When Miriam, a mother of four, called me, she was at the end of her tether: her 4-year-old could not speak. She had already waited a year for her doctor to refer her to a speech and language therapist and, despite pinning all her hopes on this, she was deeply disappointed when no tangible progress seemed to come from it.

Your brain may not lift weights, but it can be trained for strength. This post explores the similarities between physical and cognitive training, especially how working memory can be improved with tools like Cogmed.

When I first started writing, I was incredibly nervous and worried. What if nobody read my posts or those that did thought they were not worthy of their time. I was full of self-doubt and fear. The fear was paralysing, and it took hours and days to write anything, the wastepaper bin was always full.

A rainy day in London last December 2022 reminded me of the journey I took to get where I am now in a very unexpected way. My worries just kept on snowballing out of control. I was terrible at spelling. I knew it, my assistant knew it, and the whole architecture studio I worked in knew 'spelling' was not my thing. I was a designer, not a wordsmith.

Today more than ever, we want to nurture a love for books and stories; it is as natural as playing in the sandpit or with toy sewing machines. The dialogues children enjoy when playing with their peers; the social interaction is so critical.

Poor emotional regulation can obstruct progress, stopping us from achieving our goals. Most adults will find a way to regulate their emotions for the majority of the time, but children need to learn how to navigate their emotional states as they grow. Most of the time, this is all perfectly normal and you will find a way to address it naturally as your child develops.

When someone has poor vision, an optician help corrects their focusing ability so they can compensate for this particular deficiency. When spelling, you need to pay particular attention to the letter configuration, especially when the word being spelt is not phonetically obvious and you need to memorise the order of letters. All of these skills require correct eye-tracking.

Whether or not we are as adept at balancing as The Cat in the Hat, we could all do with better balance. Good balance makes it easier to move and helps prevent injury. It is interesting to note that in China, the average number of falls among the elderly is significantly lower than in Western countries.

As a Neurocognitive Therapist, I work with all sorts of curious learning glitches. One that seems to be cropping up more and more in recent years is not being able to read the time. Children, who otherwise have the reasonable ability, are stumped at telling the time from an analogue clock!

What is working memory, and why is it so important? If your child has difficulties following instructions, is challenged with mental maths or reading comprehension understanidng working memory is the first thing you need to learn about.

We cannot expect parents to be with their children every waking hour. There are always important chores, such as cooking or laundry, and many parents have to juggle all this with work. Modern life is very demanding and children are starting nursery without.

On one of my re-reads of this book, I was on holiday in a small Indian village.  As I was reading, I was also watching the children of the village play in their extended family setting environments. Sadly, this story is not one that had a happy ending, but it is one that teaches us an important lesson. Fortunately, laws have changed since then and children can no longer be left alone like this.

For a long time, dyslexia/neurodivergence was poorly understood in education, and only seen in terms of the challenges it created for both those in more old-fashioned schools and those trying to teach them with outdated methods. It can be called many things: being easily distracted, having poor executive function skills or having poor working memory.

We all want our children to grow up confident and happy in their abilities, and able to face life’s challenges with positivity. So, what can we do to help them if they seem stuck in a cycle of negativity about themselves?

This is quite a common error children make when writing numbers. They understand the difference between 12 and 21 as number, and can usually count correctly without jumping numbers, but struggle when it comes to writing these numbers down properly.

Students with ADHD often struggle with time management, leading to stress, missed deadlines, and underperformance. This blog explores how forward planning, daily scripting, and the Habit Change approach can transform time awareness and academic outcomes.

Many children resist reading, not because they can’t learn, but because they don’t see the point or feel anxious about it. Instead of forcing reading, it helps to understand their perspective and find alternative ways to engage them. Using tools like audiobooks, kindle unlimited, and tailored learning strategies can make all the difference.

Cogmed is a clinical software program, worked on at home, on the computer. Raviv Practice London has been using this program since it arrived in the United Kingdom in 2008. We are the leaders in terms of experience and have a track record of working directly with Cogmed (the makers of Cogmed) and then with Pearson Clinical (distributors of Cogmed). At Raviv Practice London, Cogmed is part of a more extensive therapeutic intervention for 90% of our students.

Here, at Raviv Practice London, we have developed a new method that shows more valuable data about the positive effects taking place. While we still use Cogmed as an objective measure, we have also introduced our own, more subjective, measure in the form of a questionnaire.

Tired of chaos ruling your mornings or your mind? This post explores how ADHD brains can thrive using small, consistent habit changes. Inspired by bestselling books and real-world results, it explains why habit building is often the missing link in ADHD management and how Raviv Practice London 12 week program is helping both parents and teens take control.