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THE SJ CHILDS SHOW-Building a Community of Inclusion
🎙️ Welcome to The SJ Childs Show Podcast! 🎉
Join Sara Bradford—better known as SJ Childs—as she bridges understanding and advocacy for the neurodivergent community. This podcast shines a light on autism awareness, empowering stories, expert insights, and practical resources for parents, educators, and individuals alike.
Brought to you by The SJ Childs Global Network, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting autistic individuals and their families worldwide, this show is your weekly dose of inspiration and actionable ideas. Visit sjchilds.org to learn more about our mission, find resources, and connect with our growing community.
Catch us on platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Goodpods—or tune in Fridays at 8:30 AM EDT on the Helium Radio Network’s Life Improvement Radio (Channel 1). Together, let’s foster a brighter, more inclusive world! 🌟
Go here to download training materials!
https://sjchilds.myshopify.com/
THE SJ CHILDS SHOW-Building a Community of Inclusion
Episode 310-Empowering Learners: Multi-Sensory Strategies for Academic Success with Dr. Emily Levy
Ever wondered why some brilliant minds struggle with reading, writing, or math? What if the key isn't trying harder, but learning differently?
Dr. Emily Levy, founder of EBL Coaching, takes us into the world of multi-sensory learning strategies that transform education for students with diverse learning needs. Drawing from her twenty-one years of experience and childhood immersed in special education (her mother founded a school for students with learning disabilities), Dr. Levy shares how targeted, research-based approaches help students not just overcome challenges but discover their unique strengths.
"Every child, even if they struggle tremendously in school, has gifts," explains Dr. Levy. Her organization's one-on-one tutoring programs serve students from preschool through adulthood, addressing dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism, and other learning differences. Through success stories—like the severely struggling student now studying engineering at Georgetown—we see how proper support creates life-changing outcomes.
Parents will find practical advice for identifying learning challenges early, from difficulties with letter recognition to math fact memorization. Dr. Levy also addresses adult learning needs, explaining how workplace demands often trigger adults to seek help for long-unaddressed learning difficulties. The conversation explores summer learning strategies, from specialized programs to everyday opportunities like baking (measuring teaches fractions) and journaling to maintain skills between school years.
This episode offers invaluable insights for parents, educators, and anyone interested in how multi-sensory approaches can transform learning. Whether you're supporting a child who's struggling or looking to enhance your own learning capabilities, you'll discover why building on strengths while addressing challenges creates the foundation for lifelong success.
Have you noticed learning challenges in your child or yourself? Explore how the right approach might change everything at eblcoaching.com.
The SJ Childs Show is Backwards' 13th season. Join Sarah Brafford and the SJ Childs Show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season, we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world.
Speaker 2:Go to sjchildsorg hey everyone.
Speaker 3:Just wanted to give you an update. The second annual International Autism Summit was such a success. Thank you to our sponsors and our amazing speakers. If you're interested in seeing any of those sessions, go to my YouTube channel, the SG Child Show the live tab and you can see each day and their sessions are timestamped in the description. Hope to see you guys there.
Speaker 4:Hi, welcome to the SG Child Show. It's a beautiful spring day, at least here in Salt Lake City. Where are you at today?
Speaker 5:Dr Levy, excuse me, new Jersey today. Okay, new Jersey, and how's the weather over there? We are also coming in. It was a sunny day. It was really cold on Sunday and now it's a nice, sunny, beautiful day, so I'll take it. I love that.
Speaker 4:Love it. Love spring, spring and fall I mean, I guess just every season has its own, its own little fun spot. I guess Can be appreciated in one way or another. But we're not here to talk about the seasons. Thank you so much for being here today, dr Emily Levy, is that how I pronounce it, levy? We're close. Okay, you know I'm very phonetic, so bless my heart on that.
Speaker 4:But yeah, it's so nice to meet you and I look forward to getting into our conversation today. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, introduction, and we'll jump right in Sure.
Speaker 5:Well, first off, thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited to be here. I am the founder and director of EBL Coaching, which is a one-on-one tutoring program where we specialize in providing research-based multisensory tutoring to students as young as the preschool level up through the adult level that have specialized learning needs To date back a little bit. I actually grew up in the field of special education.
Speaker 5:My mother was the founder of a school for students with learning disabilities, so I kind of spent my young childhood my whole childhood really working at her school, working with kids, observing kids and seeing what an amazing difference it could make to have the right support and the right strategies in place for kids. I then went to Brown University. I ended up getting my master's degree in special education as well as my doctorate degree in education, and now for about 21 years which makes me feel very old I've been running EBL coaching. We continue to grow and expand. We're physically based in New York City and New Jersey, but we work with kids and adults actually worldwide, throughout the United States and in many other countries, providing this kind of specialized one-on-one tutoring one-on-one tutoring and I love that you had that background of really seeing firsthand on a wide scale.
Speaker 4:It sounds like not just a small group, that I had a class, you know, or anything, but you probably saw a lot of you know children, adults go in and out and and get it when they get the supports they need, just be so empowered and thrive and have success in a new way that maybe they hadn't achieved or felt before. And you know, just even just being a parent and seeing your child grasp something new or different for the first time, you're like, yes, you know it is so nice, but when kids are struggling, you know that's another hard thing, how sometimes we don't know how to help our kids and how to help our or you know it's hard when people get into adulthood that still need the supports. But I'm so glad that you guys offer supports like that and it must be hard for them to come forward maybe and ask for help. What do you advise people, kind of to get started Like, what's your message? That you want, you know, people to come on in and let us help you? Sure?
Speaker 5:Well, I think many years ago, there was sort of this negative stigma attached to getting a diagnosis, having a learning challenges or an attentional challenge, getting tutoring. It was almost sort of this negative cloud around all of that, and I think so much of that is changing. There's a lot more awareness, there's a lot more diagnosis happening, there's so many amazing research-based strategies that are now available to help kids and to really help them thrive in school. So I believe there's so many positives about identifying the difficulties that your child is having and then seeking the right support for them, both inside of school and then, if need be, outside of school, to give them the tools, to give them the strategies to help them thrive, because every child, even if they struggle tremendously in school, they all have gifts and so we have to play up the areas and build the areas they struggle with, while continue to build those areas of strength. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Are there school districts that you work with one-on-one to help out? You know the larger community.
Speaker 5:Well, all of the work that we do is one-on-one. We do have some group summer programs that we run. So really after school and weekends, yeah, we work with kids in all different schools in public schools, everywhere, in parochial schools, in independent schools, all kinds of charter schools. We work with kids from all types of schools and there are struggles everywhere. But again, if we give kids that support, it's amazing how much they can really thrive how much they can really thrive.
Speaker 4:Is there a common thread or challenge that you see across the board? I'm sure it's very individualized and unique to each individual, but anything that you might have parents look for and keep their eyes open to be able to help their kiddo.
Speaker 5:Sure.
Speaker 5:Well, of course it is all individualized to the needs of each child, but I think that if a parent is seeing their child struggle with a skill or a set of skills whether it's younger kids learning how to identify the names of the letters and their corresponding sounds and then how to blend those together, if they struggle with that, or struggle with writing letters, numbers, words, eventually sentences and paragraphs, that could be a sign of struggle With math.
Speaker 5:Are they having difficulty learning those basic facts addition, subtraction, multiplication. Do they struggle with multi-step problems or with word problems? Are they struggling tremendously with their homework, to the point that they just can't get it done? I think if parents are noticing any of these kinds of struggles, it makes sense to start by having a conversation with their child's teacher, see if they're noticing those same kinds of struggles in school, or maybe additional struggles, and if so they may want to consider having an evaluation done, either in school, which is free of charge they can have one done outside of school, just to really identify what, if anything, may be going on. And then what kind of supports does my child need?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Now let's talk about the kiddos who we know need the support, and how do you put those in place with those families, to start a practice.
Speaker 5:Sure, well, we work, as I mentioned, with kids who have all different types of specialized needs, kids who have learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, adhd, autism, speech and language challenges really all different types of challenges. Once we know what the challenge is, usually we'll still do our own initial assessment just to specifically gauge the academic skills they're struggling with and what, within those skills, they're struggling with. Meaning, if a parent comes to us and said my child is really struggling with reading, well, first off, is it reading comprehension? Is it decoding? Is it reading fluency? If it's decoding, are they struggling with basic single syllable words? Are they struggling with multi-syllabic words? So we want to really pinpoint what exactly is the issue so that we can then use a targeted approach with the right again, research-based multi-sensory methods that are catered to their specific levels and their specific needs.
Speaker 4:I love that and you know, after school programs and summer programs, parents are aren't. Yeah, they're so grateful for that. But this is what I'm trying to say because there's there's so only so much help that kids can get during the school day from the teachers, from what about homeschool? Um, things like that. How much do you see like homeschool moms or that reaching out and needing some kind of extra tutoring services?
Speaker 5:yeah, so we do a good amount of work with kids who are homeschooled as well and there's so many different scenarios within that. Sometimes we do all of the homeschooling where the child will come in for several hours a day and we'll provide all of the homeschooling where the child will come in for several hours a day and we'll provide all of the instruction. But I would say in more cases the parent is doing most of the instruction but we'll come in and provide certain support. Maybe it's reading using the Orton-Gillingham method, or writing or kind of specific skill areas that are built in within the homeschool curriculum that the parent is following. So that varies a little bit but there's different scenarios that we do with homeschooling.
Speaker 4:What kind of maybe tips or activities can we do at home to start supporting our kids after they've gone through a program?
Speaker 5:Well, again, a lot of it really depends on what is their challenge and what within each skill do they need help with. I find the best thing a parent can do from our angle is to reinforce in between sessions what we cover during the tutoring session. So, like I said, we'll always have a targeted plan with specific materials, manipulative learning games that go along with it, and, if a parent is open to it, we're always happy to give parents tools and games that they can use with their child in between sessions to reinforce what we're covering, so that there's continuity and consistency and we just tend to see progress that much faster.
Speaker 4:that way of our newer parents out there, or just maybe people that want, you know, special education teachers, anybody that wants some ideas. Let's talk about the learning styles because I think we can go back to basics and really like cover those things so that anybody listening can say, yeah, you know this is, but what if they don't understand the way their child is learning to begin with? Can you talk to us about that and kind of, we'll uncover that a little and give them a background, if you will?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so there's different types of learning styles. There are kids who are more visual learners, where of course they learn more by seeing and visualizing. Then there's more auditory learners, where they learn more by kind of listening. And then there's tactile, kinesthetic learners, where they learn by sort of physically touching and manipulating. And then, of course, when we use a multi-sensory approach where we sort of engage all of those senses, that really helps almost everyone. So I love the multi-sensory approach. It's very effective, it's research-based, especially effective for kids who have learning and or attentional challenges. But it's fun, the kids like it and I find it's just effective for all kids.
Speaker 4:I love that. And what are some of the parents' testimonials? What have parents said? What are some stories you can share with us?
Speaker 5:I mean it warms my heart when I think of all the stories that I've heard, and a lot of times parents will come back to me many, many years later and they'll just bring me up to speed about where their child is at, or they'll reach out to me about their younger child and then they'll fill me in on their older child, which is always a nice testimony to their happiness, the fact that they're bringing their younger child back. But you know, just recently I had a father reach out to me. We worked with his son, I believe, when he was in middle school, and his father called to tell me he's at Georgetown now studying engineering, which I thought was amazing because he really struggled academically. There was another boy that I actually worked with a million years ago, who was in first grade at the time, who his mom reached out. He struggled so much he had severe dyslexia and severe ADHD, made it through school, which was a real struggle, made it through college and made it through graduate school and is now working in New York City.
Speaker 5:So you know, when I hear these stories of long-term success, it just warms my heart. I see all the time more of the short-term success stories a child who came in and couldn't read. And now, six months later, they're reading and I love that. And then when I hear these long-term stories of success, it's like all of those little milestones turned into something big, and I just love it. It's what keeps me going every day to something big, and I just love it. It's what keeps me going every day.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and you must have a great team. And how much emphasis is it for you know?
Speaker 5:building that relationship with that student. It is such a big part of it it's probably 50% of it is having that bond, that connection. So that's really a big part of what we do. I always try, when possible, to meet with each student myself to gauge their needs, to gauge their personality and to really identify the kind of person that I think would work best with them, Because it becomes almost a mentorship, a bond, and that allows them to be that much more receptive to the instruction. So important.
Speaker 4:Oh, and the growth that can come out of um somebody having a mentor and really, you know, not only living up to their kind of idea of what somebody's thinking of them, but then looking back and seeing how they lived it up to themselves and they really um did themselves and to have that. That's so rewarding for individuals. And yeah, I, you know my own children have seen my daughter struggle and get the support she needed and then go on to, you know, breathe wonderfully you know, have a lot more success for herself, and I think that it's so.
Speaker 4:It's so great that we have these types of resources. Again, I'm going to put the website up, evlcoachingcom and let's kind of jump ahead or not really ahead but let's talk about adult support, or older kind of support for adults. What does that look like and what would an adult come to you looking for, and how do you put that in place?
Speaker 5:That's a great question and there's so many different needs that we see with adults. There's so many different needs that we see with adults. So we do work with a lot of adults who have dyslexia and just never got the right support to build their reading skills and now all of a sudden they're in the workplace and they just still can't read, or they have dysgraphia or learning disability in writing and they have to write an email and they just can't compose it. They can't write a resume. So we also have adults who have ADHD and struggle with organization, time management, planning, executive functioning skills.
Speaker 5:A lot of times it manifests itself in the workplace and that's often what triggers them to come and get the help, because they thought they chose a career that maybe didn't involve reading and writing. But everything involves reading and writing. So even if you're a car mechanic, you might still have to write emails. So it's it's. These are skills that everyone needs help with and needs to have strong abilities in, and I also think, like I alluded to earlier, many years ago we didn't have the kinds of support and resources that we have now for kids. So many adults just went through school not getting the right support, not feeling smart, not feeling empowered. And now, all of a sudden, they're an adult and these resources are available. And now they want to get that support for themselves.
Speaker 4:Yeah, are there apps or tools AI, things like that that you suggest that to adults? I think that you suggest that to adults, I think preferably more appropriate for in organizing or maybe helping to write, you know, emails, things like that. Are there those types of tools that you suggest, or do you suggest not to use them?
Speaker 5:Well, it's a very tricky one with AI. I think, if used appropriately, ai is a great tool. I think it's probably easier for adults to understand how to use it appropriately than for kids. My worry for kids is that it's just going to take over teaching kids how to read and write, because why learn how to write an essay when you can have chat, gbt write it for you? That worries me. That really worries me a lot with the future of education for kids.
Speaker 5:With adults, though, I think if an adult has a learning disability and really can't write an email or can't put a resume together, I think AI is a great tool. I wouldn't rely on it solely. I've seen resumes that are generated by AI and they look like they were generated by AI. They don't feel real to me, and so I think having that human touch and having someone to support them, even if they're using AI, as part of this process, I think having another adult or a coach or someone that can still help them with that skill is key. But I do think there's some great resources that AI can really help them, especially if they really struggle with these skills.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and, like you said, especially adults that have gone through their whole life and now they might have a tool that could be more helpful and assistive for them. I know my husband is dyslexic, for example, and he does construction, which he's wonderful at, I think, because he's also autistic. So he has this, you know, perfectionistic. But he also tells me of the times when he really panics, when he's you know, did I just flip those numbers? Did I just miss right down the measurement incorrectly? Things like that? Are there any like wear a type of certain kind of glasses, things like that, or is it real? Do people need to really kind of get the help they need or are there any at-home things people can do to help them?
Speaker 5:I think it's more about getting the right help that they need for their unique challenges. I mean, there are tools like even our smartphones. If someone struggles with time management, they can set reminders for themselves that go off. They get a notification 15 minutes before their appointment to remind them that they have that coming up. So there are tools that they can use. But I think, big picture wise, it's really better to identify the challenges and get the right support rather than looking for that kind of quick fix solution.
Speaker 4:Yeah, ultimately it's better to get to the root of whatever is needed and get the right supports put into place, and then you have those moving forward. You have those tools and things like that for adults that want to join a program. What does that look like? How do they sign up today if they're interested?
Speaker 5:Sure, well, in terms of our program, it's still all one-on-one. They would reach out. Our website's a great place to start. They would reach out to us, we would speak to them, learn about what their challenges are, what they're experiencing in person in the local New York, new Jersey, connecticut area. Or, like I said earlier, we can do virtual tutoring nationwide, worldwide, and really give adults or kids that specialized one-on-one support.
Speaker 4:I love that. And let's jump to the summer camps you had mentioned. Do some summer programs. I think that's a wonderful way, to you know, get people interested. We're coming right up on the. You know it's the end of April right now, so it's going to be right around the corner. This will come out next week, so perfect timing for that to burst into summertime. Tell people what you're doing for summertime for kids so that they can reach out and make some arrangements if there's still space available.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So summer is, in my mind, such an important time to take advantage of for several reasons. One is that so many kids we all know experience that dreaded summer slide where they really can lose a lot of skills in reading, writing and math. Because it's such a big gap of time and many kids are really not doing anything or very little academic and it's really an opportune time to work on skills building. If there's any foundational gaps, if there are math skills they haven't grasped, if they're struggling with writing, sometimes during the school year, when they have a lot of homework, it's hard to really focus on core remedial skills building. Summer is a great time to do that.
Speaker 5:So during the summer we continue with a lot of one-on-one tutoring. For some kids we do intensive one-on-one tutoring. For other kids who are in camp, for example, we could do after camp, we do weekends and then at the end of the summer we have two-week small group academic sessions. We have one that's the beginning of August and one in the last two weeks in August, and in the morning it's our elementary program for kids entering grades one through six. It meets nine to 12 every day and we use all research-based multisensory strategies for reading, spelling, writing and math, word problem solving, and then in the afternoon that's more for middle school, high school kids and that's more kind of study skills, executive functioning-based. So we work on strategies for time management, organization, task initiation, note taking, writing, reading, comprehension and just a great way to take advantage of that tail end of summer and really help jumpstart the school year on a positive note. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:They sound like they'd be ready. I mean I want to come get ready, for that's fantastic. No, I love that. I love that you talked about the types of subjects you know. Obviously, there's probably so many subjects that you guys can cover, but the also activities that you guys do and that you. I don't know why my brain is kind of blanking out, but yeah, I think that that's wonderful Getting back to school, exactly Because I mean you really just need to be. You feel so much better when you start back and you don't feel like you're behind or anything. So I would definitely take advantage of that. Parents, if you're listening, definitely take advantage of some type of programs. What type of? You know? I heard somebody saying in a summit that I was listening to about a lot of libraries having a lot of like activities, things like that. What other kind of resources, community resources do you advise parents to look into when they're not in tutoring?
Speaker 5:Sure? Well, certainly, libraries are a great place to go. I think the more kids can continue reading over the summer, the better. Writing is also so important, and I encourage parents to have their kids keep a journal, even if it's about what they did in camp that day, or a vacation they went on, or a park, they went to any kind of writing, free writing, just to keep the flow of writing going. And then, when it comes to math, they can integrate fun math into their daily lives.
Speaker 5:Maybe bake a batch of brownies and have their child measure out the volume of ingredients and then decide well, what if we were to double this recipe? How much would we need? What if we were to cut it in half? How much would we need? What if we were to cut it in half? How much would we need? They can even take out different geometric shapes of pans and pots and work on geometry. So I think, making it fun but also integrating it into their daily lives. Same thing is true if they go on a road trip how much gas will we need? How much will the gas cost? How many stops should we take? What is our budget? There's so many skills that can be integrated into their daily lives in a fun way to keep those skills going over the summer.
Speaker 4:And I love how you said that too, because I think a lot of our neurodivergent families can really appreciate that if we can kind of keep that fresh in our mind to use those strategies while we're out in the world with our kiddo, my kid's 15. And you know I should. Now I'm going to keep this in mind a little bit more. Today when I go to the grocery store. He's already like calculation off the charts. So I usually make him keep the calculation for me anyways. But I don't often say like this is how I, you know we have, let's stay within this budget. I think I'm just going to play around with it a little bit more today when we go and give him a little bit more power, because he is has was finished with school at like 12, 13, but I the life skills, that's what we're working on.
Speaker 4:He's probably going to be still our forever home child, so you know we're going to be working on those other skills and I hope that he could be independent someday. Oh my gosh, it's any parent's dream, of course, but also our reality and great, you know, pleasure to have him stay as long as he ever needed to.
Speaker 5:So work for us to say. You can teach him, the closer he'll be to being independent. So you know even one little so true yeah, yeah, what types of?
Speaker 4:maybe like speech therapies, things like that. Do you guys offer those things or do you do referrals for those types of services?
Speaker 5:We don't offer those other services like speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy. We usually refer out. Of course, with speech therapy, as kids get older, there is a lot of overlap between the language-based tutoring that we do and what a speech therapist might do meaning reading, comprehension, writing, vocabulary. So we do a lot of that, but if a child specifically needs speech therapy we would refer out for that Good good.
Speaker 4:Well, I think this has been so helpful wonderful information, so many resources. I learned so much and I just I love that about podcasting is that you know you learn something from every guest you talk to and it's such a pleasure.
Speaker 5:Thank you so much for your time today. You have any exciting plans or events coming up or anything we should look forward to. I think you know at this point we're really pivoting towards the summer. We're super excited about our summer programs, about just doing a lot of great work over the summer. It's hard to believe it's around the corner, but it's always an exciting time.
Speaker 4:Isn't that the truth? It just sneaks up on you all the time. The time just does that, doesn't it? It goes by so quickly and I bet, especially when you see those or get those stories from past students and things like that. So thank you so much for the work you're doing for children and adults and just those who really need the support, and thank you for you know getting the right information to do it. You know data tested and things that are really meaningful and important for parents to know. I appreciate that. I'm going to put your website up again, evl Coaching. Please go check it out today and support them in any way. Are you also on social medias and things like that?
Speaker 5:Oh yes, we have channels on Instagram, facebook X and TikTok.
Speaker 4:Okay, you have a new follower today and hopefully other listeners that are listening, go and follow as well and get the information, because sometimes even just being able to follow some informational pages can really help you get tips for your child or adult that you're trying to to get support for. So thank you so much for your time and I I hope that we can stay in touch.
Speaker 5:Thank you for having me, and I would love to stay in touch.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you In the heart of a city. She's shining bright, oh yeah, stories of love and courage all throughout the night, her voice resonating an anthem for all through the trials and the trials. The Voice of Love, thank you. Life. She stands for family, advocates for more movement of compassion. Ways will soar. Podcasts together, symphony on support in life changing rapport. She's changing the world for you with a heart that's fierce and strong. Empathy's melody in a journey we all belong. Through her eyes, a vision clear. Together we rise, shedding fears. In every heart, she plants the seed of understanding and love. Dearly me, thank you. In a journey we all belong.
