The Brainy Moms

Why Meltdowns Happen Over Homework

• Dr. Amy Moore • Season 6 • Episode 607

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On this episode of The Brainy Moms podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy unpack reasons why schoolwork so often triggers meltdowns and then give you a practical roadmap to fix them—by finding whether you’re facing a content gap, a cognitive skills gap, or a diagnosis that needs attention. As experts AND moms who’ve lived the dining-room-table drama, we share how to cool the moment, then build long-term capacity so your child needs fewer props and shows more independence.
 
 We talk about content gaps, or how missed lessons, curriculum switches, and assumed knowledge silently sabotage progress. You’ll learn simple, respectful ways to investigate and reteach without shame—pretests, quick reviews, and targeted practice that restore confidence fast. Then we go deeper into the cognitive engine behind learning: attention, processing speed, working memory, long-term memory, auditory processing, and visual-spatial skills. When these lag, behavior often looks oppositional, but it’s usually “I can’t.” We show how to blend short-term supports like planners and checklists with skill-building approaches that actually strengthen the brain, not just the routine.
 
 We also tackle the diagnoses that complicate schoolwork. ADHD often includes weaker working memory and processing speed; anxiety hijacks focus and stamina; reading disorders, auditory processing issues, and vision problems can all derail comprehension. Add real-life factors—sleep debt, food sensitivities, sensory overload—and you’ve got a perfect storm. We’ll help you become a calm, curious detective: map patterns, test one change at a time, and track function over percentiles to guide next steps. Expect practical examples, gentle scripts, and growth-minded ways to stretch without snapping, plus ideas for using games to build skills and connection at home.
 
 If you’re ready to trade power struggles for progress, join us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a hug and a plan, and leave a review telling us which strategy you’ll try first.

ABOUT US:
The Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore and Sandy Zamalis. Dr. Amy and Sandy have conversations with experts in parenting, child development, education, homeschooling, psychology, mental health, and neuroscience. Listeners leave with tips and advice for helping parents and kids thrive. If you love us, add us to your playlist and follow us on social media!

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Why Homework Triggers Meltdowns

Dr. Amy

This is the Brainy Moms in-person episode February 2026. Take one.

Sandy

All right. Probably the number one question uh we get when we go to homeschool conferences, when we talk to parents throughout the year, is dealing with meltdowns. So I think we should take a little bit of time to talk about that today. All right, let's talk about number one why does school work trigger meltdowns?

Dr. Amy

I wish I knew. No, I'm just kidding. Gosh, that is uh that's a rough phenomenon, right? And we're moms, we've been there, we get it. So whether we're homeschooling or we're parents of traditionally schooled kids or private school kids, we've seen those homework meltdowns for sure. Um, and I don't know about you, but what happened in my house is a meltdown from a child would trigger a meltdown by a grown-up. I don't know if you had those. Um things like you're just not listening, or you're not focusing, or you're not trying hard enough, and every argument that you could possibly imagine, right, happened at our dining room table too. Um now typically that was not coming from me, that was coming from um my last sentatient husband. Um, but it happens, right? It's it's the plight of the parent, I think. Um, but in all seriousness, I think that there are several reasons why we might be seeing meltdowns at the dining room table over homework. And so I like to separate these um meltdowns or reasons for these meltdowns into three categories. So the first would be because there's a skill gap, the second would be that there's a content gap, and the third would be that there's a pathology uh or uh a diagnosis of some sort that's contributing to that. So, do you want to just hit all three of those in order?

Sandy

Let's start with uh the content or that's because that's the one that's probably the easiest to address.

Spotting And Fixing Content Gaps

Dr. Amy

Yeah, absolutely. Um so when we see a child melting down uh at the dining room table over homework, it could be because they missed some instruction in the content that came right before that content. So if we take math, for example, um, let's say that they are adding uh two numbers to two numbers, 66 plus 86. But last week's lesson was on adding two numbers and one number, 66 plus eight, for example. Well, let's say they were sick last week and they weren't able to focus or pay attention or they didn't get as much of the practice work done as we would hope. Um, there's a content gap there between what they could do the prior week and what they can do now, because they missed something in that instruction. So we can't, if you're a homeschool let me start that sentence over. If you are a homeschool mom, don't necessarily say, oh well, my instruction needs to be plused up. It might. Um, but it could just be as easy as, hey, let's go back and review the content from last week. Make sure that they really have mastery over the content from the prior week before adding to it. That's an easy way just to review. Um, do you remember what we did last week? Uh let's go back a few pages and try a couple of those practice problems just to make sure that you remember how. Uh, or let's see if I missed something and how I taught you last week, right? We can always take some of the blame for that. That lowers the temperature on the um meltdown. Um, make sure that they really weren't missing something, and if they were um fill the gap, absolutely. If this is from one year to the next, right? Or let's say your child has just transitioned from a public school to home school, you may see a lot of that, right? There could be a lot of content gaps uh between the curriculum that your child was getting at their school and the kind that you're using now, or you think that something was covered in school last year because that's on the outcomes uh checklist, but it got missed. So you may have to spend some time sort of diagnosing, that's in quotes, um, you know, what content might be missing, um, and just go back in and cover it, reteach it, um, make sure that they've got that background knowledge before moving on to the next step in that particular curriculum. And that can be true for for any subject.

Curriculum Changes And Pretests

Sandy

Right.

Dr. Amy

Right.

Sandy

And even if you decided to, you know, if you've been homeschooling all along and you've changed curriculums, right? You've decided I'm no longer doing Saxon, I want to switch to teaching textbooks, you know, they're gonna they're covering similar material, but they're doing it at different speeds. Yeah, um, and so they're usually a good curriculum will have a way for you to kind of get some data on the front end to see what gaps might be missing ahead of time so that you can kind of troubleshoot that.

Dr. Amy

Yeah, like pre-testing almost, right? Absolutely. And so don't skip that part. Right. I mean, that's important. Yeah, uh, that's as important for you as you plan instruction as it is for your child who is the recipient of that instruction, right? So that we do reduce the chances of frustration and and meltdowns because there just might be a little bit of a gap in the content. But that you're like you said, that is the easiest to fix.

What A Skills Gap Looks Like

Sandy

Right. So let's talk about the next one, which is is it a skills gap? Because that's different. Sure. It's gonna be a little more pervasive than just um a short blip where maybe you're not getting that next lesson.

Attention, Processing, Memory In Reading

Dr. Amy

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so when we think about the skills that underlie our ability to learn, um, those are cognitive skills, skills that the brain uses to help us take in information, process that information through our senses, and then use it in some way. And so those are skills like memory and processing speed and focus and attention, logic skills, auditory processing, visualization, those are all cognitive skills or those underlying learning skills that are required for us to effectively take in information, process it, and then do something with it. So if one of those skills isn't strong enough to process the information that's coming in, then that can create a struggle with learning, with thinking and learning. And so it could be that your child has the background knowledge to do the task, but doesn't have the attention skills. It's a difficult task, so they don't have a strong enough attention skill in order to focus long enough to complete the task, or their auditory processing skills might not be strong enough in order to read a book and comprehend what they're reading in a timely manner, which also requires processing speed, right? So not only do we need strong attention skills in order to attend to the task or focus on the task, we need strong auditory processing skills in order to manipulate the sounds and the words and you know attach the correct sounds to the correct letters uh that represent those sounds, but then we have to be able to do it quickly enough. Oh, and by the way, we have to hold that information in working memory in order to actually comprehend all of it, right? We have to have strong long-term memory too, because comprehension relies on background knowledge as well. So all of these skills sort of work together, and that's just one example of you know how we use them in reading or reading comprehension. But we use those skills in thinking and learning all day, every day across all subjects. And so if we have a weakness in one or two or three of those skills, then that's gonna create a struggle. And so what that looks like then at your dining room table is frustration stemming from this inability, right, in focus or processing speed or attention or one of those skills. So then it looks behavioral, right? Right? It looks like I don't want to do this, I'm not gonna do this, when really it could be I can't do this. I can't do this, I'm frustrated, and because I feel like I can't do it, then of course I'm not gonna want to do it. And our cognition is very closely tied to our emotion, you know, response, our emotional response to what we're doing as well. So the minute that frustration level starts to rise, then you know, our prefrontal cortex, that CEO of our brain, starts to go offline, right? And then skills that were weak really we can't access them anyway because our emotions start to take over. So then the answer to that is we have to pluss up those skills, right? We have to make those weak skills stronger in some way, right?

When Behavior Masks “I Can’t”

Sandy

That's certainly you know what we would prescribe in that situation, but typically what we do in that situation is we accommodate or compensate for those skill weaknesses. Yeah. Um, let's talk about what what are the pitfalls of that approach.

Supports Vs Strengthening Skills

Dr. Amy

Sure. So I think that there is a place um for some external supports. I think that it's okay to encourage our child who has uh problems remembering what he's supposed to work on today in school to uh write that down in a planner or a notebook. I think that's okay. That's called an external support, right? This is your assignment. Hey, you're either gonna, you know, put this on a checklist, you're gonna put this in an assignment planner, you're gonna have it on a clipboard. Um, and you know, I I think one of the positives of having an external support, like an assignment list or a task list for the day, is that uh you get this great dopamine hit from checking off each thing when you've accomplished it, and that's okay too, right? And so again, that all works together to help motivate us and to keep us motivated throughout the day. So um there is a place uh for externally supporting things like memory, and so that's okay. I don't consider that an accommodation. I think, I mean, I use a planner, right? I have I have checklists, I have a calendar that helps me keep track of my appointments. So why would not why would it not be okay for a child to use a planner or a calendar to keep track of theirs? The problem comes in when we are um not doing anything to strengthen those skills and we're only providing external supports, right? It's saying, Oh, I recognize that you have a really weak memory, so I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that you remember. So I'm gonna put a sticky note on your mirror, I'm gonna make you use a calendar, you're gonna have a checklist, we're gonna do a clipboard, I'm gonna remind you every 15 minutes, I'm gonna make sure that you're seated in a room with no distractions so that you can focus. Those are typical ways that we start accommodating weak skills. And when we just accommodate weak skills and we don't actually strengthen them, we don't do something to get to the root cause of the struggle, then that child who relies on those accommodations turns into an adult who's gonna rely on all of those accommodations. And I can pretty much guarantee you that as an adult, your spouse or your boss or your own children are not gonna want to serve in that role that we're serving in as parents right now, reminding you every 15 minutes, don't forget, this is due tomorrow. So while external supports are great, and I absolutely encourage using ones that are practical and easy to implement, making concession after concession after concession for a skill that could be strengthened instead is probably not the most efficient way to help our kids.

Sandy

So, what I'm hearing you say is that we really have to think about it as parents from a like a short-term perspective of how do I get through this moment of crisis, right? And help my child be successful. But I also need to think about it in a long-term kind of marathon way as well. Sure. I've got to try to identify what's the skill weakness and not just accommodate or compensate for that area, but think about how do I help the child become stronger in that particular skill so that they don't need those structural supports as much and they're able to function more efficiently, especially when they get into teenage years and beyond, when they really need, especially working memory and processing speed for their executive functioning.

Short Term Help, Long Term Growth

Dr. Amy

Yes, absolutely. So let me let me like put this in an analogy, a sports analogy.

Sandy

A pitch hitter? No pitch, I don't know. We're there with those weird.

Sports Analogy For Accommodations

Dr. Amy

Okay, so let's say that you are a strong hitter in baseball, okay, um, but you're not a fast runner. Okay, you'll actually hit the ball, but someone else runs the bases for you. So we see that in Little League all the time. It's absolutely horrible in terms of why we would do that for competition with young kids, to send them the message that says, okay, because you're not fast enough, somebody else is gonna run for you, but we'll let you hit. Anyway, don't get me started on that. Um, so instead of substituting a runner for you every single time you get up to that, why would we not have you practice running? Like, why would we not have you run sprints or work on some endurance running, right? If you're gonna play that sport, play that sport. So if you're gonna go to school, go to school, right? Like have the skills needed to be successful in your subjects, rather than okay, well, you're only good at this, so I'm only gonna make you do this part and I'm gonna accommodate the rest, when you have the opportunity to be to do even more if we can plus up those skills.

Sandy

So when I think about, and maybe we'll do another episode on this at another time, but when I think about like all the different methodologies or uh philosophies that we as parents have to choose from when we're looking at homeschool curriculums or private schools, or even just school options, hybrid school options, um, one of the key things that we can hit and maybe in a broad view is that one of the things we need to understand as parents is what is the cognitive development or cognitive framework that these kind of different school options are kind of have as a strength and kind of have as a weakness. And maybe we'll talk about it in more depth at another time. But what kinds of things, if we're thinking about those skills, could we give parents today to kind of think about when they're thinking about all the different school options out there?

School Options And Cognitive Training

Dr. Amy

Sure. Um, so certainly homeschooling is gonna be the easiest way to be able to individualize how you manage your day, your instructional strategies, um, how you make decisions about how you want your child to show what they've learned, um, because you have the flexibility to not only say, um, hey, this is going to target uh what my child does well, but it also allows you to say, you know what, my child needs some additional uh support in this area, so I'm gonna figure out how to help him with that too. Not accommodate it, right? Not by saying, um, well, homeschooling is great because my child with ADHD, who would get preferential seating in a classroom, doesn't need preference preferential seating in a classroom, right? Because he can sit anywhere he wants. That is true. That is absolutely true. But the reality is we shouldn't need prep preferential seating if our attention skills are strong enough, right? If we're able to tune out all of those external distractions. And we can train that. I mean, that is a skill that can be trained. And so, um, you know, as a homeschooling parent, you have flexibility in your schedule to look at, okay, what intervention might my child need in order to work on that attention and focus that we've identified hasn't been strong enough in the current educational environment. So when we contrast something like that with, or do we leave my child in a in public school? Accommodations are the norm. And that's great. I mean, that's fantastic that a school is willing to make accommodations like preferential seating and reducing distractions so that your child has the best chance of success as they can possibly have in that classroom based on what that school is capable of doing. The reality is schools aren't equipped to strengthen cognitive skills. That isn't their job, right? They're not equipped because that isn't what teachers have been trained to do, but that actually doesn't fit into the framework of what a school can do in eight hours, right? Their job is to teach content. And so you have the flexibility as a homeschooling parent to say, yeah, I get to teach content and I get to see, okay, what else does my child need in order to be successful? So it fits into the schedule and the day and the routines a little bit better to say, for example, um, you know, my child has a brain training session from 12 to 1 today, you know, over Zoom, and that's great. That works in our schedule because it can.

Pathology: LDs, ADHD, Anxiety

Sandy

Yeah. So we've talked about the content gap, we've talked about the skills gap. Let's talk about the third one, which is maybe some pathology or something happening even deeper.

Dr. Amy

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times getting back to the whole original part of the conversation is why is my child having a meltdown at the table? Um, there could be a learning disability. And so this is a combination of skill gaps and content gaps a lot of the time. Because if you have a skill gap, you aren't necessarily going to absorb the content that uh you've been taught yet. And so not only were you not able to learn it the first time around, but you might miss it the second and third and fourth time around, too, because there's a learning disability there. And so it could be, you know, a reading disability. So a specific learning disorder in reading, which is the medical term, or a specific learning a specific learning disability in reading, which is the educational term, it's the same thing. Um, it's what we um casually refer to as dyslexia. That is not an official diagnosis, but that's what we think of when we think of specific learning disorders in reading. Um, and so if that is an something that has not been diagnosed yet in your child or even has been diagnosed with in your child, if it hasn't been remediated effectively, then we are gonna see meltdowns over schoolwork because it's hard.

unknown

Right?

Vision And Hearing Factors

Be A Parent-Detective: Needs Check

Dr. Amy

It's harder, and your child doesn't quite have the skills to actually complete that assignment or do that work in a way that isn't causing frustration. But it could be another type of diagnosis too. So if it's an ADHD diagnosis, we know that that not only impacts attention, right? That's what we think about when we think of ADHD. But what we know from my research on thousands and thousands of kids and adults with ADHD is that working memory, long term memory, and processing speed are actually weaker skills in ADHD across the lifespan than attention. So if our child isn't able to do something quickly enough because they have slow processing speed, or they can't remember where Are in the assignment because of working memory issues, or they can't build on prior knowledge because their long-term memory is weak. That is all reflective of what we see in ADHD. We just don't think about it that way. So that could be contributing to a meltdown at the dining room table. The other thing is a mental health diagnosis like anxiety. Those go hand in hand, right? So we can have a child with a formal diagnosis of anxiety who has a difficult time getting through schoolwork because their mind is on things that they're worrying about. The worry might have nothing to do with the schoolwork, but that takes an enormous amount of cognitive capacity to deal with those worry thoughts. And so that can keep them from being able to focus on the work. And then they get behind, you're frustrated, now that spikes their anxiety even more, and you're gonna see a meltdown. So there could be a diagnosis of anxiety and depression, ADHD, a learning disability, or there could be an auditory processing disorder or an actual hearing problem. Right? So if our child has had repeated ear infections, for example, in early childhood, that could be impacting their ability to process language. So either they may not actually be able to hear sounds, or the brain is just not processing sounds well. So that might be a diagnosis that's gonna impact not just reading but learning across all subjects as well. Or their glasses prescription may have changed. Or they need glasses, right? So it could be as simple-missed. Absolutely. So it could be as simple as, hey, they just can't see the work. They can't see the work, they need some glasses. Um, and so, you know, and we could go down a rabbit hole on what that could look like as well, right? Because not only could it just be a prescription for eyesight that they need changed or a new one, um, you know, but they could have convergence insufficiency or their eyes might not, what we call team together, work as a team together. And in that case, it makes reading really difficult. And um, so to be able to transpose um, you know, from what they're reading to taking notes and back again, right? So those are the three reasons why, three primary reasons why we might be seeing meltdowns, skill gaps, content gaps, and some sort of diagnosis or pathology uh that needs to be treated.

Sandy

Okay, yeah. So with that framework, with a parent as a detective, right? Right, because that's what we need to be. We have to be detective. It's never surface level, the frustration is just the communication. Right. Uh, so what tips or helpful tools would you give parents to kind of help start digging?

Sponsor: LearningRx Story

Can’t Or Won’t: Reading The Signs

Dr. Amy

Um, yeah, so I first I would say, what am I most worried about? We know our child better than anyone else does, um, typically. And so what patterns are you seeing again and again, right? If it is a one-time meltdown at the dining room table, they are probably tired, hungry, sick, or stressed. Tired, hungry, sick, or stressed. And so that question is the first question I would always ask. Is my child tired, hungry, sick, or stressed right now? And you might be able to easily pinpoint something like they didn't get enough sleep last night, they're still getting over the flu from last week, um, or it's time to eat, right? Those are the three easiest ones to fix. But if it's a pattern, then start digging into stress. There are lots of reasons why our child might be stressed. And so, what might those reasons be? Do they have unmet needs in some area of their development? So, do they have unmet cognitive and educational needs, like we just talked about, right? Do their skills need to be strengthened? Is there a content gap? That might be causing them stress. Do they have sensory processing needs? Is texture, temperature, sound, sight, is any of that, do you see a pattern of sensory input causing them distress? Okay, that's another reason why we might be stressed at the dining room table because the tag is itching in the back of our shirt, right? Take that tag out. Um, do they have an unmet need for connection? We are sometimes so busy that we forget to stop and just spend time with our child, talking, hugging, enjoying an activity together, right? It doesn't always have to be about us imparting knowledge upon our child and making sure our child has all of the best opportunities all day, every day. Sometimes we just need to be with them. And so they might just have an unmet need for connection that is stressing them, that is causing them stress. Um, and so uh the last one I would say is do they have an unmet need for movement and physical activity? Have they been sitting too long? Have they um not had enough opportunity to move their bodies today or even the day before and get up and move their body and you know, uh spend some time outside in the grass barefoot? Um, so like you said, we have to be detectives because I can promise that nine times out of ten, the answer is in that question. Is my child tired, hungry, sick, or stressed? Um, the answer to why they're having a meltdown over schoolwork is in that question.

Set Up Success And Build Wins

Sandy

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Pacing, Expectations, And Seasons

Dr. Amy

Yeah, um, so um it's my experience that a won't behavior is a lot more rare than a can't behavior, like you just said. And so when we come at it as okay, my child is struggling right now, how can I help? A lot of times, just having that mindset that my child is struggling, how can I help? Will immediately lower the temperature on the interaction. Because if if we create this environment with our child where they know that we're on their side, that we know that if a struggle is real, we're gonna help them solve it, um, then they're gonna be more willing to be vulnerable with us and honest with us about what it is that they're thinking and feeling in the moment. When we start making demands and automatically assuming that this is obstinate or oppositional behavior, then that just puts them in a state of fight or flight. And when they're in a state of fight or flight, learning can't occur, thinking can't occur, and it will just be a domino of behavioral impacts. And so we have to stay calm, even when we don't feel calm, um, and say, okay, my child is struggling, what can I do? Um, and so that's the first stop, right? Is just to come at it with that mindset that it's our job as a parent to help our child who's struggling. Um I think that we have to continue looking at patterns. Um, when we are seeing explosive behaviors um associated with a meltdown, um, there might be something bigger going on, but I always say we have to look at ourselves first because emotions are contagious, and so the more frustrated we get and the angrier we get, the more frustrated and angry our child is going to get. And so a lot of times those explosions are being fueled by our own reaction to what we're seeing, and so we have to be able to take responsibility for some of that too, as parents, and that's hard, right? We want to be able to say, well, I'm the mom and he should just do it because I say so. Um, but typically there's something going on that's um causing that struggle, and that is just manifesting as oppositional behavior and not actually a pathological opposition.

Using Testing And Games Wisely

Sandy

Right, because sometimes it might be that our expectations were too high. Sure. That we set the bar way above where our student was capable of managing the task with ease or with success. Yeah. Um, so maybe one of those strategies would also be to try to think about setting your child up for success. Um, so again, being mindful about where their skills are, yeah, um, to know what they're gonna be capable of, but not necessarily underscore or undershoot what they're capable of, but be able to push a little bit too. Um, you know, if they were able to do half the worksheet last week, could they do half the worksheet plus an extra line the next week? Because we do want to help them build some of that sustained attention as well. We want them to not always have to have everything scaled back, right? Um, we want to help build that snowball of success so that they can see, oh, I can do it. The easier this gets for me, the more automatic these skills become for me, the easier and the more I can take on.

Dr. Amy

Right, absolutely. I think that's a great point. Um, that we can remind them of the success that they experienced the day before and say, so how about today we try five problems instead of four, right? And and when we remind them of those successes, right, success breeds success, right? And that increases self-esteem and self-confidence and self-efficacy, which is our belief and our ability to actually accomplish a task, which by the way is a greater predictor than our actual ability. Um, and so when we can um leverage that, that can be super successful for sure. But we also have to um in in not just managing our expectations of our child, but manage our own expectations. We have to be able to say, we don't have to get through all of this today or this week, even, especially as home educators, right? Right, you have that luxury of being able to say, we're gonna take this one day at a time, we're gonna take this one problem at a time. Um, and so we're gonna build on these skills. Even in public school, they don't finish the curriculum.

Sandy

They try. Um, but as homeschoolers, sometimes you know, that type A personality comes out, right? And we're just like trying to tick off all the boxes, but then everyone's burned out by December. Because we've been going at it full speed.

unknown

Right.

Sandy

Yeah. But yeah, you have some wherewithal as the parent to figure out the timeline that works well for you. And and sometimes that may be seasons where you're able to accomplish more, but also seasons where you maybe have to have that amount because other things have taken precedence. Sure, absolutely. Because that happens in real life everywhere, all the time. That's just a life scale.

Dr. Amy

I and I love that you bring that up because I think that that helps our own emotional health too, to approach life that way, right? Not just as parents, but as humans. Right. Yeah.

Sandy

Well, what do we want to wrap this up with for everybody? What would be the big takeaway we want people to remember when they think about meltdowns? Because they're inevitable. Um, they're gonna happen. We've whether it doesn't matter what type of schooling your child is doing, you will have a meltdown at the table at some point.

unknown

Yeah.

Sandy

What do we want to leave everybody with today?

Deficits, Percentiles, And Function

Skill Gaps With Or Without Diagnosis

Food, Sleep, And Final Wrap

Dr. Amy

Yeah, so I think uh we want to leave them with that idea that there are, you know, these three categories of potential explanations, and that's a great way to start. So you're not standing at the dining room table saying, I don't know what's wrong with him or her, right? You're able to say, okay, there might be one of three things happening. Right? It is there a potential content gap in what my child has learned and still needs to learn before he can be successful at this task? And if so, introduce the content or reteach the content. Is there a possible skill gap? If you don't know if that's a possibility, if you're having a difficult time recognizing that your child might be having issues with attention or focus or memory or processing speed, um, that's easy to test for. And so, I mean, we do that in our Learning RX centers all day, every day is test for those cognitive skill deficits. Um, and so that's one area to start. You can also, if your child has already been diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder or a learning disability, you've already got a test report. And if it's recent, pull it out, look at it, and see what those subscores said, right? So, you know, were there weak areas in, you know, visual and auditory processing and memory or attention, um, processing speed or reasoning? And if there are, great, you've identified something. Um, and then that means you can then start on that path of doing something about it. And so there are several ways that you can go in and strengthen cognitive skills. I mean, everyone, I recommend that everybody should have a game cabinet and be playing board games as a family as much as humanly possible. So many of those board games strengthen those cognitive skills. Um, in fact, we have a great spreadsheet that has dozens of games, and it the spreadsheet actually lists um which skills are strengthened by each of those types of board games. And so we're happy to share that um with you guys. If you just go to our website and sign up for our newsletter, um the first email that you actually receive will include a link to those games, right? I think so. If not, we'll make it happen. If not, we'll make it happen. We'll make sure that Rebecca sends you that. Um, okay. Um, so so games are one of the best ways to engage cognitive skills. So everybody should be playing games, plus, it's a wonderful way to connect meaningfully with your child, is playing games. The issue with games, though, is that they typically do not have the capability of remediating a deficit in a cognitive skill. So define deficit. Um, so we consider a deficit really to be anything that is impacting the ability to think and learn, to think and learn effectively. Um, if it's if if your child has tested below the 38th percentile in a in a cognitive skill, then that is definitely going to be a practical barrier to success. But we can even see test results come in, you know, at the 45th to 48th percentile, and we can see a little bit of a struggle sometime there. Right? We're so used to looking at um percentiles and achievement testing in schools, we see 50th percentile, oh, that's average for their age, and that's absolutely right. But when we're looking at it in terms of cognitive skills, there can be a functional impact there to percentiles that are below the 50th percentile. But really, if it's below the 40th, below the 38th, then that's a big red flag. Um, yeah, that you might want to do more than play games for sure.

Sandy

And especially we like to, you know, at our centers um across the country, like to look at it in comparison to other skills too. So, for example, if someone's really high in different skill areas but their processing speed is in the 45th percentile, well, that's going to be a deficit because that's their lowest skill, right? Versus the other way around, you know, what if their processing speed is really high? It in the 50th percentile, but everything else is low. Processing speed is still probably not as adequate as it could be, but it's being it's the main driver. Their brain is you know probably impulsive and thinking through things too quickly, and we can't even access any of the other skills. So you have to look at it in comparison to other skills and get a broad picture. Um, but I love how you kind of dictated we have to think about the functional impact, not necessarily those percentiles, because it can be a little deceiving.

Dr. Amy

Absolutely, yeah, right. And the reality is an intervention is going to address the functional impact, not the percentile, right? Sure. Do you hope that maybe that percentile improves because of an intervention? Sure, it's one way um of measuring change or measuring improvement, but it's it's not the way that um impacts our child's day-to-day functioning, right? And so, um, yeah, so my recommendation there is absolutely um, you know, to give learning RX a call and um just to see, like just to see if it's a skill gap. Right, right, because then you know there's no skill gap, okay, then it's probably a content issue because we will typically see a skill gap uh associated with a diagnosis as well, right? So if you have a diagnosis of a learning disability or learning disorder, then you have skill gaps somewhere, right? But you can also have skill gaps without a diagnosis, and that's important to know, right, right? That we all have at least one cognitive skill that isn't as strong as it could be. Um, but you know, many kids have multiple, right? That they just haven't had the opportunity to strengthen them yet. Right. So um, you know, one thing I didn't mention that we should before we go um are that food allergies and food sensitivities can also impact how uh cognitive skills show up as well, too. And so it's important to go. Oh, if my kid is allergic to milk and my kid is eating dairy, um, that might be why they're um slow to process information today.

Sandy

Yeah. So and sleep, don't forget sleep. Yeah, sleep. Because if they're not sleeping, then they're they might not be banking information that long-term memory might be at risk because they're just not getting adequate sleep.

Dr. Amy

Yeah, absolutely. I've got a book coming out this summer that talks about all of these areas um that we need to be looking at, you know, when we're when we're trying to be that detective.

Sandy

Yeah. So well, um, you want to wrap us up? Um I hope everyone got at least a couple things to think about when they're thinking about those struggles at the table, but um hopefully that gave you some tools to put on that detective hat and figure out maybe what could be at the root.

Dr. Amy

Yeah, this was a great conversation. Um listeners, I I know that we usually are interviewing other people, so it's always fun when we get to just talk um amongst ourselves. Um, so speaking of You guys, we are so happy that you choose to spend this hour with us every week. We hope that after spending this hour with us, you feel a little bit smarter. Uh, don't forget to sign up for our free monthly newsletter at thebrainymoms.com and follow us on social media at the Brainy Moms, and you can find Sandy at the Brain Trainer Lady on TikTok if you want to actually see some of these cognitive skill strengthening activities in action. So, look, that's all we have for you today. We're gonna catch you next time.

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Dr. Amy Moore

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