Daniel’s Story

Mother of a second-grade pupil Daniels approached us with the request to help her son acquire reading and retelling skills. Our psychologist conducted initial examinations to determine the causes of learning difficulty. Very poor attention concentration and working memory skills were detected. The child made up new words, while reading. When retelling a story, he always managed to create a new – his own story.

Considering the fact that the family lived at a distance of 50 km from Jelgava, the mother asked to train her in methodologies and techniques that would enable her to train and teach the boy at home. The specialist demonstrated the Barboleta balance platform at the sessions, but the mother said that she would consider another – more efficient way of training, since she did not want to buy the balance platform. Respecting the decision of the mother, the specialist demonstrated other different exercises and tasks. After 3 sessions, during which the mother and the boy were trained to perform tasks with the involvement of motion to train attention, memory, listening, retelling and reading skills, the boy came to the mother and whispered something into her ear. The mother permitted the boy to voice his wish aloud. Then the boy came to the specialist and asked, whether this balance board could be taken home.

When he was asked why he wanted it, he explained that learning with it seems much more interesting. The boy went home with a balance platform. The family agreed with the specialist to meet once per month or once every two months to receive support in the application of training techniques. The boy says: “I like learning this way! It is much more interesting!” Currently the boy not only reads the text, but is able to memorise it and participate in a storytelling contest. As a result, the mother of the boy decided to become a Barboleta specialist in order to provide more help to her child in learning process.