About the speaker:
Dr Saskia Kohnen is the Clinical Director of the Macquarie University Reading Clinic and an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. Dr Kohnen has a degree in Patholinguistics (Linguistics and Speech-Language Pathology) from Potsdam University (Germany) and a PhD from Macquarie University. Dr Kohnen has worked in various clinical settings, including a clinic for illiterate adults and a remote Aboriginal school to supervise the implementation of a school-wide remedial reading program. Her particular research interests focus on (1) how children learn to read and spell, (2) why and in which ways the acquisition process can go wrong, (3) how to diagnose these difficulties and (4) how to remediate them. Dr Kohnen has developed a number of reading and spelling assessments for use in research and clinical practice.
About the workshop:
The workshop will be divided into two parts:
Part 1 will focus on the assessment of reading and spelling difficulties in primary school students. We will only touch on high school students' needs briefly. This part of the workshop will provide a theoretical and practical overview of assessments which allow identifaction of reading and spelling difficulties.
Part 2 will focus on the treatment of reading and spelling. This part will begin by mapping assessment outcomes to treatment. We will then work on treatment approaches for commonly seen reading and spelling difficulties. This session will include case profiles.
Workshop Outcomes:
By the end of this workshop, attendees whould be equipped with better skills in:
- using cognitive models of reading to identify reading difficulties
- using cognitive models of spelling to identify spelling difficulties
- identifying children with heterogeneous literacy profiles
- matching heterogeneous literacy profiles to appropriate interventions
- applying training techniques that are relevant to the most common literacy difficulties in childhood
Who should attend?
- Attendees can be speech pathologists, psychologists, neuropsychologists, special education teachers and students currently studying these degrees
- Registrants are expected to have some knowledge and/or experience working with children with reading and spelling difficulties
- Attendees of previous workshops who have many years of experience working with developmental reading and spelling difficulties have reported to benefit from the course
Course Materials:
A course workbook including all materials will be provided on the day.
Recommended Readings:
"Jones, K., Castles, A., & Kohnen, S. (2011). Subtypes of developmental reading disorders: Recent developments and directions for treatment."
A PDF copy of this paper will be emailed out to all registrants one week before the workshop.
Catering:
Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea will be provided. Please email yumi.sheehan@mq.edu.au with any dietary requirements
Getting There:
Robert Menzies College is located on campus at Macquarie University. Access to the seminar room is through the gate on University Road- please refer to the Campus Map for access details.
On campus Parking Permits can be purchased at a special rate of $6.00. Click here to add parking to your shopping cart.
Parking is available in South 2 and West 3 car parks – please refer to the Campus Map for parking locations.
Alternatively free street parking is available on Talavera Road, North Ryde (Macquarie University side).
Robert Menzies College is a 2 minute walk from Macquarie University Station on Herring Rd, and travel to and from the workshop by train is highly reccommended. Macquarie University Station is on the T1 North Shore/Nothern Line.
Cancellation Policy and Rules:
1. If a registrant cancels before the registration deadline of 1 week before the workshop, 80% of the fee will be refunded. The remaining 20% will be kept as an administration fee.
2. No refund is available after the registration deadline. However, another person may attend in your absence. At the discretion of the Macquarie University Reading Clinic, an 80% refund may be offered on production of a medical certificate.
Registration deadline: 1 week before workshop.