NLP coaching for learning difficulties

NLP coaching for learning difficulties – how do learning difficulties begin?

Everyone visualizes / imagines / sees pictures in the head. When you were 6 weeks young,  you started smiling at your mother. You matched a picture in your head with the picture of the person looking at you. You might also recognise her voice or smell, but if she put on a wig, you would cry! Blind people visualize too.  Vision and visualization are different things!

If your friend walked into the room now, would you recognize him or her?  Imagine the friend with pink hair.  Did you change your picture?  Now imagine that you are watching a car driving up to the red traffic light. See it stopping.  Watch the movie in reverse. By the way, what colour was the car? And what colour is the front door of where you live?

This is how you control the pictures that you imagine. Every person is born with this skill.  But sometimes a person gets stressed, the brain gets confused, and loses this skill or starts applying it wrongly.  And that’s how learning difficulties begin.

Every person with and without learning difficulties sees pictures in his/her imagination

  • easily, sharply, clearly
  • far enough to be comfortable, yet near enough to be easy to see
  • as movies or as still pictures, whichever s/he needs at a given moment.

Where and when is visualising essential?

  • Hairstylists imagine a finished haircut.
  • Taxi drivers picture where they’re going.
  • Double glazers, construction workers, or carpenters imagine the finished items.
  • Architects imagine the finished building and then draw the plans.
  • Artists imagine what they’re creating.
  • Surveyors see whether the buildings match the plans.
  • Students visualize mind maps, sequences, formulae, equations, materials for revisions and exams.
  • Healers see blocks of energy in the body.
  • Good spellers imagine a written word before s/he spells it!
  • People excellent at math imagine the mathematical progressions and draw results,
  • …hence seeing numbers is an essential skill for mathematics.
  • Salespeople visualize the concepts they’re selling and then describe them.

To spell,read, and count well you need to see still (=not moving) words and numbers.

Fluent readers store pictures of whole words in their brains. You also need to be able to do it in order to spell easily. Most people develop the skill of storing whole words and groups of numbers in their brains naturally. But some people don’t. And the confusion leads to literacy and numeracy learning difficulties.  The harder they try, the more confused they are, and the letters and numbers may start moving around the page.

If you find spelling and reading easy, try this:

  • Do you see words in your imagination?
  • Where in your visual field are they?  High, low, on the right or left?
  • See the word cat.  If this is easy, try balloon.  Was this easy? Try sophisticated.

If you’re good at spelling and reading, this exercise will probably be easy.  You see the letters and spell the words.  This is how it should be.  It works in any language at any age. But if you cannot visualize words, you will probably find spelling and reading difficult.  If you have dyslexia, the letters may be moving, having a party!  Just imagine stopping them – like the car that you imagined stopping for a red traffic light.

If you have difficulties with learning spelling, reading, writing,

it is very easy to learn to visualise words.  It is highly likely that no teacher taught you this at school.  Even today teachers at schools and educational institutions still do not understand how people’s brains work.  This is because anyone can apply for a teaching job, but not everyone will study the works of the brain before or after they get the job!  But nowadays anyone can learn how our brains work at any age in any language.  People who struggle with learning difficulties are immensely visual, but are often stuck in the mode of moving pictures.

Similarly, imagine the number 21.  Check that you see the number still (not moving), just like you did the cat, balloon, or sophisticated.

If you find visualising numbers easy,

  • add the numbers 21 and 24.  Do you see them in your head as if they were in a photograph?  What’s the result of the two added numbers?
  • how would you organize a phone number into 3 or 4 chunks of 2 or 3 digits to remember it?
  • to remember a PIN, see the group of its numbers as if it was in a photograph. Or see the order in which you press the keys of the PIN on a keypad
  • to remember start times of meetings visualize the digital time, e.g. 12:30 on the face of a digital or analog clock

If you find visualising numbers difficult,

  • try visualizing the number 2. If that’s difficult, see 2 eggs.  Then see the word eggs.
  • if you like text messaging, imagine nice 2 c u or c u l8r. When you can see that, you can visualize numbers.
  • if you have used an abacus, play with visualizing the beads when you want to add up.

Why do the numbers that we use in the Western world have the shapes they have? Because they are derived from the Phoenician numerals which denoted the number of angles corresponding to the written number.  Hence the shape of the number 1 had one angle. The shape of the number 2 had two angles, and similarly the shape of the number 9 had 9 angles.

NLP coaching for learning difficulties will certainly benefit you if you:

  • are a parent who can’t get help for a child with learning difficulties from the school, educational psychologist, local educational authority, etc.
  • family member, friend, or acquaintance of someone with learning difficulties
  • teacher, mentor, tutor, educational support worker, educator who wants to more efficiently work with students with learning difficulties
  • professional or entrepreneur who is too busy or maybe embarrassed to get help for learning difficulties
  • highly or averagely intelligent
  • (probably) have several learning difficulties
  • do not have severe intellectual, emotional, behavioural, nor thinking disorders
  • do not have brain injury nor autism
  • are of any age and speak any languages.

You can get NLP coaching for learning difficulties with:

  • spelling – poor, irregular, none, reversing letters [d-b, p-q, a-e, c-o], reversing syllables [ae-ea, ei-ie]
  • reading – slow, erratic, poorly recognizing words, hence misreading or reading with frequent errors
  • reading comprehension – you find it difficult to remember what you read
  • writing – messy, unable to copy things to paper, writing with frequent errors, difficult or unable to draw
  • numbers – maths, visualizing or remembering numbers, difficulty with mathematical reasoning, reading analog clocks, breaking down steps in mathematical procedures, and also poorly managing time
  • dyslexia
  • dyscalculia = numerical version of dyslexia
  • visual memory – you have difficulty with directing and organizing your learning, remembering symbols, patterns, mathematical or chemical equations, names of people / places / colours / animals / objects / days / abstract phenomena, geographical orientation, finding objects, losing objects, remembering visual cues – landmarks / faces / details of pictures, often getting lost / disoriented, difficulty with constructing geometrical figures

sound / hearing

  • sound [hearing] memory – you have difficulty remembering spoken instructions, following lectures / long conversations, hence difficulty gaining information from listening, mishearing words [therefore misinterpreting information], understanding foreign accents, must make extra effort to listen to speech
  • processing sound – speech rambling, difficulty explaining in own words, using internal voice to work out consequences, speaking in incomplete sentences, difficulty following long sentences, flat / monotonous speech without rhythm and intonation, mispronouncing words, avoiding using words because of uncertainty about how to pronounce them, difficulty learning foreign languages, difficulty with thinking and speaking at the same time, slurring speech / lack of articulation
  • attention – difficulty keeping attention to a task
  • difficulty interpreting information such as body language / facial expressions / voice tone, weak social skills, difficulty noticing and interpreting emotions, understanding the correct sequence of steps in a task: cooking, sowing, computer programming

physical / feeling / bodily

  • physical [bodily] perception – awkward / clumsy movements, poor muscle tone resulting in slow / awkward movements, bumping into objects due to not knowing where the body is in space in relation to objects, uneven handwriting with variable pressure, difficulty navigating in the dark, messy / disorganized workspace, difficulty with time signature in music
  • difficulty with logical reasoning, also understanding cause and effect
  • difficulty with thinking / planning / problem solving verbally and nonverbally, seeing the main point / core of things, difficulty with associative memory.

NLP coaching teaches and helps people with learning difficulties to:

  • build and strengthen thinking processes
  • train the visual, hearing, and feeling memory
  • sharpen observational skills and attention to detail
  • develop attention and concentration
  • improve fine motor skills [for writing etc.]
  • process information faster, therefore make people more efficient thinkers
  • consequently strengthen executive functions
  • build capacity for thinking, reasoning, solving problems
  • at home
  • at school, college, university, educational institution
  • in the community
  • and finally also in the workplace

NLP coaching for individuals and families with learning difficulties

Coaching cuts to the heart of the issue(s).  And certainly shows why sometimes whole families have learning difficulties!  You can get coaching in person in Toronto Canada and London UK, and by phone, Zoom, Signal, WhatsApp, or Skype worldwide.

NLP coaching for learning difficulties in your community

  • Families can learn to use their visual skills for spelling, reading, writing, and numbers.
  • People of all ages who speak any languages can learn useful ideas.
  • Anyone can learn to help someone with learning difficulties,
  • hence you can learn to help visual thinkers to learn visually.
  • People can learn in their community / club / group
  • … anywhere in Canada, the UK, and the world.
  • Coaching by phone and online is ideal for introducing NLP coaching for learning difficulties to people in the comfort of where they are. And it certainly saves time, traveling, and energy.

… in schools, colleges, universities, educational institutions

  • What would happen if you could dramatically reduce literacy learning difficulties in your educational institution?
  • How would that improve students’ behavior and motivation?
  • What if specialist staff could cope with students with learning difficulties?
  • Does your budgeting or funding pattern enable you to dramatically improve students’ literacy and numeracy to prepare them for employment and life?
  • I help staff members, students, and parents to overcome learning difficulties. When people learn easily, they behave better.
  • NLP coaching enables students to learn essential visual skills.
  • It also teaches very young children visual skills before they become confused by words and numbers. Therefore it helps to stop poor literacy / numeracy from young age.
  • I offer 1.5-hour short coaching sessions with small groups of students, educators of all types, and teaching support staff.
  • My coaching will enrich educators and staff’s professional development and visual learning.
  • Schools can certainly arrange coaching for parents. That will encourage parents’ involvement which is vital to children’s progress. And that will also improve adult literacy and numeracy.

Benefits to educational institutions:

  • better literacy and numeracy = better results = higher reputation
  • when students concentrate, pay attention, retain, comprehend,
  • they enjoy learning even more
  • students learn sequencing, remember more, learn foreign languages faster
  • learn better in the classroom
  • have higher self-esteem and that motivates them
  • hence students participate in class,
  • develop valuable study skills,
  • behave better due to feeling more confident and competent
  • educators understand students with learning difficulties
  • the wider community is involved in improving literacy and numeracy
  • educators and support staff contribute to their professional development
  • people understand how they learn and make decisions
  • highly intelligent visual students develop skills and full potentials
  • we learn techniques that help us understand children’s experiences
  • wider school / college / university / educational institution initiative
  • students enjoy learning in afterschool clubs even more
  • variety of activities – mental imagery contributes to all aspects of education
  • parents learn and consequently their children learn
  • less administration
  • hence faster marking
  • fewer disciplinary measures
  • more students pass exams, therefore fewer students retake exams
  • educational institutions have better results and reputations

NLP coaching for learning difficulties in the workplace

  • How can you and I help members of the working world to change their experience with words and numbers?
  • How can you and I help the business community?

Many adults believe that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. They concluded this due to old social conditioning, or due to what older generations believed about learning difficulties, or maybe due to the belief that they were born with or inherited learning challenges. Many adults likewise think that there’s nothing they can do about their learning difficulties. And they will therefore probably tell this to their children.  People can be very resistant to change because their beliefs function in systems, not in single thoughts.

Finally, NLP coaching for learning difficulties is available here for:

  1. businesses of all sizes
  2. entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial associations
  3. professional networks and associations
  4. organizations and corporations
  5. support groups
  6. rotary clubs
  7. charities
  8. public community centres and services
  9. government departments
  10. and also institutions working with offenders

Let’s talk about how I can most notably help your community with learning difficulties with NLP.