What Helps My Brain at School Saves on this device

Hi Theo. This is about what helps your brain at school.

This is not a test. There are no wrong answers, and you won't get in trouble for anything you say here.

Your answers help you and Dad figure out what makes school harder, and what could make it easier. Then you two pick the best ideas to bring to school together.

  • Do one part at a time. Breaks are good.
  • Skip anything you want. You can come back later.
  • If a question is confusing, pick Not sure and keep going.
  • Short answers are fine. You can also say your answer out loud and have Dad type it.
  • Your answers save on their own as you go. Use the same device and browser each time, and don't use a private or incognito window, or your answers won't be there next time.
  • When you're done (or done for the day), tap Send my answers to Dad at the end of part 5.

Make it easier to read. Tap Reading settings at the top to change the colors, the letters, the size, or the spacing. Tap Read aloud on any question to hear it.

Colors mean something. Every question has a color that tells you what it's about:

Green: About me
Teal: Senses
Orange: Focus and reading
Purple: People
Pink: Body and energy
Blue: Ideas that help

Who sees this: your answers stay on this device until you send them to Dad. Only you and Dad see them, and Dad may use Claude to help sort through them. Nothing goes to school unless you both agree.

For Dad: how to run this conversation
  • Keep sittings short. One part, or one or two classes, at a time. About 15 to 20 minutes.
  • Pick a calm time and place. His room with the lights low is fine. Not right after a hard day.
  • Let him choose how to answer. Tapping, typing, or talking while you type.
  • Ask, don't suggest. Good follow-ups: "Tell me more about that." "What's hard about that?" "Is it the noise, the people, or something else?" "What's different on the days it goes well?"
  • Say back what you heard. "So when kids talk, you lose your place on the page. Is that right?"
  • Collect first, solve later. Don't fix, explain, or defend during the interview.
  • "I don't know" is an answer. Offer two or three choices, or come back to it another day.
  • Nothing he says here leads to a consequence. Tell him that out loud before you start.
  • When it's done, have him tap Send my answers to Dad. Then ask Claude to find the email and look for patterns across his classes.

Built on: the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions approach (Dr. Ross Greene) for the empathy-style follow-up questions; the Student-Assisted Functional Assessment Interview (Kern, Dunlap and colleagues) for the "hardest moment" questions; solution-focused interviewing for the "when it goes well" and "one change" questions; the sensory areas occupational therapists use in sensory profiles; Universal Design for Learning; and the British Dyslexia Association style guide plus the Braille Institute's Atkinson Hyperlegible font for the reading settings.