Time Management for Children with Learning Disabilities
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This document discusses new approaches to time management for students with learning disabilities (LD). It provides an overview of what time management is, including short-term and long-term aspects. The importance of time management for LD students is explained. Several LD student case studies are presented to illustrate common time management challenges such as sequencing, cognitive inflexibility, disorganization, distraction, and working memory issues. The document then suggests techniques for students to address these challenges, including limiting choices, task analysis, self-monitoring, and bringing structure and consistency. It concludes by introducing Brili, a time management app that has been successfully piloted with LD students and is proposed for further research studies.
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Time Management for Children with Learning Disabilities
- 1. New Approaches to Time Management for LD Children Dana Kinsella, Special Education Program Leader Pierre Séguin, Founder, Brili Inc.
- 2. Overview • What’s time management? • Why it’s important • LD-specific Challenges & Techniques • Technology Demonstration
- 3. What Is Time Management? • Short term • Long-term
- 4. Short Term
- 5. Long Term
- 6. The Importance of Time Management
- 11. Student A • Male • Grade 11 • English University Level • Identified Communication LD - Dyslexia
- 12. Sequencing
- 15. 10:15 am Reading
- 16. !D;1f 8N
- 17. 10:15 am – 9:57 AM = ?? Math
- 19. Student B • Male • Grade 12 • English College Level • Impulsivity control • Borderline low-average range
- 22. Limit Choices
- 23. Limit Choices
- 24. Limit Choices
- 26. Perfectionism
- 28. Student C • Female • Grade 9 - Resource classroom • Disorganized • Forgets homework and resources daily • Hands assignments in late • Often late for class
- 29. Disorganization
- 31. Estimating
- 33. Underestimating
- 34. Overestimating
- 35. Task Analysis & Time Estimation Sheet Task: __________________________________________________________________ Estimated Time Needed to Complete Actual Time Needed to Complete Difference Between Estimate & Actual Steps: 1. ____________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________ Social Studies—Read Ch. 6 pp. 226-238 Find the page in the book. Read the headings & sub-heading & turn them into questions. Read the questions at the end of the section. Gather book, pencil, highlighters, notebook. Write heading on notes. Read the first sub-section. Write the sub-section’s main idea & supporting details in notes. In notes, answer the question created in #4. Answer the questions in complete sentences. Add more lines as needed. 45 min. 58 min. +13 Repeat #7 and #8 for each. Thanks to Patricia W. Newhall
- 36. Student D • Female • 8 years old, Grade 3 • Easily distracted • Quiet • Often not on task
- 37. Distraction
- 39. Working Memory
- 41. Self-Monitoring
- 45. Bringing It All Together
- 48. Insert updated photo of paper-based schedule
- 73. Brili in Schools • Included on IEPs in the U.S. at parents’ request • Successful pilot project and study in Dana’s classroom with 19-year-old autistic student (Sudbury) • Proposed research study in Ottawa (Omer-Deslauriers) and in Southern Ontario (CS Viamonde)
- 74. Thank You Dana Kinsella kinseld@rscloud.ca @danafinny Pierre Séguin pierre@brili.co @briliapp http://brili.co
Editor's Notes
- Dana Kinsella - Special Education Program Leader
- Short term time management is what is used within the classroom, or on specific tasks. Students need short term time management for completing journals, arriving to school on time, moving from class to class on time, staying on task during transition times, etc.
- Long-term time management is applied for keeping track of assignments due on another day, planning time to work on things, keeping a schedule straight.
- Time management is a basic life skill because we live in a world controlled by time limits and schedules. We all need some need time management to: keep your job, stay in school to graduate, have successful relationships, be a part of the community, etc.
- The teacher’s perspective: Being able to complete tasks in a given time frame helps the students and teacher keep learning together; no one feels left behind.
- Students have increasing demands placed upon them to complete work on time as they progress through school years. Having more than one teacher in a day and therefore limited time with each specific teacher; this also creates transition times which can be challenges. It can get tricky to manage several teachers per semester each with different expectations and routines.
- Multi step Assignments are chronically handed in late. Help is asked for at the wrong time, like at the end of class as the next class of students is walking in the room. Group work that requires planning of steps is overwhelming and distracting; and so avoidance would be the response and work would be done in the last few minutes before presenting.
- Like Student A, some students need help with planning a task sequence and understanding the time it takes to do each task. Teachers can support this by collaborating with students on planning the steps that need to be done, discussing the right order to do things.
- The classic approach: Post-it notes can come in handy for doing a work breakdown collaboratively There’s a huge list of to-do and task planning apps and software e.g. Post-It Plus, Trello, Asana, Jira Agile, Stormboard Image from: http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/featured/personal-kanban-at-nycs-agile-learning-center/#sthash.3PQuAidZ.dpbs
- Some students have difficulty reading numbers on a clock.
- If a student is spending all their effort decoding, he or she has less capacity left for understanding.
- Time management often requires math skills that adults take for granted. How much time do I have?
- Strategy: make use of visual time representations that give an at-a-glance sense of proportion of time spent versus time left analog clocks visual timers hourglass
- Student B also lacks cognitive flexibility and gets overwhelmed when given too many choices.
- A student with limited cognitive flexibility can fixate on just being finished, only wants to work on one assignment at a time. This student can become overwhelmed if given too much information, too many choices.
- These students don’t easily see that there are alternative paths to the end goal.
- The a student is overwhelmed by choice…
- …help the student focus on one step at a time, using “progressive reveal” as the student completes tasks.
- Over time, progressively give the student simple choices.
- With distractible students like Student B, cues to stay on task, or return to the task, need to be as personalized as possible, narrowly directed to them so the student doesn’t feel singled out amongst peers.
- Student B has a tendency towards perfectionism and obsessive compulsions. After successfully completing large parts of the work, he gets frustrated, throws the whole thing out and restarts the whole project many times, ending up spending too much time on it. He never notices the value of his progress or learning because of fixation on a “perfect” outcome.
- Strategy to mitigate perfectionism: Provide the student with frequent feedback, provide positive reinforcement at the completion of each component task so that the student perceives value in work done to date and isn’t as compelled to start over.
- Student C is very disorganized and loses track of time (typical ADHD / executive function deficiency symptoms.)
- Disorganization leads to a loss of learning as the student plays catch-up, doesn’t realize what’s going on, doesn’t do the assigned work because it’s forgotten, etc. This, of course, leads to frustration for all involved. Students with ADHD are prone to getting frustrated if they don’t succeed right away, so set them up for easy wins at first, with lots of positive reinforcement. Create organizational habits one bit at time, provide cues consistently on these habits until the student retains them. Build a routine over time (e.g. always retrieve pen and agenda from bag at the start of every class)
- Mitigation strategies for organization Work with student to learn and implement organization techniques Common apps that are helpful include: Google Calendar Trello Remind Evernote 30/30 MyHomework Student Planner The Homework app
- Student C, like many other students, isn’t yet skilled at estimating or perceiving the passage of time.
- Time estimation can be complex. Even adults find it challenging so in the business world, we’ve had to develop advanced techniques that professional project managers apply. (e.g. CPM, PERT)
- Student C’s assignments rarely completed on time or are only partially completed on time. This is often because of underestimating not seeing all the necessary steps that will be required not understanding how much time is needed for each step taking too much time on early steps
- When students overestimate, they conversely can get overwhelmed and not want to start the assignment (procrastinating) and leaving too much work until the last minute.
- Mitigation strategy Task analysis & time estimation sheet (see Patricia Newell’s article: http://www.ldonline.org/article/23676/) Work with student to break down tasks that are required Ask student to estimate the time for each task Ask student to time him/herself completing the tasks Compare actual to estimate Repeat to build the student’s ability to estimate Menu choice boards can be helpful in breaking down the work.
- Student D is distractible, has weak working memory and has difficulty with self-monitoring.
- When students are easily distracted, they lose track of what’s going on or just can’t focus on the learning assignment.
- Mitigation strategies: It can be helpful to provide rewarding, short-term goal to focus on. Frequent (personalized, discrete!) cues to return to task Preferential seating for redirecting Schedule frequent breaks (preferably involving some sort of physical activity)
- Even when paying attention, Student D has trouble holding necessary data points working memory. Keeping track of time and its passage can distract from limited capacity for the learning task at hand.
- Mitigation strategy - Writing things down - or capturing with voice recorder, screenshot, camera (BYOD) Co-construct anchor charts Offloading some of the extra things to keep track of (like time) Chunk verbal instructions (smaller instruction sets) Visual, audible timers and cues (as seen previously.)
- Challenges with self monitoring can result in not appreciating the amount of work progress made (or not made) towards accomplishing the goal.
- Mitigation strategy Sticker charts and other types of reward to recognize effort and task completion *frequently*
- We want to keep in mind that stress related to time management for kids often starts at home and follows them all day. Time management skills are transportable, and it’s important to work with parents on building routines and time competencies.
- Our goal, of course, is happy and successful students, well-equipped to face the next stages of life.
- Pierre Séguin, Founder & CEO of Brili, Inc. Technology Demo
- (Pierre) This is my son, Leo. A few years ago, our family was having an awful time dealing with almost daily tantrums and blowups. We nearly went out of our minds. One time Leo hugged me and said, “Daddy, I want to be good but sometimes I just can’t." We went to see a lot of child behavior experts. They taught us a few things that work:
- First, kids need structure. A predictable daily routine prevents surprises and makes kids feel safe. Second, parents need to be consistent with the structure. Simple, right? Unfortunately, most parents really struggle with this.
- The single most effective tool our family learned about was to post lists and visual schedules. These worked because Leo knew what was coming up next and we parents could see it too.
- I’ve been leading software projects for 18 years. Lately, dev teams have started using interactive big screen information dashboards for metrics and task tracking. So I thought, why can’t we do this digitally for kids? And while we’re at it, why don’t we make routines fun?
- I’d like to introduce you to Brili.
- With Brili, parents set up daily routines for their kids from their device…
- …and the routines come to life as a game on the child’s device.
- Brili makes things like getting dressed and brushing teeth part of a fun race against time…
- …while parents can monitor kids’ progress in real time from anywhere.
- Brili SHOWS kids the time they’ve got for each task. No reading required.
- They get prompts when time is running out.
- And when they go over time, they see the effect of that right away on their play time at the end.
- When they recover by speeding up, kids see that, too.
- And, of course, kids earn free time and point-based rewards for their success.
- We are completely cross-platform and also have the first ever wearable routine guidance for kids with Brili for Pebble Watch.
- As parents set up routines and kids complete them daily, we will be collecting a data set that is unprecedented and applying machine learning to optimize routines, and more. Our data analysis team is working through the data we’ve already got to discover insights so we can start developing useful algorithms and support parenting and psychology research.
- For example, we’re seeing that kids tend to outperform their parents’ expectations on some tasks…
- …and not so much on others.
- We can also drill down into individual age groups and see how successful they tend to be when parents choose a specific timer setting.
- We’re also looking at how kids earn reward time: among other things, we’re comparing the approaches of completing tasks quickly versus starting the routine early.
- Interestingly, Wednesdays are good for earning reward time. We are just getting started, so expect more interesting insights over the next few months.
- We’ve seen successful outcomes for students using the current version of Brili, which was originally designed for home. That said, we now want to test the product and iterate new features that will make it as helpful as possible to educators and students. We are working now to develop these studies.