Episode 96: What I Didn’t Know: The Questions Parents are REALLY Asking – Becca Villegas

LD Expert Podcast with Jill Stowell
What I Didn't Know:
The Questions Parents are REALLY Asking
Becca Villegas

 

Jill Stowell: A few months ago, I was having coffee with the mom of one of our students. We were talking about how hard it is when you start to realize that your child's struggles in school might be more than just typical or occasional resistance around homework. And then, what do you do? Who do you talk to? What are the right questions to ask? Is this just the way things are going to be? 

 

I realized as we were talking that I really wanted you to hear this, because these are the questions I hear over and over again. I think this may be one of the most impactful conversations we've ever had on this podcast. 

 

Welcome to the LD Expert Podcast, your place for answers and solutions for dyslexia, learning, and attention challenges. I'm your host, Jill Stowell, and I can't wait for you to hear this conversation.

 

I'm just so delighted to introduce you to today's guest, Becca Villegas. She's a mom doing what mothers do, juggling family and work and homework and kids' activities, and she's navigating the world of dyslexia and attention challenges with one of her boys. Here is my conversation with Becca Villegas.

 

Good morning, Becca. I'm so glad you're here with us today. 

 

Becca Villegas: Thank you. Great to be with you, Jill. 

 

Jill Stowell: You know, when we got together a few months ago, we were talking about how uncertain it can be for parents when they know their child is smart and things just aren't quite lining up at school, and then we were kind of talking about all the questions that come up for parents, and who do you ask and would anyone understand.

 

First, I would love for you to share kind of your experience as a parent kind of navigating attention, learning challenges, dyslexia with your child, and then just give you the opportunity to represent parents and moms in particular in some of the questions that come up in this process. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, great. I'm really, really happy to do that. We've had such an incredible experience working with Stowell, and it has been honestly life-changing as a parent. It has been life-changing for my son. I say all the time that it is – I'm not being overly dramatic when I say it has literally changed the trajectory of his life. So, I'm really grateful for an opportunity to share it. 

 

Jill Stowell: Well, I appreciate that. I've been in business for such a long time that every time I hear that from a parent or an adult who has been through our program as a child, it makes my heart so happy. So, yeah, I would love for you to share, you know, what were some of the things that you first saw that said, hmm, I don't know if this school is working the way it should. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah. Well, thank you. I will say, you know, kind of the headline that stands out with Stowell is smart but struggling. And that's really where things started with Cruz.

 

So, he started TK right at the end of 2020. So, I think we all, you know, we're all home together for five months. And when I put him back in school, we just kind of didn't see the transition from preschool where you're just kind of coloring and just doing more things hands-on to more of a structured learning environment in TK.

 

And he really started to struggle and he would get homework and it was really simple stuff but he was really, really starting to avoid work as young as four or five years old and that introduction to learning. He went into kindergarten and the school really didn't say anything. We were in a small private school close to our home. The teacher retired the next year. So, I don't know if she was just maybe a little disengaged, but they didn't say anything. There was really no red flag there. He was getting through, no problem. 

 

And then we put him in a really, really good private school for first grade. And Cruz has always been really, really bright. We read together all the time. My sister-in-law was his full-time childcare from the time he was born. And she would read to him at every meal, before every nap.

 

So, learning and reading was always around him. So, we were really surprised when he got into first grade and he was really struggling to read. He, to me, seemed very introverted and quiet. So, when we went to his first parent-teacher conference, she's like, Cruz is the most popular kid in class. He's the class clown, but sometimes it's disruptive. And I'm like, “Are you sure you're talking about my son?” because he seems so introverted, he seems so quiet to me.

 

To hear her say class clown and disruptive, I was like, “What is going on here?” So, she said that he was really struggling to read and he was struggling to maintain focus as she was going through the lessons. And the thing that struck me was she said, you know, it's to the point that she'll write the word cat on the board. And he'll look up, he'll see the C. He'll look down and get kind of lost and won't write the C. She'll go over, prompt him, “Hey, write this letter.” He'll write it and, okay, now go back up and find the A. And he literally couldn't find the A on the page. 

 

So, it's really difficult as a parent in that moment to understand what's happening. Does he just not want to do the work, which was kind of what we got the sense was happening? Is it an attention difficulty? Dyslexia didn't really cross my mind.

 

So, we got into the second trimester, started private tutoring with him. And it was just kind of more of the same of a thing he couldn't do and it just became really frustrating to the point where he really started to shut down.

 

And for a first grader to shut down that seriously, like for a kid that's otherwise super happy and jovial and everything like that, it was really alarming as a parent. And things work out in funny ways. But I was speaking with my hairdresser of all people, and she mentioned that she was dyslexic. And it kind of piqued my interest. I'm like, what does that look like? 

 

And, Jill, I won't attempt to explain dyslexia. I'll leave that to you. But when she started to describe what it looked like, it wasn't what I assumed dyslexia was. So, she said a lot of things that resonated to me with maybe what was happening with Cruz. So, I went home, and I think I put him through seven online dyslexia screeners. And almost all of them came back, like 95%. This is probably what's going on. 

 

So, I was really fortunate. My sister-in-law works with autistic kids through the regional center. So, we went to her and just said, “Hey, what do we do? Where do we take it from here?” And she had some knowledge about Stowell and your program, and she connected it for us. And we're almost three years in and Cruz is about to graduate from the program. And like I said, it has completely changed his trajectory. 

 

Jill Stowell: Wow. So, it has been quite a journey. Yeah. And I remember all of that resistance and everything at the beginning with him. But I think you were telling me he was out of school maybe for Christmas break or something. And you were telling me he was very anxious to go back to school, which is …

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, he really struggled. Yeah. And he honestly got to the point where Sunday afternoon, knowing that he had to go to school on Monday morning, he would start to melt down. And a lot of it was just pressure. Everything felt like pressure for him. One thing I'm really excited to draw out through this conversation and share with other parents is it was still really confusing for me upfront what was going on. You talk a lot about what I've learned through the interaction with your program and everyone on your team about the primitive reflexes that were maybe not clicking there or the underlying foundations of learning that were missing for Cruz.

 

But even as we started the program and we were starting to discover what was specifically going on with Cruz, it was so hard to understand. And teachers, we have him in public school now. I'm a big fan of public education, just the whole environment and the resource and the support there.

 

But there's still not enough information out there for people to completely understand, I think, how to help these kids. And so, they would see work avoidance and think, “I just need to put more pressure on him.” And the pressure was so much for him.

 

I try not to get emotional. He actually said one day, he's like, “I shouldn't be here.” And like, meaning, like, on earth and as a parent, there's really nothing that could be harder than hearing something like that from your child. And it was just because he kept going to school every day and he couldn't do what the other kids could do. He was extremely aware of it. He would try to create diversions, distractions. He would be disruptive, do anything he could to get away from it because he couldn't verbalize, “I can't do this. This looks different for me.”

 

It was just really, really difficult, I think, to understand the combination of things that he needed. So, I guess for me, the earliest signs, when I look back, the earliest signs I saw in Cruz were the work avoidance and really the disruption in the classroom. And I don't know, Jill, if those are common early signs. I think that it would have changed things for Cruz a lot had we been able to connect with you earlier. When he first started struggling in TK, we lost a couple of years there because we didn't know.

 

So, I guess one thing I think that's confusing for parents is really what signs should we be looking for, that maybe a program like Stowell is something that their child could benefit from. 

 

Jill Stowell: So, I think you described those signs beautifully. Now, it looks different with different kids. I mean, with boys, you're going to see more disruption and more, I want to say, acting out. Just physically, they're more physical in their resistance, often. These kids are bright and creative often or funny or intuitive about other people.

 

And so, you definitely can see a child become an entertainer in the class. And they're very funny, but it's disruptive. And it's a way to draw attention away from what they can't do and avoid what they can't do. Sometimes with – and I would say this is more true of girls, but you can't really make a generalization totally. But sometimes kids become very quiet and helpful. And they're just so sweet and kind and helpful that they fly under the radar.

 

And so, it causes teachers to want to help them. It causes kids to want to help them and they just don't get noticed either. So, those and I think the thing that's so important to understand is when you look at our kids that are diagnosed, that eventually become diagnosed with learning disabilities and particularly dyslexia, you're looking at kids that are really bright. They don't want to fail. And you said Cruz was very aware. 

 

They're very aware. They know they can't do this as well as everyone else. They see it and then they have to find some other ways to deal with it. And so, by the time kids get into middle school or high school, if they're still struggling like that, a lot of times what you're seeing is just flat-out refusal.

 

They don't want to do this or some real negative kind of kind of resistance. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, it's hard, especially when they're young to understand what's going on with them, because I would ask them, like, you just don’t want to do it or you're just kind of lazy about this. You'd rather play games or hang out with your brother. And he would say, “Yeah, that's it.”

 

So, he was so aware there was an issue, but he couldn't communicate what it was. You mentioned a lot of things and boy energy is different and it's hard to harness it as is. Let alone if there's something underlying going on. So, I guess in particular for Cruz, it was just – I look back as a mom. It's hard not to look back and think like, I missed it.

 

We knew something was off because he always seems so smart, but it's hard not to look back and feel like I missed it. So, as moms, we should all give ourselves some grace. We're doing the best we can here.

 

Jill Stowell: Absolutely, yeah.

 

Becca Villegas: But, I guess, like, I think the thing is that for other parents, I was waiting to see if it got better and is there any other trigger that you recognize is to say, instead of waiting until it gets better. Maybe if you're seeing these one or two key things, at least go and have the deeper evaluation.

 

Jill Stowell: It is tricky because you started seeing these things with TK, so transitional kindergarten, not even regular kindergarten yet. And there are developmental things at that age. I mean, we try to be very careful. If we get a five-year-old, we don't want to automatically assume that because they have reversals, they're flipping some letters that they're dyslexic, because developmentally, that's kind of appropriate, especially five and a half is a peak age for that. So, you want to be careful about that.

 

But some of the things, if your child loves to be read to, but they just highly resist anything where they are having to participate in looking at the page and read, even say letters, try to write. There should be some, some curiosity around letters and sounds, even from, from toddlerhood. Kids start to think about sounds and notice, oh, ma, ba. They start to play with sounds like that. And a lot of times when you have kids that end up having a reading difficulty, they don't really do that. They don't play with the sounds as much. And so, we have a phonetic-based language. And when you go to start to read, if those sounds do not make sense to your brain, well, you can hammer away at it all day long, but it's not going to work. It's just going to feel frustrating. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, absolutely. it's interesting is that what really highlighted for us that Cruz wasn't doing those developmental things. You answered the 80 questions when you take them to the pediatrician, but nothing was far off enough that it would have drawn it out. But he has a little brother that's only 13 months younger.

 

And his little brother picked up a Dr. Seuss book and just kind of like read the whole thing. And I was like, wait a second, you're 13 months younger. And I started to look back and I'm like, you – his little brother has hearing difficulties. So, he wears a hearing aid in one ear. So, I thought maybe that there was something there where – because we were doing all of the extra therapies for him for hearing that he was connecting and Cruz wasn't. But in that moment, I was like, okay, there's definitely something here.

 

And looking back, all those things you're saying, Cruz, like you said, love to be read to, but he never wanted to like interact in a way where he was trying to sound things out. His speech was not delayed by any means, but it wasn't what his little brother was. So, I had this other example inside the house where I could say, okay, something's not clicking there, but it's interesting you say that because when you look back, you can see it now that he just wasn't doing those things. 

 

But I have to tell you, when we first started the program, I don't think I understood what the program was. Obviously now I understand a lot more. But like I said, he's going to wrap up next month. It'll be just under three years, which is longer than we expected. And a lot of it has to do with Cruz really struggled with regulation. So, what could have been an hour's worth of progress in a day, maybe was 20, 30 minutes for him because he really struggled with regulation. 

 

So, I guess, to take it very back to the beginning, when you look at your approach and where you start, the sessions that the kids go through, what specifically with Cruz with dyslexia and some attention challenges, what specifically does a day at Stowell look like for these kids? 

 

Jill Stowell: So, let me talk a little bit about that regulation piece, because so often, I mean, parents doing homework with their kids and their child is jumping up and down out of the chair and they're laying on their desk and they're wiggling around and they're doing all kinds of things.

 

Well, and then the parent is trying to help them do something that's very linear and focused, but that's why it becomes a battle because the child is not regulated in their body. And of course, when our kids aren't regulated, that causes them to get unregulated too, right? 

 

Becca Villegas: Correct, yeah.

 

Jill Stowell: So, we really look at learning kind of like a ladder. If you think about, you're working at school, you're working at the top of the ladder, you're doing all these cognitive, academic kinds of things. But underneath that, we have to have control of our bodies. We have to be able to sit and focus and feel calm. And we have to be able to take in language and sounds and things that we see, and it has to make sense in the brain. So, the foundation for learning is down there with that body awareness and control. We call it core learning skills. And then, building on that is a little higher in the brain is processing skills, the auditory processing, visual processing, memory, being able to actually focus and concentrate. And then, the higher thinking skills, getting into executive function, and all of that provides the support for academics.

 

So, if your little body is out of control, and it isn't just little kids, it could be older students or adults. If you are not regulated in your body, then that's going to interfere. And the older you get, the more you figure out ways to manage because we want to be appropriate. But it's still disruptive. So, for kids that have difficulty with focus and attention and body control, a part of their program is very likely going to involve some physical exercises that start to teach the body to be in control. 

 

See, we sit in a chair, and we move a pencil, and we move our eyes across the page. And that's all automatic and we never have to think about it. But if those kinds of things are not automatic, if you have – we call them primitive reflexes. Babies are born with reflexes that help them in the first months of life to move and be safe and, and to jumpstart learning. But eventually, those reflexes kind of disappear. So that higher levels of control take over in the brain and sitting in a chair becomes automatic and moving through a room without bumping things becomes automatic. And so, when those primitive reflexes did not integrate automatically, for whatever reason, then we go through a process to help that happen.

 

And so that ultimately, that child can sit in their chair. They can wear any different kinds of clothes without going out of their mind, because it's causing them to feel itchy. And so, a lot of our students really start with those physical exercises, working towards being able to settle and know what it feels like and become automatic with their control. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that, because one of my first times observing Cruz at Stowell, and keep in mind, all I know, and all I've been able to like totally digest is he's dyslexic, and he can't read. So, I come into session, and he's lying on the floor attempting to do a snow angel. And by the way, he can't do it. Like his arms can't go up at the same time. The coordination wasn't there.

 

And I'm like, I thought we were teaching him how to read. What's happening here. So, I remember speaking to this clinician and saying, like, help me understand this. And then she said, “The reading part is going to be the last thing that we do.”

 

Everything prior to that is going to be getting the brain to fire the way it should and the physical movement as part of that. And I have to tell you now, number one, the movement and things like that is much more coordinated and things like that. So, he's able to do a lot of different things there.

 

But he also from a regulation perspective, just going like just the repetition that he has had with, kind of training him to regulate himself. It's day and night what he's capable of. He used to really struggle. So how I position it is like, he was like white-knuckling it all day at school. He's like, I'm going to sit in a room and people are going to force me to do two things I can't do, read and pay attention.

 

So, he's just white-knuckling all day. So, for us to leave school and try to even go somewhere fun to the park, anything, he would absolutely melt down. We couldn't do anything. He needed to go home and he needed to sit in a quiet room and do some origami or build some Legos or do something quietly and re-regulate himself before we could do that. And so, we had that. We could go home and do that. But we don't live in a world where he can constantly just go take a break to get himself re-regulated to be able to go on to the next thing. 

 

He has to be able to take a test and then go learn something else and keep going through these things. So, what I've seen in him and regulation has been remarkable. Meltdowns are almost non-existent. And that was a thing that any type of pressure – that's the other thing too, is I think that having a learning, an undiagnosed learning disability, it destroys their confidence. And it destroys their love of learning. He developed such a fear of learning and I eventually had to communicate that to his teachers.

 

He's terrified to go there every day. What an awful thing for a kid that when he was little, I mean, he loved to learn. I mean, he watches National Geographic because he wants to learn about animals and the planet, all these things. He has always loved to learn and now he's terrified and it has destroyed his confidence. So, to watch him come through this program and do these things like, how to do a snow angel and, like just, connecting different parts of his brain, to watch him go through that and then get to the other side where I can take him anywhere straight after school. 

 

If he feels a little pressure because he has a test, he's able to self-regulate and say, “Okay, I have the tools. I have the capacity and I've had so many reps, in a safe environment with my clinician one-on-one showing me how to regulate and how to move from A to B.” It has completely changed everything for him. 

 

Jill Stowell: That is so wonderful to hear. You said so much in there. And one of the things I want to just highlight is you talked about him needing to come home and do Legos or origami or something. And so often, when your body is not regulated, it can look like a behavior issue. You're told to sit still and then your body is falling out of the chair or all over the place.

 

And so, I really want people to just hear that, that this is an immature nervous system and we're demanding something of it that it can't do. And so, you recognized, he just needs some downtime. And sometimes I think we're very busy and we're trying to set up our kids for good habits.

 

So, we may say, okay, you're going to come home from school, have a little snack. You're going to do your homework. But for some kids, they really truly may need that time. And something like building Legos or drawing or origami, things like that, literally are settling the nervous system.

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah.

 

Jill Stowell: Video games? No, so don't do that. But the kinds of things you're talking about is still recognizing that that might be a need that your child has, even though it feels like they shouldn't play before they do homework. But that might be a really important thing.

 

The other thing I wanted to say just to – you talked about the angels in the snow, and I think most people know what that is. You're laying on your back, your arms and legs are going out and then back in. There is a reflex. It's called the Spinal Galant. And if on a baby, if you touch the sides of their spine down towards the bottom of their spine, their hips will twitch, kind of shift back and forth.

 

And the reason for that is that – well, there's a lot of reasons. But one is before they're even born, it allows them to get up next to the mother's spine to start getting auditory information, which is amazing. But it also helps with the birth process.

 

But if you think about having that reflex, when you're sitting in school, and it's firing, now what's happening? You're kind of ants in your pants. And people sit still, but you can't so then you get real stiff, then you can't pay attention to anything. I mean, it's sort of a vicious cycle. And so, when he has a reading problem, why would you aim on the floor and do that? Well, we've got to get that reflex to stop firing so that his brain is available to pay attention to something else. 

 

Becca Villegas: Right. 

 

Jill Stowell: And the other thing is just thinking about when we do that particular exercise, sometimes we work one side of the body and then the other side of the body. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah. 

 

Jill Stowell: Well, when you think about with dyslexia, we often think Bs and Ds. The letter B and the letter D are so hard because they look alike, but they're flipped. Well, if we can't think about right and left on our own body internally, we can't think about it on the page.

 

So, there's just so many things that come from the body, you know? And so, I love that you asked that question, because that's definitely – parents often are like, wait, this doesn't look like reading or math. Why …?

 

Becca Villegas: Right.

 

Jill Stowell: But ultimately, it allows them to sit and be available and learn. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, no, and it's great to have gone through this experience and to learn to understand it. And I would say, day one, when we walked into Stowell – maybe not day one, maybe day one after the assessment, to digest in that moment, what's a retained primitive reflex and how do you fix that? And how do you fix the missing links to prepare the mind to learn and movements and all of that being part of it. It's a lot to digest on that day one and I guess just hearing you say that, my advice to any other parent would be don't worry about understanding all of that day one, because the understanding I think comes from your child specifically too and the understanding comes through the program.

 

And it's remarkable to see and there were milestones. So, like, one thing, we're all so busy, right? So, it's like, we're going to drop Cruz off, we're going to pick him up in an hour, and then we're going to go home and then still have to do the homework. And the whole thing. But one thing that I think was really monumental for me is that periodically, I would say once a month, or once a quarter, we would sit in to a session, and then we would also go over his progress. 

 

And that was really telling for me, because this is all conceptually a lot, right? But now that I've seen the curriculum that Cruz has been through, and through meeting with the clinicians and the center directors and things like that, there are milestones that you actually test along the way. Like in one of them, for me was, there was an exercise where it's a piece of paper, and it has shapes and they're different colors and he has to read from left to right.

 

But every time he sees a red shape, he has to call it yellow. And there's something about switching the information, left brain, right brain that is really teaching him and preparing his brain to learn. I'm probably doing a terrible job explaining that exercise. But one thing I loved about going through the program was that they would say he's doing better. And we're like, okay, we can kind of see it, but it's hard to see. Progress in education with any kid is not linear. It's ups and downs and good days and bad days and phases. And we're all dealing with a lot of different things.

 

But what they would do is they would say, “We gave him this test, in January, where, how many lines can you read of this, was switching this color to that color.” Seems like a simple thing to do and he could do one line a minute. But with six months practice at it and continue to work on all these underlying things, he can do this whole page in the same timeframe. And it was remarkable to see, he's performing in this little thing that you would never think to work with him on at home. It's not part of any school curriculum. It's not part of any tutoring program. It's completely different. It's brain training. But to say he was in the 10th percentile and now he's in the 90th percentile. So, I don't know how you at the onset help parents understand what does it look like and what are these progress points so you can see that it's working overtime.

 

Jill Stowell: Well, I think for me, ultimately, I want to see changes in real life. I mean, just because a child can do something in a session, if they can't do it outside, that's not going to be really valuable. But parents being able to observe on a regular but not everyday basis, you're with them every day and sometimes that makes it hard to see.

 

But when you come into a session every other month, you really can kind of look back and see change. And then, of course, doing evaluation along the way. My goal for students is that they're going to make progress every single session. But that progress might be a very, very small step forward. But it's forward. And so that's what I'm looking for, with all of the things with attention, with sounds with reading, whatever it is.

 

Yeah, and then just communicating that. When we get a child, we get a family and it's a family process. 

 

Becca Villegas: It is, it really is. Well, and it goes hand in hand with what they're doing at school. So, candidly, Cruz has been in three different schools so far, and the one he's at, I think is going to be where he goes through high school and everything.

 

But there has been a pretty big gap in understanding of this type of – I don't know if you call it therapy or resource or, whatever it is. So, I think one of the challenging things as a parent is to fully take advantage of everything that Cruz is doing at Stowell, how do I couple onto that support in school. So how do I explain to the school exactly what's happening and get the proper accommodations, resources, things like that? It was a big blind spot for me.

 

So, we took him from private school because private school didn't really have as much resource for us for an IEP or accommodations, things like that. They were open to whatever we wanted to do, but they didn't have those resources already built in. So, we put him in a public school, requested the IEP, and it takes a while. So, from the first day of school, it takes a while to get that IEP done, depending where you're at in the school year.

 

So, we did go through the IEP process for him. They did give him accommodations, things like that. So, I guess my question would be, how do you advise parents jump in with both the educational plan at school and how that layers on top of what's happening in Stowell? Because they're completely different. They're completely different parts of what needs to be addressed. 

 

Jill Stowell: Right. They're different, but they're not conflicting and I think that's really important to understand. At school, their job really is to teach the curriculum and to do whatever they can to help a child get that knowledge and that curriculum. And so, the kind of help that you generally get in the school is going to be extra time, someone working with you more, in a smaller group.

 

There are going to be accommodations and there's going to be support, slower pace, maybe easier materials to try to learn it. What's not happening at schools is getting underneath the problem. And so, if you have a bright child and they're not reading, they have the cognitive ability to read. So, there has got to be something getting in the way. 

 

And so that's where this outside, we call it cognitive learning therapy, but that's where that is so important because it's getting underneath into whether it's the body control, the regulation or the processing of sounds or being able to look at the page and not have things moving around on the page visually, which of course they're not moving, but the way the child or the person might be perceiving it is like it's moving. And that's really difficult then to look at and to read.

 

And so those challenges have to be cleared up in order for them to really work at their potential. But at the same time, let's give them the support, whatever support they can get at school. You want those adults at school paying attention, cheering them on, giving them support to get through, because it's going to take a while to close the gap, as you have said.

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, it really does. It definitely takes a while. The accommodations for him, I think, were a really big deal, too. You know, like you mentioned, a few of them, he uses talk to text and he uses the speech tools inside any of their learning that happens on a computer. What's interesting is he understands the material. And if you tell him, write a narrative paragraph about the material you've learned, he can't do it. He'll get an F. One hundred percent of the time, he'll have an F. But if you ask him, and you can dictate it for him and get it on paper for him, he completely understands the material.

 

So those things have been really supportive as well, just to be able to give him confidence, because I think that's one of the biggest things. When I think about if I hadn't done something like this for him, he would have continued in a learning environment where we just kept pushing him to do more when we never got to the root issue. And I think that's the scary part as a parent is like, if you don't go down that path and address the underlying things, I don't know how much that would have changed his trajectory.

 

I can tell you that at this point right now, where we sit today, he is in fourth grade. He has almost all As between what the foundational elements he has gotten from Stowell as with accommodations as well. And at the end of last year, third grade, they always do Charlotte's Web. And, how the spider in Charlotte's Web would write words in the web.

 

So, when we came to open house at the end of last year, everyone, all the kids had made a picture of their word, the word that represents them. And the word he chose was “intelligent”. And for a kid that identified himself as – words we're not allowed to say in my house, stupid and dumb, and all of those things. For him to identify and for his one word that he chose to say, this is who I am. It wasn't even smart. It was intelligent. It's a very long word.

 

It has really been remarkable to see and I guess I'm a little sad almost to see him come to the end of his time with Stowell, because it has been such an incredible thing for us as a family. Homework was probably one of the – that should have been probably one of my first signs that something was really off, that homework was awful. As a parent, you think like I have to have him do his homework. I probably at some point when he was young, just said, this isn't going to be for us. Like we need to take a break or step back or cut back or we can do 10 percent of this, or whatever it is. But that time of the day, getting through homework was really one of the most challenging. And now we're able to sit and get through it and he's able to do the work. And we still do a little bit less, I would say, because he's already spending a couple hours one-on-one with Stowell.

 

But like I said, I'm sad to see the time end because it has been such a great experience for us. But I'm curious what to expect for the future for Cruz. So, as he gets into middle school and high school, I mean, have you followed up with kids who went through the program early to kind of see their trajectory after that? Do they continue to struggle? Do they continue any type of cognitive training or anything like that? 

 

Jill Stowell: I have been doing this a very long time. And so, I have been able to hear from parents along the way. And it's really interesting. We've had a number of parents of former clients call us recently and give us updates and their kids are in junior high or high school. And they're doing so well. What happens is, as you learn something, and especially as you use it, the brain just kind of reinforces those pathways and it gets more and more automatic.

 

So many of the things that we do are really automatic. And so, as this settles in, I mean, the learning kind of continues with processing skills training. It continues – the literature is now saying even as much as 6 to 12 months, the brain is still assimilating all of that. And now, he is more able to benefit from the classroom, and he's enjoying it.

 

And so typically, we see that kids go on, and they just do really well. They already had the intelligence and the desire. So, they do really well. And we have heard from many of our former students who are adults, who are pilots and doctors and parents and teachers, and just they do really well.

 

And certainly, if it turns out there are some gaps, it is easy to come back, go after that piece. But we don't generally even find that to be a need, unless someone stopped before they were ready. 

 

Becca Villegas: That's incredible. You know, just in researching it, that some of the best leaders and thinkers and creators in this world are dyslexic or struggle with some type of learning difficulty. So, we tell Cruz all the time, it's his superpower. And he believes us, he really does. Now that we can draw out, he thinks differently. And I think that's a great thing. It really is, for me. If you put him in a group of 10 kids to solve a problem or to build something, he will come up with an angle that's just different than everybody else. So, I think that, I think for the world, I think that's definitely a strength.

 

Jill Stowell: It's really interesting, calling dyslexia superpower, because so many of our students, once they kind of understand dyslexia and they understand their thinking style, they start to adopt that because dyslexia means difficulty with reading, and there are definitely challenges with reading and spelling. But the other part of dyslexia is this bright, creative, out-of-the-box kind of thinking.

 

And so many of our dyslexic students of dyslexic children and adults around the world, they're outside-the-box problem solvers. They can find ways to solve problems that other people never even think about. They are creative. I remember really, really early on, I had this pencil sharpener, and it didn't work. And I tossed it in the trash. And my student came in shortly after that. He saw it in the trash. And he's like, “I can fix this,” because I would never attempt to do that. I wouldn't even attempt to do it if I had directions in front of me. 

 

But a lot of times, our dyslexic kids can take things apart, and they can see in their mind how everything fits. And they don't need to read the directions. They can just figure out how it works, how it fits, how it's put together.

 

There are many, many people in Hollywood that are dyslexic. Tom Holland, who played Spiderman, our kids probably know of him, he's dyslexic. I had a student once send me, he sent me an ornament for Christmas of his favorite dyslexic person, and it was Walt Disney. Think about what Walt Disney has brought to this world, because his brain could think so differently. So yes, it is absolutely a superpower, but it doesn't have to be a struggle for your whole life. 

 

Becca Villegas: I think we're in a unique time right now where dyslexia in particular, I think the whole world is kind of talking about it. And I understand that in California, in particular, there'll be some screenings and things like that to start to highlight for parents, if there's a reading difficulty, or maybe some indicators of a learning challenge. So, I think that as those screenings become part of regular course in a lot of schools, there's going to be a lot of parents that for the first time are getting some type of confirmation that there could be something there. That initial thought can be very overwhelming. 

 

So, what would you say to a parent that maybe gets one of these letters that says, hey, we've identified there could be a bit of a gap here? How would you advise they kind of take the next step and decide what path they should go down to figure out what's going on? 

 

Jill Stowell: For a lot of parents, especially moms, I would say they kind of already knew. You knew, you brought it up to the school. They see it. So, the validation, I think, is kind of helpful to know. Okay. Yeah, I'm not crazy. I'm not overprotective. What I saw is true. And then just to recognize that does not mean there's anything wrong with their parenting. They don't have a bad kid. It's not that their child isn't smart. They are a different kind of a thinker and any of those underlying skills, it's a skills problem. It's not a kid problem. It's a skills problem and skills can be developed.

 

And so, if you really recognize, yeah, I see this, the sooner that you can get help to get underneath those challenges, the better. And I say that, because it's just a shorter amount of time that you all have to have pain around that.

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah. 

 

Jill Stowell: But if your child is older, and now you're saying, “Oh, my gosh, I should have seen this,” it's not ever too late. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah, okay.

 

Jill Stowell: Even as adults, it's not too late. We have adult students. The brain is amazing. So yeah.

 

Becca Villegas: That's remarkable. I didn't realize that you had adult students as well. I always think of it as learning is something you do when you're young, but I guess we never quit learning. 

 

Jill Stowell: We never do. We never do.

 

Becca Villegas: So, I was speaking to another parent whose child had gone through the Stowell Program, and they connected with a neurologist that did different testings, just to see what else was kind of going on. They were looking at attention and everything. And what she shared with me is that when she took her child back to the neurologist and redid this testing after the completion of the Stowell program, dyslexia was undetectable for him. So there was no signs that he was suffering from dyslexia. It's incredible. Dyslexia is a global issue, right? 

 

Jill Stowell: Yes.

 

Becca Villegas: So, what is out there? What's working in the space? And I kind of paused, and I'm like, I know what you're doing is working because you've tested it for 40 years. I don't know anything else that is specifically addressing the underlying issues the way that you do. And maybe that's just more research I need to do on my side, but are you aware of anything else? 

 

Jill Stowell: There are some other people in the space, Sally Shaywitz and the Lab School in the Washington area, Washington, D.C. area. But no, there are not very many people. The research is there, and there are pockets, like areas of research to support. But no, there are very few practitioners out there really doing this.

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah. And I got to tell you that the in-person aspect of it, I think, was a really positive thing for us because when you and I can have a conversation over Zoom and get everything out of it that we would – almost everything out of it that we would in person, right? I think for kids, I think they can have success with it online and I would say access to any part of the program is better than no access. But I think for me, the immersion of it being in person was a game changer for Cruz. So, I think it's really challenging for him to hold attention on a screen.

 

He can be down here. He could build three origami birds. You wouldn't even know it because his hands aren't in view of the camera. So, I think there are some other online programs. I think before we started the intensive with Stowell, we actually did one of the online programs for a short while. And it was just – we couldn't get him. We couldn't get his attention, not for five minutes. So, I don't know of anything else that exists that is truly that like full intensive immersion. 

 

Jill Stowell: Right. I actually don't either, except some of our network colleagues. 

 

Becca Villegas: Yeah.

 

Jill Stowell: Well, Becca, I think we could talk for hours, which I would love to do. But I so appreciate you sharing and helping represent parents. Is there anything that you feel like, oh, I just want to make sure I share this or I ask this before we end here today? 

 

Becca Villegas: No, I think I would just say, it's really hard to be a parent. There's no way to sugarcoat it and our kids are all going to struggle with one thing or another. And I'm so grateful that we at least took him to have an assessment. And while I didn't completely understand what the path would look like, I'm really grateful that your program exists. I'm grateful that you've built a curriculum that thinks differently. That isn't just, let's just keep practicing the thing they can't do. But it really addresses the underlying issues.

 

And as a parent, it's hard to completely understand what that path will look like to go through something like Stowell. I'm sure it's different for every kid. But for us, when I look at my son, who believes he's intelligent and he can self-regulate and he has the tools to be successful, it has honestly been one of the most impactful things in his life and in our lives just to know that he's on a good path.

 

So, I'm really grateful and I talked to a lot of moms who are in a similar situation. The grades are not what they thought they would be. The kids are struggling with attention and different things and they kind of don't know where to go. 

 

Jill Stowell: Right. 

 

Becca Villegas: There's a lot of information out there, but sometimes it's hard to put your finger on. Do we need to go to a different school? Do we need to homeschool? Do we need tutoring? What do we do? And I'm really grateful that your program exists and you can just go for an assessment and you get to know the child and just really find a way to support them, to give them the best start they possibly can. So, I appreciate you and what you've built and I really hope that more people can access it in the future. 

 

Jill Stowell: Well, thank you, and I know you and I have talked about because of the impact, you kind of have this vision of building something yourself and that will impact other kids and families and make it more available. So, I'm really excited about that too because it just needs to be out there. Things can change. Yeah.

 

Becca Villegas: Absolutely.

 

Jill Stowell: Yeah. So, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with us. 

 

Becca Villegas: Of course. Thank you. I appreciate it.

 

Jill Stowell: I really loved hearing Becca's perspective as a parent and the journey from hearing her son say that he doesn’t think he belongs in this world, to identifying himself as being intelligent. That is why I opened Stowell Learning Center all those years ago, to make sure that these smart, struggling students didn’t have to live a life thinking that they’re dumb or less than because they’re not.

 

It feels very lonely to see your child struggling and not be sure what you’re seeing or who to ask. If you’re listening and you have questions or thoughts to add to this discussion, please put them in the comments. We love hearing from you and we want this podcast to be a place for answers for you.

 

At Stowell Learning Centers, we help children and adults move beyond learning and attention challenges, including dyslexia, by strengthening the underlying skills that make learning easier. When those skills get stronger, everything changes – reading, writing, focus, confidence, even the stress around school. 

 

For more information or to speak with someone about your child, go to stowellcenter.com or find us on social media. We’re @StowellCenter on all platforms. 

 

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