My husband coined one of my favorite new terms: Conference Fever. You see, he works as a paraprofessional and receives the first-hand repercussions of having to revamp programs after overzealous special educators arrive back to work with a conference high. I fully understand and relish in his annoyance, but more importantly, I appreciate the opportunities and new insights from excellent presenters and know that it's critical to "use it or lose it."
We've all been to those conferences that are game changers. Below are conferences that I have found extremely useful and well worth the money.
1. Learning and The Brain Institute- You can't go wrong attending any of these conferences. Backed up by brain-based research and presented by some of the top researchers at Harvard, you will come back to work with a wealth of knowledge.
2. Lindamood Bell- The LIPS training has been a very important part of my teaching repertoire. I plan to get to Visualizing and Verbalizing as I have the kit and highly recommend this amazing program for so many language learning skills.
3. Social Thinking- How could I ever leave this one out? It's been a while, but I attended the Social Thinking Mentor Training in San Jose years ago and found it to be life changing in the way I worked with students.
4. Childhood Apraxia of Speech- Though challenging, Shelley L. Velleman's graduate course in CAS was exceptional. This disability is very challenging to differentially diagnosis and rehabilitate. She provides all the knowledge you'll need to tackle these two challenges.
5. Smart but Scattered- Peg Dawson's Smart but Scattered conference was amazing! In fact, I purchased all of her books and recommendations on Executive Functioning after attending her one-day conference. I learned so much and am psyched to implement many of the new strategies and techniques. (You might say, I have Conference Fever!)
Please comment with conferences, trainings, or workshops which you highly recommend. I am excited to hear about your favorite picks.
