FIT Learning Center is a worldwide program founded by Dr. Kimberly Berens. The focus of her center is rooted in using behavior science for direct instruction and precision teaching for rapid growth in students with learning challenges, disabilities, and delays. Students in her center have shown to make a year of growth with just 40 hours of instruction. If students with diagnoses are making this incredible improvement, what is the cause for these delays in learning in the first place?
Dr. Kimberly finds that most of the students she sees and helps through her centers are plagued by deep problems in the schools. Teachers are not being trained effectively and schools are not bridging the gap. Students with autism, other common learning disabilities, or even neurotypical children with mild delays come to FIT learning and because of the focus on direct instruction can succeed in ways they were not in a typical school environment. Dr. Kimberly, like myself, finds that the importance lies in teaching in the right order.
The Turn Autism Around approach is highly reliant on the right steps in the right order. For the FIT learning center, they also have a first things-first mentality. Whether it be basic functional skills, language, behavioral, or the first rungs of academia, teaching and mastering the smallest base steps instead of advancing to more advanced concepts before a child is ready is a major key to success. FIT learning works with kids as young as 3 years old for early intervention where mastering the baseline skills begins.
Many children with autism have language delays, and may not be conversational; FIT learning because of the nature of their work, requires some language skills. There are many prerequisites necessary for becoming a learner at FIT. Dr. Kimberly says their most notable work with students with Autism is the move into abstract thinking as preparation for concept learning. Students who have behavioral or functioning issues have to handle those , especially in the case of virtual learning.
Amid their presence in many states and several countries, FIT learning transitions seamlessly into the world of virtual education during COVID. Dr. Kimberly says they’ve been working on virtual platforms since 2016 and have had great success virtually using Zoom since the start of the pandemic. She notes students must qualify for virtual learning and if they don’t meet the requirements, they work the family to best fit their needs. She also notes that the younger students between 3 and 5 as well as students with behavior barriers typically need live instruction.
Much like the dedication in my book Turn Autism Around, Dr. Kimberley shares her advice that there is no such thing as normal. Parents often struggle with comparisons between other children, parents, and the idea of what their child should be doing. The perfect normal child does not exist. She challenges parents to only compare themselves and their child to the version of themselves the day before. Are you doing your best? Is the only question you should be asking. When you realize normal is nonexistent, you can be at peace with yourself and your child, how they are!
FIT learning utilizes a scientifically proven method to get real results with real kids. Be sure to check out the information provided today in the podcast and how to find access to FIT learning near you!
Today’s Guest
Kimberly Nix Berens, Ph.D., is a scientist-educator and Founder of Fit Learning. She co-created a powerful system of instruction based on behavioral science and the Technology of Teaching, which has transformed the learning abilities of thousands of children worldwide, including those who are struggling, average, gifted, or learning disabled. For more than 20 years, her system of instruction has produced one year’s worth of academic growth in only 40 hours of training.
Her learning programs effectively target such essential areas as early learning skills, basic classroom readiness, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, comprehension, inferential language, basic and advanced mathematics, logical problem solving, grammar, and expressive writing. From her early beginnings in a broom closet at the University of Nevada –Reno, Dr. Berens Has helped grow Fit Learning to an organization with more than 30 locations worldwide.
She’s A frequent invited speaker and a regular contributor to many popular press publications such as Thrive Global, 74 Million, and Medium. Her first book Blind Spots: Why students fail and the science that can save them was released in October of 2020. Dr. Berens currently lives in Long Island with her husband and two children, where she oversees Fit Learning locations in Long Island and New York City.
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