Start the School Year Right!

Strategies You Can Take Home to
Teach Your Child the Art of Self Management

Presented by Sarah Ward, M.S., CCC/SLP
All Day Seminar on  
How to Improve Executive Function Skills
•        Organization in the classroom, with homework and long-term assignments?
•        Planning and Decision-Making?
•        Impulsivity and regulating behavioral responses?
•        Starting tasks?
•        Stopping and moving on to new tasks?
•        Pacing themselves within a given time frame?

                           ...Then Your Child Needs to Learn the Art of Self Management
Does your child or student have
issues that involve:

8:30-9:00am   Registration and Light Breakfast

9:00-9:50:      What are Executive Function Skills?   

A brief overview and functional definition for the purpose of learning tools to improve self management skills

10:00-12:00    Thinking and Planning Ahead                         

Practical strategies for teaching students forethought, awareness and goal development skills. Teaching children to use
self talk to gain emotional control, flexible thinking and self control for task initiation

12:00-12:45    Lunch -Provided

12:45 -2:00     Start and Stop: Beyond the Clock

Teaching children how to sense the passage of time, change and maintain their pace, plan homework, manage long-term
assignments, plan ahead and carry out routines.    

Concrete strategies to help your child self initiate on tasks and also stop performing a task when they need to move on to
the next task of higher priority.

2:15-3:45         Material Management                       

Functional strategies to help students think in an organized way and then self initiate and manage their clothes, backpack,
papers and personal belongings  

3:45 - 4:00      Question & Answer Session
AGENDA
DATE:  Saturday, September 20, 2008

TIME:  8:30 to 4:00

LOCATION:
Home Suites Inn (website)
455 Totten Pond Road
Waltham, MA 02451
(781) 890-3000

COST:  $198.00  Lunch Provided

REGISTRATION:  Print Registration Form  OR  register online:
Who Should Attend?
Parents: of bright children who can achieve but need additional strategies to be organized and effectively manage
their time, tasks and materials.      

Parents: of children who have learning challenges with associated executive function based weaknesses: attention
deficit disorder, non verbal learning disability, Asperger syndrome, language learning disability and mood disorders.   
   

Teachers: Who want to learn how to implement functional strategies into their classrooms which will foster the
development of the Executive Function Skills in their students.     

Professionals: Who work with children and adolescents who struggle to initiate, to be flexible in their thinking, to
execute and complete tasks successfully and need to provide their patients and families with practical strategies.   


Strategies will be given to address the needs of children from ages 5 and older.  Multiple examples for younger and
older children will be given.

1.        Understand the core features of the self regulation skills: awareness, forethought, memory, attention,
       motivation, emotional control and how to foster their development in children of all ages.

2.        Teach your children to independently organize and integrate information effectively, and utilize higher order
       reasoning and thinking skills for independent problem solving, solid decision making and task execution.

3.        Create a personalized “Tool Box” of practical strategies you can use to improve your child’s ability to sense
       and use time appropriately, manage their materials and self regulate their own actions to coordinate with others.

4.        Know the typical development and core challenges in children and adolescents with weak executive function
      skills.
Learning Objectives: