Check out the lounge within the online environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

Associate Director in the White House’s Office of Public Engagement , Taryn Williams will discuss the progress achieved in securing and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities, especially in education, and describe some of the Administrations future goals. With the new Congress poised to address the reauthorization many long delayed education laws that touch individuals with disabilities Ms. Williams will describe some of the broad objectives of the Administration.

What does it mean to be a "different thinker?" Where can we find the full potential of our community? How can we make strides toward creating a world in which every learner is recognized? By sharing some of his own LD/ADHD journeys, Mr. Flink will provide answers to these questions. In doing so, he'll also provide a glimpse into the power of mentoring in the lives of different thinkers. At the core is a message of personal empowerment, academic success, and educational revolution for people who think differently.

Parents and teachers of students with dyslexia need to provide them with more than just Orton-Gillingham based tutoring. Susan Barton will share tips and advice on student needs and things to be done in the classroom, and at home, so our kids can complete an O-G program as quickly and successfully as possible.

What are Shut-Down Learners?  How are they related to dyslexia and other learning disabilities?  Major points to cover: 

• Identify Major SDL characteristics
• Discuss Shut-Down Learners through the lifespan?
• Highlight the major challenges faced by Shut-Down Learners.
• What is the parent's role (with a particular look to the father's role)?
• Describe the concept of "emotional fuel?"
• The positive and negative cycle highlighted.
• Best approaches with Shut-Down Learners.

Dyslexia happens - hidden, unpredictable, hard to understand, waterlogging life's buoyancy. How to stay afloat? What develops resilience and sustains effort in the face of ongoing dyslexia-challenges? What unwitting ways undermine resilience?

This session offers skillful means: what to say & do to stimulate strengths, willingness, and joy and what to refrain from doing and saying. In this joint venture, there are skills to learn and changes to make – on the part of parents, schools, and kids.

Check out the lounge within the virtual environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

Back in the old school days, learning vocabulary involved index cards, markers, and images cut from old magazines. Students proudly carried around their color-coded vocabulary decks, either in their pockets or tucked away in their Trapper Keepers. Unfortunately, those decks were not accessible to students with learning differences. If they had difficulty reading the text themselves, they had to rely on others for help. Nowadays, there are many options for electronic vocabulary study that students can access independently. This session will explore desktop software, web-based tools, and iPad apps that can be used to build vocabulary. The discussion will include Read & Write Gold's dictionary and picture dictionary, Inspiration and Kidspiration, iFlash for Mac, Quizlet, Rewordify, Flashcards Deluxe, Endless Alphabet, Endless Reader and iBooks textbooks. With these assistive technology tools, vocabulary study can go way beyond the traditional flashcard deck.

Most IEP teams do not know how to collaborate, because we have not been trained how.  Yet, are asked to collaborate as a team that meets once per year, often with a different team each year and typically in an hour's time.  Using the 6 key questions of the Structured Collaborative IEP Process parents can readily: 

• Lead the team through the IEP process
• Ensure collaboration
• Develop an IEP that meets the child's team agreed-to needs and not that of an individual or institution.

The Orton-Gillingham approach is a multisensory, structured, sequential, alphabetic and phonetic approach to teaching reading. The approach forms the basis of many programs that are used for teaching students with dyslexia. Parents will learn:

• Why dyslexic students need a different approach for learning to read.
• The essential elements and authentic delivery of the approach.
• How Orton-Gillingham addresses the needs of the dyslexic child.
• What to look for in a remedial program.

The transition to college can be challenging for students with disabilities, but with the proper preparation and knowledge, they can enjoy success! Author and Columbia University learning consultant Elizabeth C. Hamblet explains:

• how the disability accommodations system works at college
• what accommodations may and may not be available there
• the documentation needed to apply for accommodations
• the skills students need to be successful at college

Check out the lounge within the virtual environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

Dana Buchman, successful fashion designer with a self-named label and parent of a now-grown daughter with learning disabilities, shares her family's story to help others find their own paths to success, and overcome any sense of guilt or shame. She aims to inspire parents by showing what is possible by being active advocates for their own children; and in her case, how doing so transformed her into an advocate for underprivileged families through her NYC-based non-profit Promise Project. Dana and her daughter Charlotte co-wrote the book “A Special Education: One Family’s Journey Through a Maze of Learning Disabilities,” available in the Learning Ally audiobook library.

Check out the lounge within the virtual environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

Executive function skills include the ability to manage time and attention, plan and organize thoughts and materials, remember details and multi-step problems, and initiate and complete tasks.  Attendees will learn about multiple tools and strategies that can help students be more organized, including software, apps for mobile devices, and websites. 

The IEP process, which involves a student with dyslexia, can be a maze of misinformation and misguided advice.  Investing some time to understand the do's and don'ts of this process can make the difference between academic success and academic frustration for your child.

Dyslexia creates a breakdown in attaining efficient reading and writing skills, requiring specific treatment. This session will explore an overview of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in relation to struggling readers. It will explore both the positive aspects of CCSS and important considerations necessary to assure that students with dyslexia can be successful in this new school environment.

As an editor for two dyslexia and literacy publications, Cowen has a unique window into current trends and future directions in the field through topics such as DSM-5 Revision, dyslexia/literacy legislation, The Dyslexia Debate, dyslexia’s upside, reform to advance knowledge/practices among reading educators, and new media. In this session, she weaves various seemingly disconnected issues into a coherent picture to inform and sharpen efforts among various stakeholders concerned about dyslexia and literacy.

Check out the lounge within the virtual environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

As you learn more about your child's learning and attention issues, are you discovering more about yourself? Many parents of children with LD discover their own learning issues along their advocacy journey. How can parents of kids with LD tune into their own strengths and weaknesses to improve advocacy for their kids - and themselves?

• Learn how adults with LD can model self-advocacy
• Discover how introspection can improve advocacy skills and collaboration with educators
• Be encouraged by parent advocates with LD, and their personal, on-the-ground success stories.

This presentation will answer the question, is there really such a thing as a ‘sight,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘red,’ or ‘demon’ word? If there is a perfect explanation for the spellings of words and how to pronounce (aka read) them would you want to share that with a student with dyslexia? This presentation will open your eyes to the regularity and structure of the English written language (orthography) while demonstrating how to introduce this to our very bright students with dyslexia.

Are your children reluctant to write? Maybe they can't determine how to organize their ideas. Maybe they just can't get started. Maybe they don't know the words they want to use. These, and many more are often reasons why a student struggles to write. We will discuss dysgraphia and dyslexia and then go into some of the most useful strategies to help children of all ages get over their hesitancy when writing. We will be including some of the wonderful technology that is available. These strategies will be useful in a classroom setting or at home doing homework.

Understanding language processing testing is a key component for serving as an effective advocate for your child. In this presentation, you will learn:
1. What components of language processing are usually tested and why
2. What are the basic building blocks of Word Recognition and the importance of increasing automaticity
3. How the various components of Language Comprehension play a role in the development of the skilled reader
4. Why are we testing for Rapid Automatic Naming?
5. How interpretations lead to remediation.

Check out the lounge within the virtual environment. Here you can chat with other attendees privately or in group chats before the first session begins.

There are a lot of great organizations in the exhibitor hall. Check out what they have to offer, ask questions, get advice and find products or services that may be what you need to help your child succeed.

For students with literacy/language disorder and/or learning disabilities, reading and digesting academic materials can be quite challenging, and this is particularly the case as students enter the middle and high school years. In this presentation:

• Participants will learn the different reasons why adolescents struggle with reading comprehension
• Participants will take away concrete strategies and tips to help their tweens and teens with reading comprehension and learning.

Parent Rights in the Era of RTI will include a parent-friendly presentation of these important aspects of identification of specific learning disabilities based on Response to Intervention:

• RTI Use Across States
• Child Find Obligation
• Rights to Request an Evaluation
• Strategies for Addressing Identification Issues

In this session, two board members from Headstrong Nation, the national organization for adults who are dyslexic, will share insights on how to talk about dyslexia with a child, discuss the strengths and weaknesses that come with this profile, and create change in your community around this issue. The presentation will draw on the material in Ben Foss' book, The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan and will help participants:

• Identify and build on dyslexics strengths
• Understand your rights and how to talk to a school or workplace
• Learn best practices for accommodations and the latest technology

To learn more about Headstrong Nation, visit www.headstrongnation.org

Learning math is not the first choice for many students. While many people find math exercises boring and rote, children with learning differences can find math nearly impossible to engage with, as it tends to signal "failure". This seminar will go over strategies that work to engage and motivate students, and how we deal with the "Lazy Child". Learn how you can make assignments (even long ones) feel like fun. Learn how to talk about errors and create an environment of success.