How do you use the colours of the rainbow to improve reading skills? It may seem far fetch, but it is becoming more and more common to use art and music as a means of intervention to help individuals with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Individuals with learning disabilities vary in the severity of their learning challenges and their needs, therefore there is no one solution to help these individuals. Intervention is the term used to describe a methods of instruction used to help students with learning disability. Implementing art into intervention has been a growing trend that has demonstrated to be the most effective in helping individuals especially with reading learning disabilities. What is art therapy, how does it help? Special Compass has the pleasure of sitting down with an expert in art therapy and gain deeper insight on art therapy from The Dyslexic Coach , Sabine.
“The way I like to describe art therapy is a method to express and de-junk your mind of any unhelpful thoughts and emotions.”
— Sabine, The Dyslexic Coach
SPECIAL COMPASS- What motivated you to start the dyslexia coach?
The Dyslexic Coach - My driving force to set up The Dyslexia Coach was originally from mown experiences in education. Throughout my education I was always treated in a different way, whether it was punishment for not understanding a piece of work or being segregated from the other children but not understanding why. I finally was tested for dyslexia when I was 17, whilst going through the most important exams, however the support I had was not great, in fact it was probably worse in way because they instead of teaching, [I] did my work instead, and wrong! After leaving school the fire was well and truly lit to make sure nobody else went through education, through life without the support that they needed. This passion was ignited further after becoming a teacher assistant and discovery the attitudes of teachers of the ‘slow ones’, the ones with ‘dyslexia’, to just not put much effort in helping them achieve everything they could.
SP- What do you do with the people you work with?
DC-The work I do with people who come to me differs from each person as everyone comes with their own goals, challenges and attitudes. What I strive for is everyone who comes to me is supported the way they want/need to be and give them all the right tools to achieve their full potential. The first thing we work together is exploring what their goals are, whether that’s directly about their own dyslexia or another goal that they want to achieve. By the end of our time my goal as a coach is to give all the tools they need to further use in the future on their own.
“Art is not just painting or drawing art is anything that is an expression of one’s self.”
— Sabine, The Dyslexic Coach
SC- What is art therapy?
The way I like to describe art therapy is a method to express and de-junk your mind of any unhelpful thoughts and emotions. In doing this your mind becomes clearer, easier to have thoughts and understand them from a distant viewpoint; instead of being in a constant feeling of being underwater with thoughts and emotions.
DC- What is the value incorporate art therapy in helping people with dyslexia?
The value of incorporating art with dyslexia coaching is whatever the individual gets from it. The reasons why I choose to combine the two is because being creative really is a great way to just: de-stress, work through emotional things without speaking them aloud. A lot of us dyslexic people are highly creative people so It would be mad not to involve it with coaching.
SC- What is art therapy?
The way I like to describe art therapy is a method to express and de-junk your mind of any unhelpful thoughts and emotions. In doing this your mind becomes clearer, easier to have thoughts and understand them from a distant viewpoint; instead of being in a constant feeling of being underwater with thoughts and emotions.
DC- What is the value incorporate art therapy in helping people with dyslexia?
The value of incorporating art with dyslexia coaching is whatever the individual gets from it. The reasons why I choose to combine the two is because being creative really is a great way to just: de-stress, work through emotional things without speaking them aloud. A lot of us dyslexic people are highly creative people so It would be mad not to involve it with coaching.
In Education, Learning, TrainingTags Learning Disability, learning, reading, dyslexia, art, art therapy, coach, intervention