As a member benefit, this book is marked 20% off the list price.

Cia Verschelden was a speaker at the 2022 ASHA Convention.

This book makes the case that societal realities—such as poverty, racism, and social marginalization—result in depleted cognitive resources for students and for those who are trying to help them succeed. Each of us has a finite amount of mental bandwidth, the cognitive resources that are available for learning, development, work, taking care of ourselves and our families, and everything else we have to do. These “attentional resources” are not about how smart we are but about how much of our brain power is available to us for the task at hand. When bandwidth is taken up by the stress of persistent economic insecurity or the negative experiences of racism, classism, homophobia, religious intolerance, sexism, ableism, and so forth, there is less available for learning and growth. This is as true for young children and youth as it is for their parents and teachers.

The first half of the book makes the case that poverty and these “differentisms” deplete the bandwidth of students, parents, and teachers.

The second half of the book sets out concepts and strategies that help people recover the bandwidth they need to learn and thrive. Author Cia Verschelden describes strategies that can help students recover bandwidth, including acknowledging the “funds of knowledge” of students and their families, promoting growth mindsets, using reflective practices to build a sense of belonging for all students, fostering peer collaboration, and implementing restorative practices in lieu of punitive measures to deal with problematic behavior—as well as a rich selection of Ideas in Practice.

230 pages, softcover

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