Fine Skills involves the ability to control purposeful fine motor movements. This is a lower order cognitive skill.

Auditory Processing Fine Motor Skills

Fluid Reasoning (Flexible Problem-Solving)

Long-Term Retrieval (Associative Memory)

Orthographic Processing

Processing Speed

Short-Term Memory

Verbal Comprehension-Knowledge

Visual Processing (Visual-Spatial Thinking)

Working Memory

In psychoeducational evaluations, Dr. Rickman obtains individual performances across many of these areas of central processing. By doing this, students’ weaknesses in any area(s) of central processing can be addressed with specific, research-based educational recommendations. These recommendations are as follows:

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties learning phonics based reading and spelling skills.

2. Emphasis should be placed on teaching phonological awareness and decoding skills in association with meaningful reading.

3. If not already performed, a comprehensive hearing examination should be conducted.

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties performing the mechanical aspects of handwriting speed and legibility.

2. Provide additional time for the individual to perform tasks that require writing.

3. Lower the standards (at least temporarily) for acceptable handwriting quality.

4. Provide structured handwriting activities - such activities should provide a variety of concrete beginning fine motor activities that lead directly into beginning handwriting activities (e.g., dot-to-dot, tracing, and letter and word copying activities). During these activities, the teacher should define the motor plans for letters and words, encourage the individual to verbally rehearse these plans, and then practice executing the motor plan.

5. Be patient with the individual while he/she is developing better handwriting performance.

6. Carefully structure and design written assignments to ensure success.

7. When it is important that the individual demonstrate his/her knowledge in a particular area, permit him/her to respond orally or in performance based ways, rather than just in writing - if writing is required, shorten the written requirements (e.g., use short answer rather than essay formats)

8. When extensive note-taking is required, permit the individual to use a tape recorder and/or have access to copies of peers' notes or notes developed by the teacher.

9. Permit the individual to use computer-based word processing and word prediction programs.

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties with novel, unfamiliar reasoning and problem solving, including difficulties processing new or abstract information, concepts that require organization or integration, information that requires the invention of new cognitive strategies, and tasks that require one to adaptively react to unfamiliar situations.

2. Provide activities that encourage the individual to activate his/her prior knowledge, that engage him/her in prediction, and that encourage him/her to monitor meaning during learning tasks.

3. Provide hands-on, activity-oriented tasks and activities that include interactive activities that encourage the individual to be actively involved in the learning process.

4. During academic instruction, much emphasis should be placed on pre-reading, pre-writing, and pre-mathematics activities - this is important to assess the individual's prior knowledge and to help the individual activate his/her prior knowledge and organize his/her conceptual schema.

5. Emphasis should be placed on teaching procedures and concepts in a concrete, over-learned manner - use manipulables, figures, diagrams, graphs, etc.

6. Much time needs to be provided for the active construction of the relationships among the taught procedures and concepts. This extended activity time needs to provide multiple examples, which include concrete representations and offers feedback from the physical world, from adults, and from tasks related to social interaction with peers.

7. The individual's teachers need to structure for, and to highlight, the links between related concepts and procedures; teaching and practice time making connections between old understandings may be more critical to learning than the introduction of new knowledge.

8. To facilitate comprehension, use such activities as previewing and advanced organizer activities, concept analysis activities, reciprocal teaching activities, POSSE (Predict, Organize, Search, Summarize, Evaluate) activities, and concept mapping activities.

9. Use of elements of effective teaching and direct instruction to reduce the abstract nature of lessons, therefore allowing the individual to better comprehend the material.

A. Advanced Organizers (e.g., statement of instructional objective; review of previous, relevant concepts/skills).

B. Instruction in Domain-Specific Skills (e.g., examples, non-examples, modeling, definitions)

C. Guided Practice (e.g., hands-on activities, checking for understanding, monitoring student learning)

D. Independent Practice (e.g., small group activities, homework, seatwork, learning center activities)

E. Closure/Summary (e.g., review of the concepts that were studied, review of why these concepts are important)

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties with the fluent storage and retrieval of information from long-term memory; the retrieval of information will be slow, laborious and inconsistent, requiring extra effort on the individual's part. This may make it difficult for one to gain access to his/her prior knowledge when he/she needs it, or will require so much effort that little cognitive energy is left for solving problems that are presented to him/her.

2. Provide additional time for the individual to answer questions and to perform tasks.

3. Provide prompting, cueing, and reinforcement to help the individual retrieve information when he/she needs it.

4. Teach information that is important in an intensive way, so that it is "over-learned", and retrieval is facilitated.

5. Use tests that employ a multiple-choice, true-false, or answer-matching format so that the individual can better demonstrate his/her knowledge (e.g., rather than tests that require the recall of specific information).

6. Teach visual association or mental imagery strategies to enhance the retrieval of information.

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties learning to recognize words by their letter patterns - this often results in poor and non-automatic sight word recognition and spelling, even though phonics analysis strategies might be well developed.

2. The individual should be encouraged to use compensatory strategies during writing; for example, he/she would profit from having access to a traditional or electronic spelling dictionary, an electronic notebook, or a prepared spelling list of frequently used words so that he/she may more easily access the correct spelling of words when necessary.

3. To help the individual learn to recognize sight words and to spell words, instructional strategies should include teacher-directed, systematic practice with controlled amounts of new information, modelling and immediate feedback, multisensory instruction, and organized and sequential instruction with basic skills. He/she may also benefit from learning to spell words that he/she frequently uses when writing, and from learning to spell the most frequently used words (e.g., "Spelling for Writing List").

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties processing information and performing tasks as fluently and automatically as his/her age-mates, and as he/she thinks. This includes deficient mental speed, and indicates that he/she will search and scan for information in a slow and non-automatic manner.

2. Particular consideration should also be given to the implications of the lack of automaticity during the day. Individuals who lack automaticity must essentially "think through" most activities, rather than perform them in a fluent, easy, and unconscious manner. While they may be able to allocate the resources to perform some tasks fairly fluently and well, they may essentially often run out of cognitive energy to do so; this may particularly occur toward the end of the school day when one's mental resources are exhausted. Variable performance may therefore be evident throughout the school day.

3. Provide additional time to complete tasks.

4. When the individual is required to perform long, involved tasks that require extensive problem solving and reasoning, he/she should receive ongoing support and reinforcement.

5. When it is essential that the individual learn basic skills and facts at an automatic level, extra practice time will be necessary. Those working with the individual will therefore need to display patience and empathy, as well as additional structured support and practice.

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties retaining information in immediate awareness long enough to process it conceptually. The individual will therefore either miss or lose information, or he/she will need to use limited conceptual processes to compensate for the short-term memory difficulties.

2. Provide information and instructions in short sequences and in a relatively slow manner, making certain that the individual understands.

3. Record long sequences of information so that the individual can refer to it as necessary (rather than being required to remember it).

1. Consider that the individual will experience difficulties comprehending verbal information and using this information for reasoning and problem solving.

2. Make verbal directions and explanations concrete and concise, making certain that the individual understands.

3. Always assess the individual's prior knowledge to determine whether or not he/she has the knowledge and knowledge structures to perform the presented tasks. If not, the necessary information and knowledge will need to be learned by him/her, before task performance can be expected.

4. Teach the necessary vocabulary and verbal reasoning in association with reading, written expression, and mathematics instruction.

1.  Consider that the individual will experience difficulties performing tasks that require visual recognition, visualization, spatial abilities, and visual imagery - the type of processing that is required during social perception (e.g., perceiving facial cues and body language), and during such activities as art, etc.