FAQ

My office is virtual. It’s online. So, in a sense, it’s anywhere.

We’ll meet wherever you are – probably on your computer or maybe your phone. Whatever works best for you.

I monitor progress through email and a variety of online “dashboards,” and I’ll work directly with your child via Zoom or a similar online platform.

Shoot me an email, and we can arrange a time to talk on the phone.

Let me know about your situation and some of your initial concerns, and we’ll decide whether we’re a good fit.

If not, I’ll do my best to point you in the direction where you can find what you are looking for.

First, I start with you and your goals for your child.

Next, I develop a program just for you, your child, and your family. It may include diagnostic, performance-based testing, and, more than likely, checklists of behavior and rating scales of not only “trouble areas,” but also “relative strengths.”

I need to know what’s going on presently – to determine how to improve the situation(s), and then, how to measure progress.

We’ll go over my suggestions and, together, agree on a course of action. I’ll be your coach, your mentor, your child’s accountability partner, someone who helps find the right motivating environment along with the structure to build-in successes and celebrate them when they’ve been achieved.

I believe in celebrating all the “wins” – even the smallest ones. Success breeds success. If there’s a setback, we work together to identify the root causes and create a solution.

There is no failure – there is only information.

What works well for many families is to set up a “package” of about 4 hours of my time a month.

This will include a combination of (virtual) face-to-face meetings, phone support, and a back-and-forth conversation of email questions and answers.

Approximately 25% of the coaching time involves my working “behind the scenes” developing your program, monitoring progress, and modifying our initial plan based on how it’s been working so far.

I’ll update you and will “tweak” your program as needed.

Let me just get out my handy-dandy crystal ball that I keep in my closet, and I’ll give you a precise answer… or… er… maybe not.

Let me change that question a bit.

How long will what take? What are your goals for your child? How long have these things been problems?

I can’t, in good conscience, give an exact answer.

However, I can say that some tools and techniques that I use start working right away. You might see encouraging shifts in hours, or days, or in weeks.

But you need to understand that new behaviors may take a while to master; and, typically, once mastered, they will take at least three weeks to form into permanent habits. Brain-networks develop and get reinforced over time. If we are doing any biofeedback types of brain training, then the number of hours your child practices will determine the amount of progress. The same principle applies to other skill-based types of training like sports or music.

Practice makes improvement, it doesn’t make perfection.
Self-improvement is a lifelong process.

That being said, after the first month, you may find that “You got this!”

Then you can follow the map that I layout and keep your child on track yourself. In this case, you may want to consult with me only periodically or have me check in on your child’s progress or their program progress remotely and give feedback or suggestions on an “as-needed” basis.

Together, we can decide the level of support you need, but we don’t have to decide that right out of the gate.

Around three weeks in, you’ll probably have an idea about whether you’re ready to incorporate additional tools or techniques, and how much support you might need.

But that’s up to you.

I’ll make my suggestions and be there to help, but you need to decide what works with your budget, your schedule, and your life. Nothing is static. We are all adapting and changing. I get that. We’ll make our best plan and then adjust accordingly.

Well, that depends. Yes – but no. Yes, I “do” speech-language therapy in other settings, and I’m currently licensed to practice speech-language pathology in two states. Still, no, the service I’m offering here falls under the category of “coaching,” not speech-language therapy.

So, no, I do not bill insurance for my services here.

However, I do draw from my years of experience as a speech-language pathologist, as well as my experience in Neurotherapy and movement and mindfulness-based practices to create a program that will help your child succeed in school and life!

I may claim to be ab-fab (absolutely fabulous), but never perfect. As I said before, self-improvement is a lifelong process.

I personally use the tools, techniques, and technologies that I recommend to my clients, my friends, and my family. That’s how I know that they work. I never recommend something that I haven’t tried myself, that I don’t 100% believe will be worth trying and will be your best “bang-for-the-buck” in terms of your time, effort, and hard-earned cash.

I’m always looking for the short-cut, the “better mousetrap.” Don’t get me started here. I’ve tried almost everything that came my way and looked even remotely promising. I’d tell you about all of them, but right now, I want to focus with you on the things I’ve found to work best.

None of the strategies, tools, or technologies that I support and suggest are untried or untested. There are decades of practice and research behind all the different components that I pull together.

I’ve worked in clinics and labs that use medical and research-grade equipment, so I have high standards for the quality of the equipment I use and the data I measure. Some of the tools that I use now are modifications of research-grade procedures and equipment – both expensive and difficult to incorporate into the home and people’s busy lives. I’ve selected tools, not toys. I’ve demonstrated their effectiveness with research-grade equipment in my own office.

I’ve developed a system that I call “Brain Boosting.”

It’s a customized program, a menu of strategies and tools that work well individually and even better when “stacked together.” I’ll select the most efficient and most likely to work for you, for your family, and in your household.

There’s so much, it isn’t easy to give a simple answer, but I’ll try.

Neurofeedback is brainwave biofeedback. Got it? No? Ok. I’ll try again, starting with biofeedback.

Biofeedback involves receiving information about physiological processes and the changes that result from that information – the “feedback loop” that changes things.

Because we humans are “learning machines,” we’re wired from birth to learn, and any feedback we receive from our environment gives us information that we can (and do) use to change our thoughts and/or our actions.

A real simple example of biofeedback may happen when you get up in the morning. If you’re like me, you look in the mirror and go, “Eek! I’d better brush that messy hair.”

And, “Oh yeah, while I’m at it, brush my teeth and wash my face.” Information sets up an action plan and a chain (feedback loop) of related thoughts like: “Can I get away with just brushing my hair today, or do I need to wash and style it?” and “That shampoo I used last time left my head kind of itchy feeling; maybe I ought to try a new one without sodium lauryl sulfate….”

Information changes our brains and our behavior. Ok, so far? Then…

Looking in a mirror is kind of a gross analogy (sorry, please forgive the bad pun) for how biofeedback works, but hopefully, you’re still with me.

Researchers, clinicians, and detectives use all kinds of biofeedback: heart-rate, breathing, galvanic skin response (sweat/moisture) – they all give information about what’s going inside our bodies. That can be useful because having calm well-regulated physiology is conducive to good health and an overall feeling of well-being.

When you want to know what’s going on inside the brain, however, you have to use specialized tools to pick up the tiny, subtle signals indicative of brain activity. Most of those tools are large and so expensive that they’re available only in hospitals and big university or medical research laboratories.

However, there’s one type of measurement that is not only non-invasive but now, with modern computers and processors, relatively easy to acquire. That measurement is the EEG or electroencephalogram.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) signal or activity is typically drawn as a jagged line that goes up and down across a page as time elapses. The signal can be detected at the scalp (outside the head), but it is very weak. It’s measured in microvolts (mV), so it needs to be amplified and read by a computer to determine what information it contains.

We part the hair and clean a spot to apply a sensor to the head to pick up these signals. The sensor is a little metal disk with a conductive paste or saline solution on it to conduct the brainwave signal along a thin wire back to an amplifier that’s connected to a computer. The computer then processes the information and shows what’s going on inside the brain at that spot.

If we place many sensors on the scalp, we get more data – data from each sensor. And what’s really cool (yes, I totally geek out on this stuff) is that we get the added benefit of detecting how the activity in one area relates to the activity in other areas. That’s called connectivity. We refer to connectivity when we’re talking about “networks” and “hubs.”

The cool thing is that by providing you with feedback – a tone, a light, a vibration – when the brain exhibits more efficient and therefore “better” movement and activity, the brain will “learn” to keep and use that better, more efficient pattern. It may require some repetition to create that learning, but it happens.

We can change the brain through feedback (neurofeedback or EEG biofeedback), and it can have a profound effect on the individual’s life.

Yes, I do. And if that’s the right tool for you, and you’re in my geographic area, we can talk about it. Neurofeedback is wonderful and can be a very powerful and precise tool, giving people’s brains the feedback that allows them to make targeted, profound, and lasting changes in specific brain networks and connectivity.

However, most of my clients want simpler and quicker solutions. I have home-training wellness-devices that work on the same physiological principles as neurofeedback and still give me clean/accurate signals that satisfy my “inner research geek.”

I see some of the same results with my clients using these home-training wellness-devices as with the research-grade neurofeedback systems that I’ve worked with before and still have in my office.

I combine approaches, using neuromodulation tools that encourage the brain to shift its dominant patterns, along with feedback devices that do “brain training” using fun games that run on your phone or other iOS devices, and direct teaching and activities that provide the structure and cognitive tools for success.

I’ve been trained in research. I do assessments first. I take data. I make my best clinical determination of the problems and how to approach them efficiently and effectively.

Then, I assess the effectiveness of each component of the “Brain Boost” program that, together, we’ve customized for your child. It’s all a feedback-loop to me. Rinse and repeat until the desired results are obtained. Voila! School and Life Success!