Dyscastia

In this episode, I chat with Dr Shae Wissell. Shae is an award-winning advocate and entrepreneur specialising in dyslexia and other neurodivergent conditions. We talk about what happens after students living with learning difficulties leave school and we become adults!

We cover

Full show notes available at https://dyscastia.com/

In this episode, I'm joined by Brisbane-based psychologist Leanne Tran to talk about how to look after your own mental health as the parent of a child living with disability. We work through the journey as a timeline covering five stages. The pre-diagnosis worry and anxiety, receiving the diagnosis and working through the guilt and adjustment that comes with it, navigating the school system as an advocate without burning yourself out, managing the stress of school results that don't reflect your child's effort, and eventually letting go and handing over independence when they are ready.

Leanne draws on 20 years of working with families and brings really practical, grounded advice to each stage.

For more detailed show notes, visit the Dyscastia website.

In this episode, I’m joined again by clinical psychologist Valli Jones to talk about the mental health issues she most commonly sees in children and young people living with learning difficulties. We framed the conversation as a “top five”, not to rank problems, but to help parents and educators feel less alone and better able to recognise patterns in what they’re seeing.

We talk about anxiety and school can’t, emotional and behavioural dysregulation, social difficulties and isolation, family stress and major life changes, and why some families seek a second opinion after earlier assessments. Throughout the episode, Valli shares practical insights drawn from her day-to-day clinical work.

For more detailed show notes, visit the Dyscastia website.

Why Word Problems Are So Hard

Full show notes, resources and some bonus content, ↗ https://dyscastia.com/episodes/episode-21-why-maths-word-problems-are-so-hard/

In this episode, I am joined by Sharon Collon from The Functional Family. We discuss ADHD coaching and how it works to support students living with ADHD, their teachers and families. We focus on practical strategies for supporting executive function, increasing engagement, dealing with emotions, and solving predictable problems.

Sharon is an award-winning, credentialed ADHD Coach & Parent Consultant (who is families trained). She is passionate about helping families navigating ADHD create joyful, functional lives with ADHD. She loves anything that makes life easier with ADHD!

Her husband and her three sons all live with ADHD (throw in some Autism, Tourettes, ODD, OCD, SPD and SLD too).

As well as Sharon’s lived experience, she has been researching ADHD for over 17 years, studied at ADDCA in New York and is PCC credentialed with the International Coaching Federation.

Sharon has runs on the board, assisting over 40,000 families since The Functional Family was created.  Sharon has won multiple awards, including Business Awards – Outstanding Education Service, AusMumpreneur – Disabled Business Excellence, People’s Choice Leadership, People’s Choice Making a Difference and the Cook’s Community Award.

Are you interested in working with Sharon? Book a FREE 15-minute discovery call with Sharon HERE. During this call, Sharon will learn more about you and provide information about what services best suit your needs.

Show notes

I invited Sharon on because ADHD and learning difficulties often go hand in hand, with around 40% of people living with ADHD also living with dyslexia, dyscalculia or dysgraphia.

We know that attention, attitude and positive relationships have a significant impact on learning outcomes, particularly for students living with learning difficulties. Sharon shares some fantastic strategies for engaging students and supporting their (and our) mental health.

What does an ADHD coach do?

We start by looking at what ADHD coaching covers. It’s about making day-to-day life easier for students living with ADHD and their families and teachers. That includes things like time awareness, transitions, getting started on tasks, and building routines that actually work. Coaching is not therapy. It’s focused on how you make practical day-to-day activities easier.

Co-designing solutions

A big part of Sharon’s process is co-designing solutions with the child. When students living with ADHD have a say, they often come up with smart ideas, and they’re more likely to stick with them if they’ve been part of designing the solution. You’ll hear us talk a lot about building autonomy and doing the planning when everyone is regulated. Not during the heat of the moment.

What do Pinball Flippers have to do with ADHD?

Sharon also explains her brilliant “Pinball Flippers Open / Closed / Neutral” model. It’s a way to quickly understand what state a student is in and how to respond. When a brain is open, it can take things in. When it’s closed, it’s overwhelmed and in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. Our job is to help open the brain through praise, encouragement, novelty and whatever it takes to get our students engaged and open to learning.

We also talk about how to support students in tutoring and classroom settings. I share one of my own strategies a collaborative whiteboard story that students add to each week. This builds in anticipation and (almost) guarantees a positive start to each session. Sharon suggests small “important jobs” like delivering a note to the office to give students a chance to regulate and reset. She also talks about planning exits in advance, so students don’t wait until they’re overwhelmed to step away. Body-doubling (getting expert help like tutors) can help a lot. Kids often respond well to the novelty of an external person, and as parents, we can’t take on everything!

Homework – often a predictable problem

Homework is a big, predictable problem for many students. For younger students, Sharon often works with families to step away from homework altogether unless it’s something that really matters. For older students, she focuses on breaking tasks down, setting time limits, and choosing the right time of day to work. Often, that’s not after dinner! Five-minute entries work well: “Let’s give it five minutes, and if it’s awful, we’ll stop.” And if you say five minutes, you stop at five minutes. That trust matters.

Resources mentioned

We’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback. You can leave a comment or question at dyscastia.com.

Valli Jones is a clinical psychologist and an autistic woman. She brings together professional expertise and lived experience to support families, educators, and health professionals in creating safe, respectful environments for neurodivergent children and young people.

She is the creator of the Safe House Framework — a model that blends years of clinical practice, formal training, and personal insight into what it really means to feel safe. Her work focuses on helping adults understand behaviour through a neurodiversity-affirming lens and on building strong, collaborative support systems around each child.

At the heart of her work is a simple goal: to help create a world where all children know what it feels like to be understood.

Valli walks us through a model she developed for supporting neurodivergent students called the Safe House Framework, which is designed to support everyone around a child — parents, teachers, tutors, psychologists, speech pathologists, OTs to collaborate more effectively. The framework is built around the idea of a house, with each part of the house representing a part of what students need to feel safe and understood.

We also talk about what behaviour really means, what might be happening when a student shuts down or refuses to comply, and how important it is that we shift the way we think about neurodivergence in schools. This is especially relevant for teachers and tutors working with students who might seem ‘difficult’ or ‘defiant’ but are really just overwhelmed.

The Safe House Framework is a way of thinking about support for neurodivergent students that focuses on psychological safety and respect for difference, rather than control or behaviour management.

Each part of the house is a metaphor:

The framework is available to download for free at embracingneurodiversity.co.

One of the most important parts of the conversation was around how to understand behaviour. When students act out, shut down, avoid tasks, or insist on controlling things, it’s often not a matter of defiance or laziness. It’s a nervous system response.

Valli describes five common stress responses:

The idea here is not to excuse unsafe behaviour, but to understand what might be driving it — and to work proactively, not reactively.

Some key suggestions came up around how teachers and tutors can support students before issues escalate:

One of the biggest themes in the episode is the importance of adults working together. Often, a tutor doesn’t know what’s happening at school. The psychologist may not know what the parent is seeing at home. The school might be unaware of what allied health professionals are recommending.

The Safe House Framework offers a shared language and a way to bring people together around the needs of a student.

It encourages regular updates (e.g. a shared support plan reviewed every 6 months)

Parents can use the Safe House framework to coordinate support for their child, especially when schools are too overwhelmed to lead it.

Valli offers a version of the training specifically for:

Whole schools can also take part through the Safe House Schools program, which includes layered support and ongoing development.

In this 50-minute webinar, Valli offers her perspective on the disconnect between the education system and the autistic students it is struggling to engage, and proposes a way forward.

We also spoke about how important it is to have a plan in advance. Michael shares the idea of a “what if” list — where he imagines challenging scenarios and decides what strategies he’ll use before they happen, so he’s not just reacting in the moment. Valli supports this and says that kind of proactive thinking reduces the risk of nervous systems escalating together.

The point isn’t to follow a script — it’s to be ready and to feel less caught off guard.

If you’re a parent, teacher, tutor or allied health professional and you’re not sure what to do next, the Safe House Framework gives you a starting point. Even reading through the structure can help you think differently, pause, and ask better questions.

If collaboration isn’t happening yet, you can be the one to initiate it.

We’d love to hear you’re thoughts, questions and feedback.

In this episode, Michael Shanahan is joined by experienced specialist dyslexia tutor Sally Andrew to discuss The Literacy Support Kit (LSK)—a comprehensive set of resources designed to support children for whom standard literacy intervention programs are too difficult.

Sally holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Dyslexia and Literacy from the University of York, UK. Sally has been tutoring students with dyslexia for 25 years and has trained many parents and educators in evidence-based multisensory interventions for dyslexia. Sally is the director of By Your Side Tutoring. Sally formally ran the popular Teaching Students with Dyslexia (TSD) suite of training for Specialist Multisensory Literacy Teachers. Sally co-developed the Literacy Support Kit and Word Cracker suite of morphology resources.

Michael and Sally explore the challenges faced by students living with dyslexia, dysgraphia, intellectual disability, and fine motor difficulties, sharing strategies and practical solutions to bridge gaps in literacy instruction. They emphasize the importance of customized resources, multi-sensory learning, and breaking skills into fine-grained steps to ensure student success.

The Literacy Support Kit (LSK)

Sally and Michael reflect on their years of experience working with children living with learning difficulties and how the most challenging students make you a better teacher. They emphasize the importance of adapting instruction to fit individual student needs and giving students small successes to build confidence.

Subscribe to stay updated on new resources and teaching strategies.

This episode is packed with practical advice, strategies, and free resources to support struggling readers and writers. Tune in and explore how the Literacy Support Kit can make a difference.

In this episode, we have Liana McCurry back to talk about her Churchill Fellowship findings on what the top PISA performing countries are doing with maths instruction and how we can use that information to improve outcomes for kids living with learning difficulties.

Liana McCurry’s Churchill Fellowship has come just in time. Liana travelled abroad to investigate best practices in teaching mathematics that provide the best outcomes for all students.

Australia’s PISA ranking plummeted from 10th internationally in 2003 to 30th in 2018, where it fell below the average for the first time. How we teach mathematics in Australia is the prime suspect for this decline. 

Dyscastia Episode 14 was recorded prior to Liana’s departure, where we discussed intervention in Maths. 

Early in the conversation, constructivist learning theories are discussed as a big part of the problem in the context of how this approach to learning and teaching exacerbates cycles of social disadvantage. Anyone who taught in the late 80s and 90s in Australia has (tried) to work with curriculum frameworks that are broadly based on constructivist theories. 

In discussing the differences between the curricula of the countries Liana visited and Australia’s mathematics curriculum, Ben Jensen’s work was mentioned. The ERRR Podcast #77 is well worth a listen if you want to know more about the shortcomings of Australia’s curriculum. 

Greg Ashman gets a mention, as Greg is an outspoken critic of the direction of the Australian maths curriculum. Greg recently gave an excellent interview on the Science of Reading Podcast, where he gives a stunning account of cognitive load theory. Greg also sits on the other side of the mic in his own podcast, where he and Amanda VanDerHeyden talk maths instruction.  

We would love to hear about your experiences teaching mathematics directly and explicitly as opposed to other methods. We’re also interested in your experiences with bringing review and maths fluency into your instructional approaches. If you’ve taught in any of the countries Liana visited, we’d love to hear your reflections. 

Bill first met David as a graduate teacher while running the Bentleigh West Primary School Study Tour for South Australian educators, and he and David have remained in touch since. 

In this episode, Michael and Bill talk with David about something very close to all our hearts – review. Anybody working in the explicit (direct) instruction and evidence-informed instruction space has become familiar with the importance of deliberately planned and scheduled review of previously learned material. For educators new to review, it’s a case of “Where have you been all my life?” 

Once maligned as non-progressive  ‘rote learning’ or ‘drill and kill’ in teaching circles, review has come back to classrooms with a vengeance, and teachers are seeing the difference in student learning outcomes. 

Review is strongly supported by evidence and features in Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. 

We cover a wide range of topics and ideas in this episode. David mentions EDI (Explicit Direct Instruction) as an instructional method used at his previous school, Bentleigh West Primary School. 

The conversation moves to the role of review for transferring new information into long-term memory. Bill mentions a Research Ed talk by Emeritus Professor John Sweller (the father of Cognitive Load Theory), which discusses the narrow limits of change principle, a master stroke of evolution which made working memory a protective mechanism for long-term memory due to its extremely limited ability to deal with novel information, thus making it very difficult for new information to change long term memory without multiple repetitions. 

Shortly after, David mentions Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve, a famous model teachers use to explain the importance of spaced reviews to lessen the rate at which newly learned information degrades over time after being first learned (flatten the curve of forgetting). 

The importance of gaining and holding student attention first and foremost is discussed, and David mentions an episode of the ERRR podcast where the importance of having students pay attention is discussed and how this supersedes any other instructional/pedagogical considerations. OCHRE Education gets a few mentions from as a source of materials schools can use if they aren’t building their teaching materials in-house.

The difference between active review and students just reciting what is on a screen is discussed. David explains that students must actively pull something (retrieving) from long-term memory in active review. This distinction is explored, and David mentions a conversation with Ingrid Sealey from Teach Well that changed some of his thinking on how to structure the review. 

Spaced retrieval apps are mentioned as a way for us (grownups) to learn new things. One such app is Anki, which both David and Bill have used. 

Next, the question of when to review is tossed around, and David, Michael and Bill search for the holy grail – some rule of thumb or algorithm that tells us when the best time to review information is. Bill talks about how, in the Playberry Laser Literacy Program, he and his colleagues are always thinking about how to achieve the review sweet spot. 

Success comes up as the driver of student attention and genuine motivation. David, Michael and Bill discuss how Australia’s infatuation with making learning fun instead of focusing on effective teaching has had disastrous results. David talks about digital tech and books by Cal Newport, one being “Deep Work”, which talks about all of us (adults and kids) needing to cultivate the ability to concentrate for long periods to create good things in the world. David mentions a podcast episode by Greg Ashman on student motivation. 

David’s presentation for LDA is well worth a watch 

David’s Webinar on Spaced, Interleaved and Retrieval Practice for LDA is worth watching. Playberry Laser has some lessons up online where review can be seen in action, as well as some other excellent teaching at St Francis School Lockley’s South Australia. 

If you’re an educator, we would love to hear about your experiences with integrating structured daily review into your teaching. If you have a child in a classroom or school where daily review has been implemented, we’d love to hear about your impressions. 

Sue is a registered teacher with many years of experience in primary teaching. She has specialist Maths training in programs designed to support students experiencing difficulties or delays in Maths skills, including students with dyscalculia and/or dyslexia.

• QuickSmart Numeracy Intervention

Sue designs individual courses that are explicit, structured, multisensory and manipulative-based for students who are underachieving in Maths. Programs utilised are all evidence-based interventions. Students learn to think mathematically and develop understanding beyond rote memorisation. Programs focus on fostering a positive attitude towards Maths and the foundational skills, including but not limited to:

• Place value and the decimal system

Sue also offers young people support in Literacy.

• She has specialist training in ‘Teaching Students with Dyslexia’ and follows the Multi-Sensory Playberry Dyslexia Program which is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach.

Sue believes all children can succeed in improving their reading, writing and mathematical skills. Please contact her to discuss how she can best support your child in their learning.

Lilly Shanahan is a dedicated Year 12 student at Sacred Heart College in Adelaide, South Australia. As someone who lives with dyslexia and dyscalculia, Lilly has navigated a variety of educational settings and individual learning plans (ILPs) throughout her academic journey.

Her varied experiences in different school environments have given her a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by learning with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). Lilly’s personal insights into effective ILP strategies are invaluable.

As a guest interviewee in this episode, Lilly shares her firsthand experiences and offers practical advice for kids, parents, and teachers. Her contributions provide a relatable and insightful perspective on how to navigate and optimize ILPs, making her story a source of inspiration and guidance for those facing similar educational challenges.

During the episode, we mention a few things that may not be familiar to every listener. We always try to be as accurate as possible about what we say in all Dyscastia Podcasts. However, things do change, and if we have accidentally omitted information or something we have said is no longer the case, particularly in regards to policies in the individualised education plan space. 

Here are some links that might help.

Special Provisions in Exams: 

Students can apply in all states of Australia for special provisions in tests and exams. Different authorities generally for a documented history of special provisions for timed assessments. IEPs that document special assessment provisions will be an important part of this evidence.

South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE)

Currently, South Australia looks to have the best information page of all the states and territories. This section of the SACE Board website provides information on how students can apply for the types of special provisions discussed during this episode.

A quick look took me to these pages for other States and Territories:

Victoria: Special provisions Fact Sheet

New South Wales: Disability provisions for exams

Queensland: Access arrangements and reasonable adjustments (AARA) — formerly known as special provisions

Australian Capital Territory: Equitable Assessment and Special Consideration

Northern Territory (it seems the NT have adopted SA’s approach) : Special provisions in the SACE

Western Australia: Special Provisions

Tasmania: Reasonable Adjustments for TASC External Assessments

USA We live in Australia, so we are not familiar with US processes, but these links seem like a good place to start:

• The 13 disability categories under IDEA

Special Provisions Mentioned – What to consider when deciding what to offer a student.

Below are some of the topics discussed in the episode. A key takeaway is that any provision or accommodation that might make its way into a student’s plan will have upsides and downsides that need to be balanced. A glaring omission from our conversation was assistive technology. Unfortunately, the conversation just didn’t take us there. Assistive tech is an incredibly important part of the picture for students with difficulties and the possible topic of a future episode.

As you read these,  you may notice that these are options that can be made available to all students. Many ideas discussed in this episode make a difference for all students and get teachers thinking about what exactly is being assessed. 

Asking what’s helped in the past

This is often missed in the mess of creating an individualised plan for students. Even though a student may have never had a formalised plan, they may have had teachers make day-to-day accommodations that have helped. Secondary students are more likely to know what helps them! Primary students may not; however, when schools ask students, “What have teachers done that has helped you learn?”, students do feel more supported. 

It is important also to understand that there will be times when adults have noticed that one approach has made a big difference, but the student has not. Students will probably be aware of approaches that have helped them to worry less about schoolwork, but adults may be more aware of what has improved the quality of student work. I guess what we’re saying is students won’t always be right about what has made a difference, and nor will adults. The conversation is what makes the difference. 

Be prepared to try different approaches

Something that makes a big difference for one student may not be so effective for another. This is a result of how students are differently affected by learning difficulties. As well as this, some approaches will be more effective for different types of work. There’s no shortcut to finding out what makes a difference for a student. We just have to try different things and make sure we are candid with students about how they’ll need to give approaches a decent try before writing it off. Instant success, although wonderful, is rare. 

Additional time to complete assignments

Being given additional time can be a lifesaver; however, Lilly and Michael made the important point that sometimes additional time can be a curse. If a student has received additional time for an assignment from all teachers, it can just create a due-date bottleneck. Part of having a SLD (and ADHD) can be difficulty managing time and task and we all, in spite of our differences, need to learn approaches that help us meet deadlines. Some students will need explicit coaching on lining up due dates with available time. Typically, parents pick up this task, but it can be exhausting. Anything schools can do to help students pace themselves toward due dates is appreciated by families.

Some of the best tips on this comes from a book called Teaching Tough Kids by Mark LeMessurier. It’s a highly recommended resource. 

Reduced word count

This is perhaps the best-known addition to individualised plans for students who have difficulties with the volume and quality of written output. Reducing the volume of written work can make a big difference. Here’s the difficulty – reduced word count can create its own set of challenges as it requires students to condense what they know into fewer words! It’s important to remember that SLDs like Dyslexia or Dysgraphia make it harder to get what you know onto paper in a coherent way. They don’t limit a student’s depth of understanding about a topic. As well as this, regardless of the word count, students will still have to go through the scut work of sequencing their ideas and deciding on what order to lay them out. 

Exemplars of student work

A long-standing piece of good practice for all students is showing them past work from other students that shows what exemplary work looks like. Different students use these differently; however, students with SLDs often pay particular attention to the sequencing (layout of paragraphs) and also some of the language choices used in exemplars. Plagiarism must always be taken into consideration; however, borrowing a particular arrangement of language is really how we all learn to write more effectively. If you are not sure where to start with providing samples, this might help the Australian Curriculum work samples resource.

Alternative ways students can show learning

We discussed a range of other ways students’ knowledge of a topic can be assessed other than through lengthy written assignments. When deciding on accommodations like this, we need to think very hard about what we are assessing. One student famously said about a History teacher, “

“What doesn’t this teacher get? If he keeps insisting that I write heaps, all he’s testing is my learning disability, and I’ll just keep proving that I’ve got a really big one.”

If we are assessing how well students can follow the conventions of a particular written form, then absolutely, students need to write to show evidence in writing. If we are assessing students’ understanding of the factors that led to WW1 then for students with SLDs, the writing will become a barrier to them showing what they know and understand. 

It pays to think carefully about what alternatives to offer students and whether these will suit what you are assessing. Here is a list of some alternatives to long-form written tasks: 

• Heavily scaffolded writing frames (usually a feature of good teaching anyway)

It is important to note that regardless of which alternative is chosen, a student will always have to know the content and put that knowledge into a sequence that makes sense. We are not modifying in regards to what a student knows; we are modifying the ways in which that can demonstrate that knowledge. If students don’t know the topic, there’s just nowhere to hide! 

A note on good old sticky notes: some students benefit from being taught how to write one concept or idea on a sticky note and do this for all the ideas they wish to include in their assignment. They then place these on a surface and arrange and rearrange until they have a sequence they are happy with. Then, they can think about how they will connect these ideas to form a complete piece of work.

Recorded oral assignments

A game changer for many students is the chance to record themselves talking about a topic or teaching someone else (and even answering questions from the person they’re teaching) can be a much better way for them to show what they know.  The sky is the limit here. Again, students still need to know the content, cover what’s expected in the assessment rubric and have a coherent sequence of ideas. 

Interview with the teacher (In place of or supplementary to written assessment)

Bill once worked with a great dyslexic student called Charlie. Charlie was doing year 12 and was probably one of the best students of History Bill had worked with. In the lead-up to an exam, Bill and Charlie revised key dates and factors that led to the event that would be assessed in an essay question in the exam. Charlie knew the content forward and backwards. His analysis was sharp, and his knowledge was deep.

Two weeks later, Bill has a crestfallen Charlie in his office. His exam result was disappointing. Charlie had lost a significant number of marks due to not being able to pull it all together in essay form under the pressure of time. Dyslexia had robbed Charlie of time, and the additional 10 minutes he had been provided just hadn’t been enough to make up for the processing time that dyslexia took from him. It was too late to change the mark, but Bill lamented that if that teacher had pulled Charlie aside for 10 minutes after the examination (unannounced, so Charlie wouldn’t have any preparation time) and asked him to expand on some aspects of the essay, Charlie’s grade would have gone from a C to an A. 

This could have been an option in Charlie’s IEP. Of course, in high-stakes assessments, an accommodation like this may need to be approved by a higher power. However, the option of a student interview, where a teacher asks students a set of prepared questions or asks students to elaborate on points that may not have been expressed as they’d have wished to under timed conditions, can make a huge difference. 

Timed homework

With an understanding of how much angst and heartache homework tasks can cause for students with learning difficulties, many teachers have set time requirements (and ceilings) for homework rather than setting tasks that need to be completed.

As Lilly and Michael discussed, although this can reduce meltdowns, teachers do need to consider that a student without learning difficulties will get much more done in a set time than a student with an LD. It can also be very difficult to walk away from a homework task after a set time just when the penny has dropped and a student has finally started making headway.