What is an Educational Therapist?

 

An Educational Therapist is a professional who combines educational and therapeutic approaches for evaluation, remediation, case management and communication/advocacy on behalf of children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities or learning problems. Utilizing the social, emotional, psychoeducational and neuropsychological contexts, educational therapists work to create and implement individualized treatment plans and interventions to help remediate learning problems and highlight individuals' strengths so they can learn to use those to compensate for areas of weakness.

 

•Educational Therapy differs from tutoring and other remedial interventions in the way that it considers the impact of school, family, and community on the client’s learning.

 

•An Educational Therapist fosters communication with all significant members involved with the client and attends to psycho-educational and socio-emotional goals as well as academic.

 

•An Educational Therapist provides individualized intensive intervention, conducts formal and informal assessments of academic skills, and utilized specific alternative teaching strategies.

 

•An Educational Therapist provides case management for clients with a wide range of learning disabilities and learning issues.

 

•An Educational Therapist has extensive training in learning disabilities and other forms of learning difficulties, with additional specific training in psychology of learning disorders, assessment, and intervention strategies that address the social and emotional aspects that impact learning.

 

While a tutor generally focuses on teaching specific subject matter, an educational therapist’s focus is broader.  Educational therapists collaborate with all the significant people concerned with the student’s learning, and they focus not only on remediation, but also on building self-awareness and underlying learning skills to help clients become more self-reliant, efficient learners.