Homeschool moms, if your child struggles with reading, focus, attention, or executive functioning, maybe you've already received a diagnosis like ADHD, dyslexia, or autism, or maybe you're wondering if one of those words fits your child, You've probably asked yourself, do I need to get my child evaluated? Is this just a phase? Am I overreacting? Am I underreacting? And honestly, part of you might be thinking, I homeschool.

Shouldn't that mean that I don't have to worry about all of this? The great thing about homeschooling is it gives you the freedom to customize, but it doesn't make the challenges disappear. And when something's not working, there really isn't a clear pathway for what to do next. You're trying to figure out what's going on with your child while also being the one that is responsible for teaching them every day. And the advice out there doesn't make it any easier.

The homeschool world often tells us that all kids learn differently. Don't worry. Oh, they'll catch up eventually. And even sometimes we'll hear, don't worry. There is no behind.

And those words can feel comforting in the moment, but they can also be damaging when they keep us from getting help while the window for intervention is wide open. The research is clear. Early help is dramatically more effective than later help. And on the flip side, some families spend thousands on evaluations and diagnoses when their child actually needs skill building more than a label. So how do you know the difference?

When do you push through, and when do you call in the professionals? And which professional do you even call? This is the episode you're going to save and send to every homeschool mom you know who's asking these questions. Because by the end, you will have a clear framework for knowing, is this a content gap, a skill gap, or maybe something more? Do I need a diagnosis or not?

And what actually is my next step? Today, I'm sitting down with doctor Amy Moore and Sandy Zamales from LearningRx. Doctor Amy is a cognitive psychologist, the director of psychology and research for LearningRx, and an ADHD mom who has ADHD herself. So she brings both the research and the real life. Sandy is a cognitive skills specialist and owner of two LearningRx centers, and she's part of their homeschool partnership program, a program specifically designed to support homeschooling families who are navigating learning challenges.

And both ladies are former homeschool moms, So they really do get us, and they are the perfect people to have on the show today. Homeschool moms, if you have a child with special needs and more than one in three of us do, don't go anywhere. This is the episode that will save you years of guessing and might just be the most valuable conversation you will hear all year. This is gonna be a great show. Welcome, ladies.

I am so happy to have you here today. I wanna start off the show with you guys sharing about yourselves, specifically what drew you to the work that you do now. And I know that both of you homeschooled your own children. So I think the moms listening would love to hear about that journey too. Maybe we'll start with doctor Amy.

Well, I'm so excited to be here. We love having conversations with you, Christy. So it's always an honor whether you're on this side of the mic or that side of the mic to talk with you. Like you said, in my intro, I am a cognitive psychologist, but I didn't start out that way. I started out as an educator.

And so I have a master's degree in early childhood education. And so started out teaching preschool and pre K and then became an early childhood curriculum coordinator. And then I was an administrator for military child development and youth programs for over a decade. And I've worked in multiple types of programs from government, private, public, so in the classroom and as a teacher of teachers. So as I was working with teachers and children and families, I was noticing that we were missing something and everything that we were doing curriculum wise, classroom management wise was helpful, but there was something that was saying to me, I need to do some more research on this because we're missing something in the classroom.

And at the same time, I started having my own children. And I used to joke that our house was a living, breathing psychology laboratory because I have ADHD myself and then my oldest and youngest both have ADHD and my middle child also had some alphabet soup after his name as well. And so I went back to school, got my PhD in cognitive psychology. So I could understand the connection between what's going on in the brain and what's going on in the classroom. And so as a mom, I recognized that traditional public school was not going to work for two of my three children.

And so we've tried lots of different types of education for our kids who are all in their 20s now. Our middle child went straight through public school with IEPs, five zero fours, and was able to succeed. And then my oldest was sort of in and out of regular school, online school, homeschool. And then my youngest is the one who we determined really needed to have flexibility and emotional regulation and mental health support. And so he was the one who was homeschooled for the majority of teenager hood and above.

That's really interesting. So you saw that when you in the system, you really it was glaring to you that something was missing. There's a piece missing in this with helping the kids. Interesting. And we're gonna get into that later on in the show.

Sandy, would you share?

Sure. So I homeschooled both my kids until my son was in tenth grade and my daughter was in eighth grade. We had a big move that year, and so we kind of moved out into the boonies, as I would say, in Virginia. And we just could not find the community when we moved out here, and my kids were older, and my husband just really felt like this was the time for them to go to public school. But prior to that, they had not done any public school.

So I homeschooled from preschool up until that point, absolutely loved every minute of it, had to like mourn my sudden abrupt stop to my dream. And so it was really kind of a unique opportunity. At that point, I had to figure out, well, what am I gonna do now? And so I decided to go back and get my master's in teaching. And in that process, of course, there's like a practicum process where you have to like go into the school and help out.

I looked around and the misery that I could see both from the adults and from the kids just absolutely broke my heart. And it was, I think really serendipitous and kind of a God thing that someone in one of my classes was working for a LearningRx over the mountain in a different city from me. And I just happened to overhear their conversation and was like, Oh, what's that about? So one day I just found out that there was one in my town, which I had no idea, literally had just finished a yoga class through my hair in a ponytail to look semi decent, and decided to march over to that office found out they were hiring that Monday. And the rest is kind of history.

So I went from working at that LearningRx and just really enjoying everything that I learned because the big moment for me was that learning issues aren't always about getting content into our kids' heads. There's skills that need to be developed. And if there's skills that are missing, we have to go after those skills first in order for all of those pieces to come together. And so like I was looking back on my own children's homeschool journey and realizing, oh, you know, my son struggled in classical conversations because he had executive functioning struggles that we didn't know about until later. My daughter struggled in some of our homeschool endeavors because she had weaker logic and reasoning skills and needed to have that developed.

And so it just gave me

a new framework of really truly understanding learning struggles. And I have just loved every minute since then of helping kids unlock those challenges. Homeschooling for kids means I'm juggling roughly 24 different subjects at any given time. And a few years back during a particularly busy season, I hit a wall. I needed some serious help with the heavy lifting of teaching everything myself and managing schedules for four kids.

That's when I found BJU Press homeschool, and we've loved their courses so much that we keep going back. Some families use them for everything and love it. I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief. Here's what my mornings look like now.

Let us take science for example. My three girls do that one together. They fire up the lesson taught by a real teacher, well produced, actual teaching, not just click through busy work. And I sit there with my coffee, watch them, or make breakfast, and we discuss the big ideas. Every BJU Press homeschool course prioritizes critical thinking, a biblical worldview, and hands on learning.

I just guide the conversation and pick which activity or pages or projects we want to do, and everything's already planned out. They have an online platform included for you called the homeschool hub, and it keeps everyone on track, both me and my kids, without micromanaging or nagging. And when I have questions, I call my homeworks consultant. These people don't just help you get set up. They're available for you whenever you need them.

It's like having a homeschool expert on speed dial. Go to bjupresshomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes to find out more. People are always curious what curriculum I use for my own family, and honestly, it changes. We've tried a lot over the years. Some work for a season and some completely missed the mark, but there is one that's stuck, CTC math.

It's a full k to 12 online math curriculum, and it's won oodles of awards for a reason. It's just that good. I use it for all four of my kids, and they couldn't be more different when it comes to math. Finding one curriculum that actually works for all of them, that's been nearly impossible. You know that pit in your stomach when you realize the curriculum that you just invested in isn't working again?

Yeah. That was us until this one. The genius behind CTC math is that it's adaptive. The questions adjust to each kid's level in real time. So they're always challenged but never crushed.

And mama, it does the teaching and grading for us. Yes. You heard that right. That's a homeschool mom's dream. Well, especially for me when it comes to math.

I would think it's too good to be true if I hadn't been using it myself. And it's not just me. Here's why it's become the go to for thousands of homeschool families. Free diagnostics show you exactly where to start, access to all grade levels so your student can fill in any gaps or move ahead, short video lessons that keep your children engaged, automatic grading with instant feedback, and progress reports so you know exactly what's happening without hovering. Math used to be our hardest subject.

Now my kids do it independently. Here's the best part. Our listeners get 50% off. Use the link in the show notes to do a free trial or to get that half off deal. Don't spend another year kissing math frogs.

This one stuck for us, and I have a feeling it's gonna stick for you too.

I got into that LearningRx Center as a trainer, became an owner. I have just loved all of the talks I've had to be you've been a part of since then, you know, joining the Brainy Moms podcast to talk about it some more, and just really helping parents, especially homeschool parents, but all parents, because we have clients that are center that are at private school, public school. We have adults that are centered too, but homeschooling parents are my passion, because I don't want them to be overwhelmed or frustrated like I remember being overwhelmed and frustrated.

Right. Or feel like failures when they're Exactly. When they're using the curriculum that works for everybody else. Why isn't it working for us? And, yeah, that's really neat.

And one thing that I wanted to add too is I've been familiar with LearningRx. The listeners should probably know this for many, many years because when we would get a report back from an educational psychologist with the diagnosis, you know, the 25 pages, so often at the end, they would recommend LearningRx. And so that's how we even got to know you guys, and we were seeing your results. You know, this is fifteen years ago. We were seeing the results of the brain training, and that's what is so exciting, I think, for today's show, but also for homeschool parents in general because we're gonna talk about there are instances where maybe you don't need a diagnosis, and what does that mean?

Why would we need one? And so, we're going get into that today. But first, I want to ask you, can you help us understand the difference between a content gap, a skill gap, and then something that we would call pathology, which is something that would warrant a diagnosis. Those are three separate things, and I think that parents really confuse them because they struggle in school, and they think it's a content problem, and they hire a tutor when that can really be a band aid. And so how can you help a parent figure out what they're looking at when they're struggling with their kiddo and their lessons every day?

Yeah, sure. So we look at a content gap as you're working with your child and you realize, oh, they're struggling in this area, but maybe I haven't taught that particular skill yet, or I haven't taught that content yet. Like, for example, they don't know how to multiply because we haven't gotten to that unit yet. So that was what we would consider a content gap. Something's missing, and that can happen for lots of reasons.

You know, even in the public school, you know, if they're sick a day, you know, you're gonna end up with a little bit of a content gap because they missed that instruction for the day. And so that's gonna have to be retaught or reintroduced. And that can happen at home too. Like, if you jump units or you skip over some parts of your math curriculum, you might inadvertently miss a piece of content that your child needed for something later. A skill gap in our wheelhouse, something that we think about when we think about my child is struggling, for example, with reading comprehension, but they decode okay, they're reading okay.

I don't understand why they're not remembering or understanding what they've read. Persistent issues like that really kind of indicate a skill gap, something like maybe processing speed. They're not reading at a fluent enough pace to be able to make pictures in their head when they read. A weakness in working memory. They don't remember the last sentence when they've jumped up into the new sentence.

So that would be a skilled gap. But I'll let Amy talk about pathology, because that's her dimension. But that's what we help parents see on that content gap versus skill gap side. And then if something is even more persistent, they need a bigger, deeper dive.

Yeah, and I think it's important to recognize that content gaps and skill gaps can frequently go together as well. So if you have deficient attention skills, then you may not be able to focus in order to learn the content. And so what we see is the more deficient some of those basic underlying learning skills or cognitive skills are, the more content we might miss. And so the more content remediation we might need in addition to skill remediation. So a lot of times you're gonna see interact that way too.

And then pathology is just what it sounds like, a true specific learning disorder, which is the medical term, or a learning disability, which is the educational term, where there is actually a developmental delay, a neurodevelopmental disorder, or an actual diagnosis that is impeding a child's progress or success. So something like dyslexia or ADHD, a co occurring learning disability along with autism, or even a mental health diagnosis that is keeping a child from fully engaging in the learning process, that's pathology. And so of course we would address that differently too, with a mental health intervention or a more intensive intervention, whether that's cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive training or medication or something that not only is gonna remediate the skill gap plus tutoring to remediate a content gap, but also to address that pathology as well.

Yeah, and I think that and this leads into my next question, because I remember we had a student at our center, and the mom kept saying, Matthew has ADHD. Matthew has ADHD. And we had him at our center, and we're like, we would get kids, right, who are struggling, and it would take a while. And then we would say, you know, we really just think this we need an evaluation. Right?

Well, sure enough, he had such a massive anxiety disorder that it looked like ADHD. And, you know, I felt bad for this mom years of guessing or being so sure that he had one thing and he needed help in another area. And so this is a question that so many homeschool parents wrestle with. If a child has never been in the school system and never has been formally evaluated, is a diagnosis actually necessary? What would be the benefits of one and what would be the drawbacks?

Yeah, I love that question. And let me just preface my answer by saying there is no right or wrong answer. So it's a personal decision based on what your family feels your child needs. And so it's okay if you say, I don't want my child diagnosed. And it's okay if you say, I think I want to seek a diagnosis.

So I want to say that upfront, that there's not a right or wrong answer here. But there are some benefits to getting an official diagnosis. And the first one is an insurance company is going to require a diagnosis in order to cover services. So in order to cover an audiologist for an auditory processing disorder, they're going to have to have a formal diagnosis. To get speech and language intervention, to get an autism intervention, they're going need an official diagnosis or an insurance company is not going to cover those services.

So unless you automatically are going to say, I'm going to pay out of pocket, I don't need a diagnosis. If you are hoping to use insurance for some of those services, then you're going to need an official diagnosis. That being said, most insurance companies do not cover interventions for learning disabilities, So these are specific to a neurodevelopmental disorder, or like I said, speech and language pathology, occupational therapy and audiology will typically be covered with an official diagnosis. So that's something to consider.

Well, and psychiatry.

Absolutely. Yeah, right. Absolutely. Right. So if you're hoping to go the medication route, then you absolutely 100% have to have a formal diagnosis for that.

So another benefit I think to having a diagnosis is it gives you a roadmap. It enables you to say, okay, this is what is happening to my child. This is why my child has been struggling. It gives you this moment, this ability to say, okay, now that we know the explanation, we can look at the alternatives for how we're gonna help. Can you do that without a diagnosis?

Sure, but sometimes it's like playing a game of whack a mole, right? You're out there saying, Well, it might be this, so we're going to try this. Might be this, so we're going to try this. And that's okay, but you will spend more time and effort and money doing it that way than if you drill down on a specific direction. There are some disadvantages though, to seeking an official diagnosis.

Some children will experience self esteem issues if they think that there is something wrong with them. There are other children, however, that are relieved to know that there's an explanation for their struggle. I was one of those. It was a beautiful moment for me where I went, Oh, no wonder. It was a relief.

And I was able to kind of grasp onto that and say, Okay, I have ADHD. What does that mean for me? And what does that explain for me? And that was a relief, but some children won't feel that way. And then another potential disadvantage is that it can lower expectations, right?

A parent's expectation for their child's ability to succeed can be lowered because they have this idea, my child has a disability, therefore I'm not going to expect as much from them. That can be a self fulfilling prophecy, right? For this child who might have more ability than we give them credit for. And so that can be another reason why we might not want to explore a diagnosis, and exploring a diagnosis can be very expensive. So testing and diagnostics can be very expensive.

And so it just might not be worth it to some parents.

Oftentimes I'll ask a parent the question, know, what will this change for you if you have this diagnosis? If it won't change anything, and you just want this to get easier, for learning to be easier, for them to be more independent, feel more confident, then there's ways to address that through skill building. But, you know, if you're trying to think way far down the line, and you're wanting to make sure that they have resources for college or, or have accommodations or things that they can use through, yeah, I can't remember the law, but

The IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act, right, and ADA as an adult, right? And so if you need workplace accommodations, you have to have a diagnosis.

Yeah, so if you're thinking long term and trying, like if you've got someone, a child who has some severe special needs, like those kinds of things might need to be in place so that they can continue to reach their potential. So that's the question I would ask. What does the information change for you and how you're gonna be working with your child from day to day and what is your long term goal or plan for them?

I've got some news. There's a new reading curriculum that ditches workbooks and drills for fun and games. If you're thinking fun and games sounds a little too good to be true, it's not. Ninety eight percent of children improved their reading test scores in just six weeks with the reading skill set by Lovevery. It's a phonics based program that follows a science of reading, but makes learning to read fun, motivating, and confidence boosting because it happens by playing games and then practicing with just right skill level books.

Kids love it and parent educators love it, and it works. Visit lovevery.com/christyfaith today and use code christy 10 to get 10% off your purchase of the reading skill set by lovevery. That's lovevery.com/christyfaith. Yeah. And I think that's an important question because we talk a lot about in the homeschooling space, well, we don't need an IEP because that's a legal accommodation.

We can give our kids extra time on all their tests. We can create a quiet work environment for our kids. But there are instances where we do recommend that a child get evaluated quite often, honestly, in Thrive Homeschool Community where we coach moms. Because a lot of moms join our community because they're struggling. Right?

And so I love that you said that, doctor Amy, that it's really individual, and it depends on your particular situation. There is no right and wrong, and I think that's really great. Now, when a parent suspects that something deeper is going on, the professional landscape can be so overwhelming. Right? We have neuropsychologists, educational psychologists, speech and language pathologists, audiologists, occupational therapists.

How would a parent know where to start? Do you have any guidelines for a homeschool family on where to start? And there's also medical conditions that can impact learning. I'm very public about my nephew who has PANDAS, very much has affected his learning and his homeschooling, and they needed to get medical help for him. So when are we looking at a medical condition that is affecting the learning?

Do you have any guidance for parents in that? Because that's often what we're swimming in. Like, is this learning? Is this inflammation? Is it thyroid?

I remember with my son, he was really struggling. And it's so funny because I had him evaluated by an OT, and turns out he needed glasses. Like, it was really pretty simple. Right? And so it's like, wow.

I could have put him in some, you know, $15,000 program when the kid needed glasses. So do you have any guidelines for a mom who's in that particular situation right now? Where do I even start? Where do I go? What do I look at first?

Yeah. So I think you're you're asking two questions there.

Yeah. A lot. A lot.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So let me first start with kind of the difference between what is a neurodevelopmental disorder or a learning disability versus a medical condition. Yeah. And I think that the easiest way to probably start to narrow down that is to look at the length of time that the child has had the struggle.

So typically a neurodevelopmental disorder like ADHD or autism, and a learning disability will have presented itself pretty early. So early on behaviorally, and then in terms of a learning struggle. So it's something that's persistent, something that you see again and again and again and again. It's been a constant struggle. It is not improving no matter how many times you've changed curriculum, or tried different ways of instructing, that is probably something that's neurodevelopmental or a learning disability.

Something that has a sudden onset, right? Your child was doing really well, or at least fairly well, and then all of a sudden, their behavior changes, their handwriting changes, their ability to process sensory input changes, seems to come out of nowhere, then that is probably a medical condition like PANDAS or PANS, like Lyme disease because they were exposed from their last camping trip, right? They had strep throat and now all of a sudden they're falling apart at the table and can't function in a way that they were before. Their body hurts, they're complaining of physical ailments, headaches, body aches, muscle aches, things that they weren't struggling with before, that's probably a medical condition. So that changes then the direction that you're going to go for help.

So if it's a sudden onset, then you need to start with your pediatrician and say, Wow, my child was doing really well, and then all of a sudden last week, this started happening. And then, you're aware of exposure, right? You're aware if you've just been camping and they got a tick bite, you're aware if they just had strep throat or another virus. So you can share that. I do recommend not coming into the pediatrician's office with a list of possibilities from Doctor.

Google, because that does not build a strong relationship with the pediatrician, right? That pediatrician has $200,000 in student loans from medical school, and will know more than you, right? Nobody knows your child as well as you do, and nobody's going to advocate for your child as well as you will. But coming in there, acting like you've already got a diagnosis, doesn't open the conversation up very well. So just come in there with, Hey, I'm concerned about this.

This is what I'm saying. Can you help? That will be the best way to open that kind of conversation. But let's say that struggle has been going on a while, and it wasn't sudden onset, but it is something like, no matter what I try, my child is still not able to read fluently. No matter what I try, my child still cannot pay attention for more than twelve minutes.

Those things that have been recurring and recurring and recurring, then you have a couple of options. I would typically say start with your pediatrician, but don't stop with your pediatrician. It is one of my pet peeves that we get a ADHD diagnosis from our pediatrician. The reality is that diagnosis really needs to come from a clinical child psychologist or a clinical neuropsychologist or a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist. So a pediatrician will frequently run a checklist and say, Sure, this looks like ADHD, I'll put them on Adderall.

But that is not what I'm suggesting at all. Starting with your pediatrician is saying things like, I'm concerned about these behaviors that I'm seeing. Can you refer us to a psychologist or neuropsychologist? Who do you trust? Because that's where I want to go.

And you have to be firm about it. This is what I would like to do next. Who do you trust? Who should we see? If it's a problem with speech, you're gonna go to speech and language therapist.

If it's a problem with balance or sensory processing, you're gonna see an occupational therapist. If you think that your child is not processing what they're hearing, that could be attention and focus, but it might be an auditory processing disorder. So they need to have their hearing checked, right? So that's an audiologist. Like you said, if you've got a child who appears to need vision therapy or is struggling to see instructional materials, then that's gonna be an optometrist, ophthalmologist.

And then behavioral issues, that's a neuropsychologist or child psychologist. So I know that that's kind of a well, it depends kind of answer, because it does depend.

Yep. But I actually think it gives moms good direction, though, because at least the moms that we coach, they're just in a state of overwhelm. They don't even know where to begin. And I I do think that you just gave so many moms, thousands of moms right now, really clear direction. And I have to tell you a story.

I like to cook a nice Sunday dinner, and I was roasting some chicken on Sunday. And I was doing the whole rice thing, and I burnt you can see the band aid. I burnt my arm on my roasting pan because the handles go up. Right? So you pull the thing out.

Well, anyway, the bird was really hurting, and it wasn't looking that great yesterday. So do you know what my teenage son did? He took a picture of it, and then he ran it through AI. And then he asked AI a bunch of questions about my burn. And then he goes, mom, your burn is healing normally.

It's exactly what to be expected. I wouldn't worry at all. You're fine. That's fine. Laughed so hard when you were saying, like, don't go in with doctor Google.

It's like now we actually have a doctor Google. We can put pictures of our burns and and skin rashes. But no, I think I think that's he literally did and analyzed a photo of the burn on my wrist. It was crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. Something that I to add about going to your pediatrician, and it's a layer of anxiety that homeschool families face. When we are going to our pediatrician, we present some issues that we're having with the learning. Homeschool moms are really scared that pediatrician is going to tell us to put our kid in school. And so it's one of the reasons why we started the Christy faith list.

The Christy faith list actually started as kind of like a safe list for providers. Like, how do you find a homeschool friendly autism center or pediatrician or occupational therapist? Because I heard too many stories of women who walked into an autism center and walked out thinking they were gonna call CPS because they were discriminated against and flagged because only because of their homeschooling. And I've actually had that here locally with a local ER with me and one of my daughters when I brought her in for a hand X-ray because one of her siblings slammed her hand in the door. And it was fine, but I felt sequestered there and very uncomfortable.

So the other thing too is that layered piece is make sure that the specialist that you're going to, that you add the question, is this provider homeschool friendly? Do you happen to know that when you are talking to your pediatrician? And also, Amy, I love that you said be strong with it. You can be strong with this language too because it's an important question to ask because you would be surprised how many people consider homeschooling because of their ignorance to be a red flag. And that's why we created the Christi Faith list, and so you can even go on that list.

LearningRx centers are on that list because you guys love homeschoolers. You can search, is there a homeschool friendly autism center in my area or homes whatever specialist that you need. So I just wanted to add that layer, moms that are listening. You are your child's advocate and there is nothing wrong with homeschooling. There is nothing wrong with it.

There is no reason why you have to defend it. You are literally asking for help. This means that you are qualified because you are seeking out the help. So don't have any of that for even one hot minute. If you work

with a functional medicine physician, functional medicine physicians not only are typically open to all possibilities, and so they will be homeschool friendly. Yeah. They're also plugged in to an entire referral network typically as well. They spend a lot of time meeting with other providers so that they can vet them themselves, right? So it's not just a list that their front desk has curated, are actually doing lunches with other providers so that they can say, Oh, I have a patient that is struggling with A, B and C.

I've met with this provider and I trust them. And because they aren't being held hostage by the fifteen minute Medicare paid visit, right, because they're typically cash pay, they have the freedom to go and make those personal connections. And so I think that those conversations are probably pretty safe.

They can also help you with more diagnostic tools than a typical pediatrician's gonna be able to do for you. So for example, you know, Amy loves to talk about food sensitivities and gut issues when we're dealing with things like ADHD, because inflammation and ADHD have some similar symptoms that you're gonna see. So just even giving access for yourself as the parent to some of those diagnostic tools so that we can get into things that are hidden and that you can't see. It's almost like like you mentioned, Christy, like, we we miss things sometimes as parents that are super simple, like glasses, or, you know, my child has had, you know, 14 ear infections. Well, that's gonna affect their hearing and their auditory processing in some key developmental stages.

They could have induced, you know, food sensitivities that just kind of started that you're not aware of. So knowing what those are and kind of pulling those out and helping that inflammation to calm down could help. So, you know, find the right provider that can help you dig cause that's the other piece of the puzzle. You're probably gonna need to dig. This is an onion.

Never something super simple or easy. We want it to be that way, but that's just not the way it is in real life.

Yeah, and I love that you brought that up, Sandy, because newer research on ADHD for example, is showing an association with low ferritin. It's showing an association with low magnesium. So those are things that are easily tested. So in addition to food allergies and sensitivities, specifically dairy and wheat or gluten that are associated with brain fog and inattention and lack of focus and slower processing speed, because of the inflammation that it causes in the body, which means the brain is also suffering from that inflammation. And the neurons can't communicate as effectively when the brain is inflamed.

That is the type of physician that's going to look at some of those contributing factors that a mainstream physician might not even be aware of.

And I was thinking as you were saying that, I'm like, this is why all these moms should be listening to the Brandi Moms podcast, because you stay on top of all this research and you can keep us informed as we're advocating for our kids out in the wild. So something that we deal with a lot in coaching homeschooling moms is often there'll be a spouse or family member that says, let's just hire a tutor, or they just want the fix. And so we do a lot of educating where Sandy, this is going back to what you just said. When your child has stuff going on, this is a long term you know, I also hate to break it to parents because they don't wanna hear this. Interventions are not free.

The brain training, which is so reasonably priced that LearningRx offers, for example, it's the most reasonably priced thing on the market. Interventions cost money if you were to take your kid to the reading center down the road or in your neighborhood. And it's really hard for parents to accept, especially when they're coming from a place where they don't understand these things, and they think that their child can be fixed. And I know this wasn't in the questions I sent to you ahead of time, but actually it's just really on my heart because I think that there might be a word of wisdom for you to share with some of the moms listening who maybe they are facing a spouse who's like, just hire a tutor or just what is it gonna cost to fix this? It's this isn't braces.

Right? It's not fixing a smile. Could you speak to that a little bit? Because it is a struggle we have very commonly in Thrive homeschool community when we're coaching moms.

Yeah. So a tutor is really only gonna address the content gap. That is their wheelhouse. We wanna do what's best, but we'll hire a tutor who's like the kid down the road who's in college who's gonna help our child with their their math. And that could bridge the gap if there was a content gap piece.

If having that one on one instruction and extra time and having that information reintroduced fixes the problem, then win. Right? What we run into trouble is when it's not a content gap specifically, although that could be, like Amy mentioned before, part of the issue. If there's a skill gap underneath, well, now we've got a more complex issue that you need more professional help with. So, again, if it's just a content gap, then a new curriculum will solve the problem.

A different instruction strategy would solve the problem. The timeline on that is very short. Skill gap reading issues, for example. If your child is continuing to struggle to read and you've tried structured literacy based reading programs, you've tried Orton Gillingham trained tutor, you've tried Linda Mood Bell, you've tried all of these different resources. Well, there's probably a skill gap underneath that's keeping that progress from moving forward.

And so I think the helpful piece for parents is to look and see, especially if it's persistent. Like for example, if your if your child's just been sick or you've been sick and your homeschool family and you're just behind on your content for the year and you want to you're playing catch up and you're just trying to get them caught up, then maybe spend some time rebuilding that content gap. But if it's you've been working at this, you know, month after month, and we've gotten nowhere, then we need a cognitive skills assessment to see if there's a cognitive piece at play too. Because if we can get that addressed, and the earlier we can get that addressed, the better, then that makes rebuilding that content so much easier because they've got the skills to be able to manage that information.

Yeah. And doctor Amy, you taught a masterclass in our private community, and man, the ladies are just loving that. And that's what you addressed here is is that you can have the best curriculum in the world, but if your child has a deficit in memory, and so the best curriculum in the world isn't going to help with that per se. And also, what we hear a lot is, maybe if you hear yourself saying, I don't understand why you don't remember this. I taught this to you last week.

And that keeps coming up. That's definitely a sign that there is a skill gap there. Now, this leads into my next question that I think is really important because there's some really bad advising in the homeschooling space, that, you know, all kids develop at their own pace. Don't worry. They'll catch up, you know, better late than whatever, whatever the saying is.

When should a parent actually be concerned, and what does the research say?

Yeah. So again, if you're concerned, there might be something to be concerned about.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so good. Can I use that? Of course.

That's a great way to put it.

So don't be quick to dismiss your own concerns. Like I said before, you are your child's biggest advocate. You know your child better than anyone else will ever know your child. And so I think it's important that if you're seeing red flags, look into them. There's something called the Matthew effect, and when applied to reading, what that says is strong readers will continue to get stronger, and weak readers will continue to get weaker.

And what we know is there's this shift towards traditionally, towards the end of second grade, beginning of third grade, that we go from learning to read, to reading to learn. And so reading is a fundamental skill that you need across all subjects. And so if you're struggling in that fundamental skill, then it's going to have a domino effect across every single subject for your child. And so if reading is the struggle, then address it sooner than later. You know, we did a huge study.

We looked at over 5,000 struggling readers, and we plotted the trajectory of their cognitive skills over time. And we found that in the absence of an intervention, those skills continue to decline. So waiting doesn't help. A skill is not going to spontaneously improve for the most part. It'll just continue to get worse.

If you're concerned, do something about it. Look at are the developmental expectations for each age, and that's easy to look up. You can just Google that, right? What are the developmental expectations in reading for my six year old? And if your child departs significantly from what those average milestones are, then that's a red flag to me.

And so getting tested is relatively easy. Our centers do testing and for your members do testing at a significant discount, that'll just give you a piece of data, right, that will say, Okay, here are some skill gaps that we've been able to identify, and that comes with a consultation, you know, where our trained center owners and directors are going to say, Here are the skill gaps that this testing has identified, and here's what you might want to do about it. That's a relatively short, simple, painless process, right? Like you've got, you know, ninety to one hundred and eighty day waiting lists at a neuropsychologist's office for diagnostic testing, whereas just getting skills tested at one of our centers, for example, can be done pretty quickly. You know, and there are other types of testing.

You're doing your own testing in your homeschool settings as well. What is that showing? Right? What are you seeing? What are the patterns that you've been able to identify?

And in spite of changes in curriculum and instructional strategies, like Sandy said, if you're not seeing the needle move on those standardized tests, that's a red flag to me too.

And I would add on to what Amy was saying is, you know, listen to your gut as mom, right? But also listen to your child. Frustration is communication. So if they're frustrated, despite accommodation strategies, despite things that you're using to help scaffold their learning, then that frustration tells you that they don't know how to communicate to you other than that frustration that something's not right, something's not working. Cause we are naturally designed and wired to love to learn.

And so with that continued frustration, you're gonna see that love of learning start to diminish because we're human, we don't wanna do things that make us feel bad or are difficult or cognitively challenging. We need to have a strong enough base layer of skills in order to be able to be intrinsically motivated, which is what you know, every parent wants for their child to be independent and intrinsically motivated. Well, if they're yes. But if there aren't that way, then it's our job to be the detective and figure out, oh, why is this causing that reaction? What do we need to do to scale that or make that easier, but also not so easy that we don't build the skill necessary necessary to overcome that particular issue?

Because that can be a hurdle too. We'll strategize too much, and then all of a sudden, we don't build that muscle at all because we're just, you know, going around it.

Right. Yeah. The mom I hear the mom right now blaming herself that she's not teaching enough to her kids' learning style, and it's like, do not be up at 2AM, you know, finding the sugar cubes to build the medieval castle. Like, right, you know, that whole myth of the Yes.

Please let me address that.

Yes. Yes. Would you please? And then there's something that I wanted to talk about. Well, we'll get to it, but I think it's really important because it goes back to the beginning where when I would read I've read thousands of these reports from all sorts of professionals diagnosing kids.

And why I wanna talk about why over and over again, they were recommending cognitive skills training, because it really does help with so many things. And often as homeschooling parents, if you're not interested in the diagnosis, if you don't wanna pay the big money for the diagnosis, you don't think that's necessary, they're probably gonna recommend cognitive skills training anyway. And so I'm excited to talk about that. But yet, doctor Amy, would you first talk about the whole learning styles myth? Because it had when I was a classroom teacher, I was even evaluated if I incorporated enough of them in every single lesson.

Me too.

Yeah. Me too. When I went through my teacher training and licensing program, that was part of how we developed curriculum, that we were addressing all of the learning styles from the VARK model. Right. So learning styles are what I like to call a neuro myth.

It's neuro mythology to perpetuate the idea that children have learning styles. The reality is research says that in the absence of an actual brain injury that has damaged the portion of the brain responsible for learning in a particular way, that all children are capable of learning in all different ways. All children are capable of learning visually, auditorily, tactilely, through reading and writing. They just might not prefer to. They just might not like it so much.

And so where that comes into play then is in motivation and engagement. So knowing your preferences, your child's preferences, that helps you say, okay, my child really pushes back when I'm trying to do something that requires a lot of reading. So what can I do to increase his motivation for doing this? What can I do to increase his engagement while doing this? Not by avoiding it, but by making it more appealing, more targeted to his interests, incorporating some collaboration in that process of determining how am I gonna show my learning while still saying, you're responsible for learning how to read and write.

You're responsible for using reading and writing skills and showing what you know, but how can we work together to make this not be so frustrating for you? So I think that's the only reason why we should care a little bit about the idea that there are lots of different ways that we can show our learning and absorb knowledge, but all children can learn in all of those ways unless they have a brain injury that prevents them from doing or blindness or, you know, a hearing disability. But, yeah. So it's a neuro myth, throw it out the window.

Hey. Shout out to Summit HealthShare for sponsoring this episode today. I love Summit HealthShare partially because it's my husband's company. What I think they're doing over there is absolutely incredible and life changing for many families. What is Summit HealthShare?

Well, first, let me start with one of my rants about health insurance. Need I say anything? Probably not. But the co pays, the denials, the in network, out of network nonsense, having to get permission to see your doctor, paying thousands a month, and then them still fighting with you every time you need just basic health care. I believe so much in the freedom that comes with leaving health insurance and moving to health sharing.

Now it's not health insurance, but it does replace it. And it's been around for over a hundred years. With Summit HealthShare, most families and companies save 40 to 60%, and they have a 98% customer satisfaction. You get to see any doctor that you want, even holistic ones. No networks, no permission slips.

You ladies know how I feel about freedom. I want medical freedom too. Summit HealthShare has different plan options depending on what your family needs. You might just need major medical, and that's great. On our plan, we get a little bit more, and we get free labs, free office visits, free prescriptions, and no co pays.

Our family of six has saved a thousand dollars a month. And if it sounds too good to be true, it's not. It's actually how health care should work. We've just been accustomed to overpaying for our health care, and a lot of us don't need to do that. So if you are on traditional health insurance at all, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go to summithealthshare.com. When you get to the homepage, you'll see the savings calculator. Go ahead and click that. It takes only two minutes. And when you see those numbers, what you should be paying for the health care you need, you are going to be grabbing the phone so fast because health care is a serious thing, and you're gonna have really personalized questions, and they are used to answering all of them.

Tell them all of your concerns, all of your questions, and they will tell you full stop if this is gonna be a fit for you or your family. And tell them that you listen to the show because I want you to have the VIP treatment. Go to summithealthshare.com today, and the link is in the show notes. This podcast is also brought to you by the faith list. Now hold up because I want you to know what this is.

I'm really proud of what the Christy faith list has become. It started really scrappy just compiling recommendations because I was fed up with guessing which businesses and providers and doctors weren't gonna give me a hard time when I walked through those doors. And I had tons of friends and family members with nightmare situations where they felt like they were walking into an ambush situation just when they were trying to get help for their families. And I was sick and tired of the discrimination that homeschool families were getting. But since then, it has grown into a massive directory of colleges, businesses, doctor's offices, reading specialists, occupational therapists, homeschool graduates that are in business themselves now.

You name it all in one place. Because why wouldn't we wanna do business with the people who share our values and actually want to work with homeschool families and not give us a hard time? It is completely free for homeschool families to search. And if you are a business owner or part of an organization that loves homeschool families and wants to reach more homeschool families and grow your business in that way, please sign yourself up. We wanna know who you are.

It's the place where homeschool families support the people who support us. Go to thechristyfaithlist.com today.

It could be so frustrating because people will die on that hill.

Poor homeschool moms at 2AM downloading stuff from Pinterest, like, you know, to make it tactile. I just feel so bad for her.

Yes. We don't need the burnout. We don't need all that extra work. What we do know through research, Amy alluded to it when she talked about her reading research, is that working memory is actually more important indicator of what's happening with those learning issues. So really knowing where your child's working memory is, if it's, you know, weak, will help you navigate that much easier.

Also prior knowledge, background knowledge is super important. And my third one I would add is, you know, automaticity. How many skills do we have automatic underneath? Because if your child doesn't have, for example, their addition facts really mastered, then doing more complex math tasks becomes harder. So we've gotta, again, dig a little deeper and figure out those pieces of the puzzle because they're gonna indicate those learning issues more clearly to you than a learning style will.

Right. And then and also, mama, with for those mamas right now, their kids are struggling to memorize their math facts, and you're maybe on your fifth YouTube channel. Right? It might be a memory issue that needs to be evaluated. That could be a little flag, which this leads me to because I wanna make sure we have clarity on today's episode on what is learning Rx?

What are the cognitive skills? My daughter is in learning Rx right now. We're she's having an amazing time. The trainers are amazing. She loves her trainer.

What is the big game changer that you guys are doing helping families with kiddos who struggle? And what are the cognitive skills?

Doctor. Ken Gibson was a pediatric eye doctor who created his original cognitive training program beginning in the early 1980s, when he realized that vision therapy was not doing enough to move the needle on kids who had dyslexia and other learning struggles. And so working alongside of his brother who was a clinical psychologist, they looked at the most common theory of cognition, Cattell Horn Carroll theory of cognition. And that theory said, hey, look, it takes multiple different cognitive skills to work together in thinking and learning. So addressing just a deficit in attention, or just a deficit in visual processing is not necessarily going to move that needle on a struggle, if the struggle doesn't relate to attention or visual processing, for example.

And so the current iteration of that theory, it's the most widely recognized theory of intelligence, it's what most tests are based on. It evolves and changes as our knowledge of the brain continues to evolve and change. But it says basically there are 90 different cognitive skills. So there are some primary ones, and then lots of little sub skills underneath that. And so we have to have an understanding that those skills are constantly working together to help us learn and think efficiently.

And so the major skills, and the ones that we target in our cognitive training centers are working memory, long term memory, processing speed, visual processing, auditory processing, reasoning, and attention. And so when we can identify deficits in those primary cognitive skills, and then remediate those deficits, then thinking and learning becomes easier. And then part of not just identifying, but remediating that is knowing that that is not content. We can't teach a cognitive skill. So if you think about cognitive skills training, like you can think about learning how to play a sport.

Let's take tennis for example. We can teach kids the rules of a tennis game, hey, how does tennis work? And they can say to you, hey, you need a racket and a ball and here are the rules. But that doesn't actually teach a child how to play tennis. That child needs practice serving and rallying and hitting the ball back and forth, and here's how you swing, and here's how you enact those rules.

They have to be trained. And so cognitive skills are the same way. We can talk about them until the cows come home, but we actually have to use them and practice them and master them in order to remediate and strengthen them. And so that's what we do, and it's based on the phenomenon of neuroplasticity, the brain's amazing capacity to change with targeted experience. And so by using activities that are intense, and complex, and timed and set to a metronome to increase that intensity and that automaticity that Sandy was talking about, we can drive change through neuroplasticity that strengthens those cognitive skills and makes thinking and learning easier.

That's the secret sauce.

That's that is the secret sauce. And what's really great is the experience that I had is we went into the center, and my daughter was evaluated. It was about it was under an hour. It wasn't that long. I was on my computer, and then a couple of days later, we got kind of the results and evaluation, and it really mapped out of those cognitive skills, which ones were lagging, which ones were strong.

It made a lot of sense. There was one and I'm I've been an you guys, I have been an educator, and I've been reading the, you know, reports my entire career, and there was one that shocked me. And I was like, this is why. This is it doesn't matter how much you know. Right?

Like, we need to look under the hood. And so and that was really great. That was cool. And, of course, my daughter is like, is this gonna make long division easier? And the answer is, actually.

It might. Yeah. So doctor Amy, you having ADHD yourself, is there a last word of encouragement that you would like to share with mamas listening today?

I always like to say we're not stuck with the cognitive cards we've been dealt. And so that's a message of hope that even though we're dealt this hand, right, that's your memory is weak, your processing speed is weak, your attention is weak, and that's what we see in research, there's something that we can do about it. And so that's super exciting. And there's a whole network of support out there for this, right? You're not alone in the struggle.

And although sometimes being at your dining room table with your struggling child can make you feel frustrated and alone sometimes, just know that you're not, that there are so many You've curated such a huge community of those people, Christy. And so I just wanna applaud you and thank you for how you're supporting families of struggling learners. But just know that you're not alone, that there's so many resources and so many advances in science that says, we don't have to just put our child on medication in order to affect change. I'm not anti medication. Let me just say that right now.

If that is the option and the route that you go, and it works, fantastic. But there are lots of different ways that we can help affect change in thinking and learning, and so just know that you do have those options out there.

Before we turn to Sandy too, something that when I first met you, Sandy, something that you said that will always stick with me is, and as when I turn it over to you, I want you to speak on this too, that you're often the last resort, and you are the one that has the parents crying across the desk from you just we don't know what else to do. So when you answer that, I want you to speak to that as well, because I do think that what you guys do truly is a game changer, and I wish more people knew about it, and I hope this podcast helps with that. But, yeah, Sandy, what would you share to the mama listening today?

Yeah. So, you know, the tricky part on our end, especially, I mean, I was a homeschool mom, so I would totally am a do it yourselfer. I'm gonna plow through. The problem with a skill deficit is that your child is silently drowning, and it's not teaching them how to swim. And when I think about it that way and help a parent see it that way, it helps them take a minute and think like, Oh, okay.

Because we have this, I don't know if it's our, you know, American kind of independent driven mindset, but we just feel like if we just work harder, if we just do more, if we just plow ahead, then we're gonna, you know, something will click and we'll move forward. But that doesn't empower your child and it doesn't empower you. You are gonna end up burnt out. And unfortunately, in my office in tears, having tried a thousand other things, I've never ever had a family say to us, I'm so glad we came to you last. They always say, I wish I had come to you sooner.

Learning challenges aren't character flaws. That's something I want you to take away from this too. A lot of times the pushback you're getting from your child is an I can't issue versus an I won't issue. And so doing something to really dig down deep and figure out where skills are and look for skill gaps is gonna give you the empowerment you need to help your child be able to do things that they couldn't do prior, and that's gonna really benefit you in the long run. We want mamas to not be stressed out.

We want them to know that there's a full team of support out there to help you understand why your child is struggling with something that's seemingly so simple, but for them, it just isn't.

Well, I think it's important to know too that that burnout and frustration that you feel as a mom is contagious to your child. And so, I mean, we have these smart cells called mirror neurons, and so our emotions are contagious. And so your child is frustrated, which then is frustrating you and burning you out, which in turn is frustrating your child and burning your child out. And it's this vicious cycle of emotion dysregulation and frustration that you're suffering together when there is help.

And, you know, a lot of us, especially if you're listening today and you're a person of faith, we probably grew up in a situation where if something was wrong, it was a character issue. You are lazy. You are blank. Just fill in the blank. And I love, Sandy, what you said.

I think it's so important. I got a little emotional when you said it, that behavior is a language. Of course, behavior is a language. And so, when your child is melting down during lessons, this it's they're not doing this to you. There's something deeper going on to investigate, and slapping a character flaw on the child is not gonna help.

It's not gonna help you get to the bottom of what is going on. You know, my prayer is that today's show is a is a lifeline for a lot of moms listening today, and they don't know what to do. They maybe you pulled your child out of school because there is a diagnosis, and now you're home, and you don't know what to do because the learning is still hard. And Amy, back to what you said, there is help for you. There is hope, and there's help, and there's a lot of people out there that know what they're doing, that know what they're talking about, that love homeschool families, and support you in your homeschooling, that can really truly help your kid.

And that's why I'm honored to have, you know, this partnership with LearningRx. As you guys know, they are a a sponsor of this show, but that does not determine, you know, who I have as guests. It's the choice that I have chosen for my own daughter to help her with her learning struggles. They're who I ran to first, but that was because I've done this forever, and I and I I know. I know how it ends.

I know it ends there, so we might as well just start there. But a lot of families are feeling lost, and I hope that this was a lifeline. Hey. If this was a lifeline for you today, would you put in the comments, thank you so much. We will put a link to something to LearningRx if you wanna get your child into a center and evaluate it.

The centers are nationwide, and we will make sure that we will put a link for you in the show notes for that. And I really appreciate you ladies coming on today, spending this time, and just nourishing our community, and giving us your wisdom and your expertise. I am really beyond grateful. Thanks It's for having

always an honor to be here.

Oh, thank you. Alrighty. See you later.