Taking a deep dive into Neurodiversity & Executive Functioning: What's the Support? (CESA 12)

Morning session - Taking a deep dive into Neurodiversity (8:30am-11:30am) 

This training aims to serve as an introduction for educators and families supporting children with disability-related needs in the area of social and emotional learning (SEL). The goal of this session is to give an introduction to skill-based approaches to challenging behaviors that will improve social understanding and self-management of neurodiverse students. Learning opportunities with a focus on self-regulation, social communication, flexibility, resilience, sensory processing, and executive functioning will be provided.

Objectives:

• Support adult changes in behavior through an understanding of neurodiversity
• Introduce areas of possible social and emotional skill need at the deep dive
• Provide connected resources for further learning

Afternoon session - Executive Functioning: What's the Support? (12:30pm-3:30pm)

Participants will learn about how the brain works and how we can adjust to meet students where they are.  Executive functioning is the ability to organize cognitive processes. This includes the ability to plan, prioritize, stop and start activities, shift from one activity to another activity, and monitor one’s behavior.  It affects everything we do, so when a student has differences in these processes it can cause a barrier to their access, engagement, and progress in their education. During this learning event, we will focus on how to support versus “fix” these differences to support students being the best them they can be. 

Objectives:

• Gain a basic understanding of processing
• Moving from “fix” methods to supportive methods
• Expanding participant's knowledge of strategies to support executive functioning differences

Additional workshop information: 

• Participants may sign up for a half-day session (AM or PM) or attend both sessions (full-day).
• Participants may attend any session in-person or virtually.
• All in-person attendees will receive a complimentary text/resource.
• Lunch will be provided to those who attend in-person for the full-day.
• Event location TBD 

About the Presenter: Katie Berg MA Ed., Supporting Neurodiverse Students Statewide Coordinator

Katie has been educating students for over 20 years. She has worked in the private sector, public education and now statewide through an IDEA Discretionary Grant.  From her experiences providing one on one therapy, classroom teaching, district training and now statewide work, Katie has had opportunities to engage learners in a range of subjects related to students with neurodiverse needs.  Many years were spent focused on working with students with autism and students experiencing mental health differences. Katie focuses on Social and Emotional Learning skills to support students and educators in problem-solving challenging behaviors. 

The Supporting Neurodiverse Students Professional Learning Grant CFDA# 84.027A acknowledges the support of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in the development of this material and for the continued support of this federally-funded grant project. There are no copyright restrictions on this document; however, please credit the Wisconsin DPI and support of federal funds when copying all or part of this material.