 |
| Dr. David Sortino and his new book, “A Guide to How Your Child Learns: Understanding the Brain from Infancy to Adulthood” |
David Sortino, author and learning specialist in Graton, has published a new book called “A Guide to How Your Child Learns: Understanding the Brain from Infancy to Adulthood.” He’ll be speaking on the topic at Barnes and Noble Bookstore on June 27th. The book is a collection of posts from Sortino’s blog “Your Child’s Learning Brain,” which he has written for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat since 2010.
As a collection of blog posts, the book has a somewhat scattershot feel, but it covers a range of topics of interest to parents and teachers and offers practical, hands-on advice that both will appreciate.
Sortino, who has a master’s degree in human development from Harvard University and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Saybrook University, is currently the director of the Neurofeedback Institute in Graton. Before working in neurofeedback, he worked as a learning consultant for schools, juvenile corrections, and individual clients.
“With this book, I tried to bring up-to-date research, my own practical experiences in cognitive psychology, and my many years working as a consultant with schools and students to an examination of how children learn, specifically looking at what goes on in the brain at different stages of a child’s life.”
Not surprisingly, Sortino is a big advocate of early childhood education, preferring the hands-on, kinesthetic approach of Waldorf and Montessori. (He sent both of his children to Waldorf schools.)
“If I could change one thing about the funding priorities in education, it would be to emphasize the importance of early education,” he says.
“It sets children up for success in school in ways that are really underappreciated. It’s the foundation for the whole edifice, and it gets the least attention.”
Interestingly, Sortino is intellectually most interested in the stage of childhood that most parents worry least about—late childhood.
“Late childhood is such an easy time for so many children. It’s actually the healthiest period of our life, before the rocky shoals of adolescence. Kids at this stage are rational, they’re into fairness, they’ve made the major leap in being able to take someone else’s perspective into consideration.”
But beneath the placid surface of late childhood, Sortino sees dramatic undercurrents at work.
“(Erik) Erickson characterizes this stage as one of industry or inferiority. And this is very critical because late childhood is a bridge into adolescence. If, in this stage, a child is unsuccessful at school or at home or if there’s a divorce at this particular time, that bridge gets distorted so when they go into adolescence they carry a sense of inferiority that can afflict them throughout the rest of their school career and sometimes for the rest of their lives.”
Sortino also worries about the effects that a changing economy has on older children’s development. In Sonoma County in particular, the high cost of housing means children are living with their parents much longer than in the past, which is delaying their entry into adulthood.
“I think it’s an incredible hard time to be an older adolescent or young adult, especially if you’re still living with your parents. In my day, you went off to college and got to make all of your mistakes well away from the watchful eyes of your parents; you got to learn what worked and what didn’t. Now kids are trying to figure out how to launch their lives while still living at home and it’s incredibly difficult,” he said.
Sortino sees his role as a writer and blogger as translating sometimes arcane research and his own experience into the practical tools that parents can use.
When he’s not blogging, he’s working with clients using neurofeedback to help untangle some of the mental knots that developmentally unsound parenting and education—or life in general—can create.
No comments:
Post a Comment