Educational Therapy |
| Perceptual Enrichment Program |
| Joan Weinberg is a Board-certified Educational Therapist and has been using P.E.P. in her practice since 1995. |
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| What is P.E.P.? |
| Motor function, social and emotional development, and language interweave to form perception. Sometimes, however, during critical stages of early development, an individual withdraws in response to trauma or illness and misses out on essential developmental opportunities. Although people often invent skills to compensate for deveopmental gaps, these compensations become inadequate as academic challenges increase in complexity. |
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| The Perceptual Enrichment Program helps to fill in these gaps, fostering academic and practical problem solving, integrating the ability to receive, organize and use information and supporting the development of individual potential. P.E.P. utilizes the visual and motor systems to enable efficient functioning and to improve pre-planning, planning, and execution of higher level thinking skills. |
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| P.E.P. is a short-term program of sequential, hands-on tasks that makes use of manipulative materials to expand self-confidence, curiosity, and interest in grasping many intellectual challenges. P.E.P. increases openness to resolving social and emotional conflicts, and strengthen self-esteem. It also assists in balancing the individual's approach to thinking, allowing consideration of both the "big picture" and the "details." |
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| Purpose |
| The Perceptual Enrichment Program (P.E.P.) helps children and adults who experience learning difficulties to develop cognitive and perceptual skills. These difficulties in reading, writing, mathematics, and memory may affect the individual's productive functioning in school, work, and other life activities. The Program helps to improve the following skills: |
Concentration, focus & attention
Organization
Handwriting and spatial planning
Behavior control
Motor planning
Language processing
Memory
Processing & integration of information
Understanding new concepts
Academic performance
Bilateral motor coordination |
| P.E.P. enhances the connections among these skills, contributing to improved problem solving, creativity, time management, and self-esteem. |
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| Process |
| P.E.P. therapy begins with diagnostic pre-tests to determine baseline skill levels. When developmental gaps are evident and P.E.P. is considered the appropriate tool, then the Program can begin. |
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| The P.E.P. therapist provides individual attention in one-on-one sessions with the student. Each session includes work with manipulative puzzles and games or paperwork that stimulates cognitive/perceptual development. Every lesson concludes with a fun related activity to enhance absorption of the newly acquired skill. |
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| Upon completion of the program, a post-test is given and the results are compared to the pre-test. If additional work is needed, then another level of P.E.P. may be recommended. |
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| Provider |
| The P.E.P. therapist has completed the Perceptual Enrichment Program training and apprenticeship, which provide theoretical understanding of, and practical experience in, child development. |
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| The P.E.P. therapist has a background in educational therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, or psychology. The appropriate P.E.P. therapist will have professional expertise to meet the specific needs of the student. The therapist can advise the family as to related therapies and educational activities that harmonize with P.E.P. |
