy, independence and individual learning styles.
“We have been doing SAIL for almost 20 years,” Aggie Glavin, co-executive director of programs at LDACNY, said. “It is six weeks, three days a week, and it is intense. There are no worksheets, no mindless activities. The children are fully engaged and the teachers keep them that way. I do promise parents that their kids’ minds will be drained at the end of the program.”
Glavin knows first-hand how LDACNY can help children with learning disabilities, as her two children, now grown, both had learning disabilities and went through the process of overcoming them through LDACNY. Her daughter, now 34, is a speech and language pathologist. Her son, at 31, is a systems analyst with the New York State Department of Budget.
Dianne Pennings, an educational consultant at LDACNY, is an administrator for SAIL.
“We work hard at making it fun while hitting our academic and non-academic areas,” Pennings said. “Some days I stand on my head to make it exciting and learning experience for them.”
Ethan went through SAIL before entering sixth grade.
“What we saw over the summer was amazing,” Cerro-Reehil said. “He met a lot of different people and started to feel good about himself. The program helped build his self-confidence.”
Has it worked for Ethan?
Now a sixth grader at Central Square Middle School, “he just made the honor roll,” Cerro-Reehil said.
Parents as partners
Glavin is quick to point out that the parents know their child the best and “see signs, sense things long before they go to school. She said that none of the services offered at LDACNY would work without the involvement of the schools and the children’s.
“It’s about teaching parents how to work with the school,” Glavin said. “Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of parents, and it makes no difference the level of education of the parents, when you have a child with a learning disability it levels the playing field. We teach parents how to access tools to make their child successful.”
Cerro-Reehil said, some nights, she works for more than an hour with Ethan on his homework, after working a full day at her job as executive director of the New York Water Environment Association, and Glavin said she recognizes that parents are very busy these days.
“Parents have a lot on their plate, and this is an added burden,” she said. “It is a necessary one, however. The good news is that with technology today there is so much more available to assist individuals than ever before.”
Cerro-Reehil agreed. “I can go to the website for reinforcements,” she said. “Many of the things to be found there are very fundamental, but insightful.”
Glavin said she has seen the difference services offered by LDACNY have made in the lives of those its touched.
“I’ve run into folks with kids that are now successful,” she said. “I was attending a conference at Syracuse University when a parking lot attendant recognized me and said, ‘You’re the only reason I graduated.’ I remembered him as someone who had severe ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and yet here he was, a high school graduate.”
“I told him that it wasn’t us, but his parents, and said to make sure to give his mother a hug and tell her she was the best mother in the world.”
Jennifer Wing, editor of "Syracuse Parent" and "Mother Knows Best," lives in Manlius with her husband, Eric, and children, Cassidy, 7, and Jacob, 5. She has worked at Eagle Newspapers since 2005.
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Posted on Wed, January 6th, 2010Written by: Jennifer Wing, Editor
email: editor@syracuseparent.net
Patricia Cerro-Reehil, watching her son Ethan, 3, play and interact, became concerned.
“… we noticed some deficit and were worried,” Cerro-Reehil said. As he grew older, the concerns also grew. “He had difficulties with his numbers, holding a pencil and focusing,” she said. “We knew we couldn’t ignore it.”
Upon entering school, Ethan, a good-natured, well-liked child, began noticing a difference between how he was learning in comparison to his classmates.
“It affected his self esteem,” Cerro-Reehil said. “He’d see one of his friends accomplish something and would ask, ‘Mom, how come I can’t do that?’ It was heart-breaking.”
They had Ethan evaluated and heard words that made their hearts sink.
Ethan had a learning disability.
What is a learning disability?
Ethan is certainly not alone in his struggles. According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 15 million children, adolescents and adults have learning disabilities.
Learning disabilities are frequently a “hidden handicap,” where the effort required to process information causes the individual to respond differently.
According to the Learning Disabilities Association of Central New York, individuals with a learning disability may demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:
✓ Difficulty with reading, writing, speech and mathematics
✓ Difficulty with perception of time and space
✓ Problems with concentration and attention
✓ Impulsive behavior, difficulty with short-term memory
✓ Socialization problems
✓ Difficulty with fine motor coordination
✓ Low self-esteem
✓ Difficulty with organization
How can parents help?
Three years ago, when Cerro-Reehil and her husband, Roy, worried about Ethan’s progress, they met with their son’s school psychologist.
“We had had an IEP Individualized Education Program done for Ethan, which helped to pinpoint what he needed,” she said. An IEP is created when parents, teachers, other faculty and the student come together to design a program to help the student become involved in the general curriculum. An IEP can be used to figure out what supports and services the student needs.
“Until we understood the problem and looked at his IEP, we felt lost,” she said.
The school psychologist then guided them in a direction that would prove pivotal in helping Ethan by referring them to the Learning Disabilties Association of Central New York (LDACNY).
“We met with Dennis Killian-Benigno, an educational consultant at LDACNY,” she said. “It was that first meeting with Dennis that really helped. He said he felt the SAIL program would benefit Ethan.
SAIL, or Summer Adventures in Learning, is designed to help learning disabled students ages 6-14 to succeed and maintain skills during the summer months. Taught by teachers trained in learning disabilities, classes are small and there is an emphasis on self-advocacy, independence and individual learning styles.
“We have been doing SAIL for almost 20 years,” Aggie Glavin, co-executive director of programs at LDACNY, said. “It is six weeks, three days a week, and it is intense. There are no worksheets, no mindless activities. The children are fully engaged and the teachers keep them that way. I do promise parents that their kids’ minds will be drained at the end of the program.”
Glavin knows first-hand how LDACNY can help children with learning disabilities, as her two children, now grown, both had learning disabilities and went through the process of overcoming them through LDACNY. Her daughter, now 34, is a speech and language pathologist. Her son, at 31, is a systems analyst with the New York State Department of Budget.
Dianne Pennings, an educational consultant at LDACNY, is an administrator for SAIL.
“We work hard at making it fun while hitting our academic and non-academic areas,” Pennings said. “Some days I stand on my head to make it exciting and learning experience for them.”
Ethan went through SAIL before entering sixth grade.
“What we saw over the summer was amazing,” Cerro-Reehil said. “He met a lot of different people and started to feel good about himself. The program helped build his self-confidence.”
Has it worked for Ethan?
Now a sixth grader at Central Square Middle School, “he just made the honor roll,” Cerro-Reehil said.
Parents as partners
Glavin is quick to point out that the parents know their child the best and “see signs, sense things long before they go to school. She said that none of the services offered at LDACNY would work without the involvement of the schools and the children’s.
“It’s about teaching parents how to work with the school,” Glavin said. “Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of parents, and it makes no difference the level of education of the parents, when you have a child with a learning disability it levels the playing field. We teach parents how to access tools to make their child successful.”
Cerro-Reehil said, some nights, she works for more than an hour with Ethan on his homework, after working a full day at her job as executive director of the New York Water Environment Association, and Glavin said she recognizes that parents are very busy these days.
“Parents have a lot on their plate, and this is an added burden,” she said. “It is a necessary one, however. The good news is that with technology today there is so much more available to assist individuals than ever before.”
Cerro-Reehil agreed. “I can go to the website for reinforcements,” she said. “Many of the things to be found there are very fundamental, but insightful.”
Glavin said she has seen the difference services offered by LDACNY have made in the lives of those its touched.
“I’ve run into folks with kids that are now successful,” she said. “I was attending a conference at Syracuse University when a parking lot attendant recognized me and said, ‘You’re the only reason I graduated.’ I remembered him as someone who had severe ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and yet here he was, a high school graduate.”
“I told him that it wasn’t us, but his parents, and said to make sure to give his mother a hug and tell her she was the best mother in the world.”
Jennifer Wing, editor of "Syracuse Parent" and "Mother Knows Best," lives in Manlius with her husband, Eric, and children, Cassidy, 7, and Jacob, 5. She has worked at Eagle Newspapers since 2005.
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