"I didn't know I wasn't dumb."

That's the response staff at the Polk County Juvenile Court got from one teenager after he worked his way through a pilot program aimed at helping justice-involved youth with learning difficulties improve their thinking and reading skills.  The program, which took place during the last school year, helped a handful of dyslexic juveniles in central Iowa discover that their problems in the classroom could be overcome by taking a new approach to learning.

Phil Douglas, Polk County Juvenile Court Supervisor, had the idea for a program geared towards juveniles with learning disabilities after his son, who is dyslexic, made great academic strides with help from Innovative Learning Professionals (iLearn), a local learning center for people with dyslexia, ADD and ADHD. 

"It probably changed my son's life," Douglas said.

Impressed with his son's progress, Douglas approached his supervisor with the idea for starting a pilot program with the iLearn staff and, after scraping together some funds from the Department of Human Services, the court had enough money to put 20 juveniles through the program.

Douglas' theory was that juveniles who could find a way to improve their academic performances might be more motivated to shape up their behavior in society, as well.

"I think kids that feel good about themselves in school are successful in other areas of their lives," said Douglas.

To give 17 adjudicated juveniles who were selected for the program the tools to achieve this success, Mary Kay Frasier, Programming Director for iLearn, said program staff taught the kids a variety of techniques, geared towards visual-spatial learners.

"They think primarily in pictures.  They are highly creative.  They problem solve more in three-dimensions," said Frasier.  "They are very non-sequential, so they are whole-part learners, big picture thinkers."

Because they process thoughts in this way, iLearn professionals provided the juveniles with specially tailored strategies to help them enhance their thinking and reading skills. 

"The thinking behind it was that we know that literacy is a very major issue in both juvenile and adult correctional facilities and the court approached us because we had been having so much success with our private practice and kids that we had been working with," said Frasier.  "We know any time we can impact reading, [we] are going to give [those kids] a success piece that they need that they haven't had."

During the first week of the program, iLearn staff spent five straight school days working with the 14 to 17-year old kids, at the PACE Juvenile Center in Des Moines, where they attend an alternative school they are referred to by the court.

After the initial, intensive week, the juveniles met, one-on-one, with iLearn staff for two hours a week for about five months.  According to Frasier, the goal was to give these students the tools they need to improve their reading abilities. 

Frasier said program personnel introduced the juveniles to various techniques aimed at helping them focus their attention, regulate their internal and external energy levels and master concepts, relative to the development of life skills.

While these strategies were geared towards helping the juveniles improve their academic performances, practicing these techniques led to some behavior modification, as well.

"We used the self-regulation tools primarily to impact reading, but we saw big behavior changes, as well, because it impacts the whole thought process and cognitive process of an individual," Frasier said. 

According to Frasier, program instructors worked with the juveniles to help them determine when they lose focus and to provide them with some strategies for remaining focused on the task at hand.

Frasier said the students also learned how to control their energy speeds through a technique called "dial-setting."  To facilitate "dial-setting," the juveniles are encouraged to create an image of a dial, similar to an oven knob, in their heads.  Then, they set a bottom speed and a top speed, so when their energy level is getting too high, they can visualize that they are operating at that top speed in their heads.

For one teenager, in particular, "dial-setting" helped him keep a handle on his anger.  Whenever he felt as though he was going to lose control and react angrily to a situation, a picture of his dial would pop up in his head, Frasier said.

"It was like a management tool in his visual system that he could refer to," said Frasier.  "[It was] an example of him taking a tool that was designed to make him more attentive to his reading and listening [and] applying [it] as an anger management tool."

However, the boy was not taught to do that, Frasier said.

"He made that association automatically," she said. 

He applied the tool to where in his life it would be most effective, she added.

Aside from visualizing dials in their minds, the program participants also practiced a technique called symbol mastry - they modeled concepts and ideas in clay to give themselves a better understanding of what they were thinking about.

Frasier explained that iLearn instructors first talked with the juveniles about a particular concept, such as change.  Once the program staff defined that concept, the students created personalized clay models of something in their own lives they wanted to change. 

"They modeled the symbolism for it," Frasier said.  "The idea is that [a clear mental picture] impacts processing.  They'll be able to think better with that because they will have conceptualized it and actually made it into a visual representation."

Frasier said that the different approaches the program facilitators used with the juveniles, like symbol mastry and dial-setting, were effective.  Most kids' reading levels improved by at least three reading levels, she said.

But a program like this needs some additional research to prove its effectiveness, she added.  The results captured from this program were only outcome-based, she said.

"We simply measured outcomes to see if this population would even respond to this particular technique and the response was good," Frasier said.

What Frasier would like to see is a program like this implemented as part of a study, so there would be some hard data to back up what she experienced in Polk County: juveniles improved academically and socially, and, more importantly, realized that they were intelligent, in their own, creative way.

"People who can't conceptually understand things without making pictures are highly gifted," Frasier said.  "We are using their giftedness in order to change some things that have been difficult [for them]."

Reseources:

iLearn
http://www.innovativelearningpros.com