Abstract:

Research objective:
The objective of the research was to highlight the effectiveness of an intervention program to optimize learning, a program based on NILD Educational Therapy.
The intervention was applied to 10 children with SEN (Special Educational Needs), integrated in mainstream school, to improve learning difficulties through cognitive restructuring and compensation of deficient areas. These children hold School and Professional Orientation Certificates, issued by the Complex Assessment Service, in which the full diagnoses of students with SEN can be found.

Research hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: There are significant differences in the developmental function of attention, executive skills, memory, and language in the pretest and posttest phase, in students who completed the NILD Educational Therapy program.
Hypothesis 2: There are significant differences in terms of visual-spatial and sensory-motor development in the pretest and posttest phase, in students who completed the NILD Educational Therapy program.
Assessment tools: NEPSY battery and internal assessment
Internal evaluation: it is not standardized, it conveys information about the perceptive and organizational skills of the student.
Objectives of observation are: spatial perception, visual/auditory perception, visual-motor integration, direction awareness, problem attitude, time and speed of understanding and solving the problem.
The tasks of the initial assessment are: alphabet, dictation, graphic elements, mathematical logic, days of the week and year, body diagram, finger identification, little man drawing, clock drawing, assessment of phonological and phonemic awareness.

Procedure:
The evaluations of the 10 students were carried out individually, in the psychological office of the school, in a pleasant socio-affective climate, without interleaving external stimuli.
The performance of the skills is given by the factors represented by motivation, the ability to maintain attention on the task and cooperation.

Intervention:
The activities took place in the school's psychological office, during school hours, with each student receiving at least 10 therapy sessions, with several therapeutic activities taking place during a session. NILD therapeutic techniques are the following: rhythmic writing, Morse, Mosaic, Pythagoras, visual and auditory attention and memory, reading, text comprehension, laterality puzzle, finger knowledge, math block. After completing the NILD Educational Therapy program, all students were retested to track the effectiveness of the research.

Results:
Following the implementation of the intervention program, the post-test was applied to identify and compare the results with the pre-test results. The comparative analysis of the results shows significant differences in the areas of attention and executive functions, memory and language. There are also significant differences in the areas of sensory-motor and visuo-spatial development. Both hypotheses are confirmed, which indicates the effectiveness of the intervention program.

Conclusion:
This study has a practical contribution in the field of educational psychology. Its use is to help students who have average or below average intelligence and have learning difficulties for various reasons. The improvement or disappearance of the symptoms presented by these children can lead to a decrease in the frustrating experiences caused by school failures and to an increase in school performance.

Keywords:

Learning disabilities, NILD Educational Therapy, zone of proximal development, special educational needs (SEN).