Learning Disabilities : There’s an Art to This Method of Instruction

SAN DIEGO —  The art room at Mount Helix Country Day School is full of rainbow-splattered painting desks. Mona Mills teaches here.

Her hands are artist’s hands, hands that are not manicured, hands that look like they work--with clay, with paint--more involved in what they are doing than in how they look. They are also hands that hold pencils to show children games to help with math and reading. And hands to touch those children to make a wordless contact with them.

She has charisma. In fact, Dr. John Richards of Kaiser Permanente’s Center for School Problems said she could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. Richards has seen results of Mills’ teaching and interaction with children he has been following, and he wants to know more about her methods.

“She gives them something to hang onto when school is a horror,” he said. “She is a fantastic resource.”

The children Richards sees, and the 21 Mills is working with individually in her program, called Young Art (which also has math, spelling and reading), are dyslexic, have general reading problems, hand-eye coordination problems, or are hyperactive. Two are considered mentally retarded. Mills also teaches regular art classes at Mount Helix and Lakeside Country Day schools.

Melissa Hardin, 14, has been coming to the Mount Helix school for individual tutoring with Mills once a week since December, before attending her classes at Parkway Junior High School in La Mesa, to improve her various learning disabilities.

Melissa is considered to be communicatively handicapped, and to suffer a severe disorder of language, according to her special education teacher at Parkway, Olivia Barboza.

This day, Melissa is working on math and reading--using Mills’ unusual methods of teaching these skills, which have various names, such as “School Bus Division” (Mills says, “We’ve got something for everybody--it’s called ‘Hangman’ for boys!”) and “Cloney Pony” (a pony whose parts are in the shape of numbers that can be used in math problems).

Mills is using a method with Melissa that has the kid-tickling name of “Buttons and Fleas,” which she says is a “bypass multiplication game. In this method, a child need only be able to add two numbers, be able to count by 2s, or be capable of multiplying by 2. The idea is that even the child with considerable memory problems will be able to perform accurate multiplication.”

To help with reading problems and auditory processing problems, Mills uses a process called “the star track coding game” with Melissa. In this game, a star is placed on the index finger, and Melissa “tracks” across the lines (in the same manner that children have been discouraged from using in years past). The child with attention problems needs this help to concentrate or focus. The student also learns to break sounds into syllables, by the use of dashes or dots. In this way, a translation from the auditory to the visual is made and the information is integrated.

When she works with children in art, one of Mills’ methods is to find shapes in a painting or drawing that look like specific objects, for example, a marshmallow or banana, then drawing those objects. This allows the shaping of skills of visual analysis, verbal description and motor control.

In another exercise the child is encouraged to see whatever shapes can be imagined in a loose landscape line drawing (faces in the clouds, alligators in trees), allowing the child to be creative and imaginative and develop concrete images from the abstract, and, says Mills, “It helps with closure, that is, a conclusion based on something partially revealed.

Married and the mother of 8- and 11-year-old daughters, Mills is a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute, has written three books on oil painting (Walter Foster Books) and has taught children’s art for 13 years in private schools. Her innovative teaching ideas grew from her own ways of coping when she was growing up, she says. She says she was a bright child who also had problems processing certain information.

“Since age 4 or 5, I learned to cope and overcome a math difficulty by devising a method of counting on the images of the numbers themselves,” Mills said. “Once in school, I used this coping method and others I devised along the way to function successfully without anyone knowing. These mind games were entertaining for me. The ideas actually began in the dream world, and broke through to the outside world.”

Four years ago, as a result of seeing skills improve among learning-disabled children in her art classes, Mills combined all her teaching methods to create her program. Though other things besides art are part of the program, Mills uses the title Young Art because of its relation to the visual, and because, she said, “the art part is highly motivational.”

Through Kaiser’s Center for School Problems, Mills is conducting a pilot research project to test those techniques.

Eight children are in the program, coordinated by Richards, medical director for the Kaiser Center (Richards emphasized that the program is not a benefit of membership in Kaiser Permanente and that Mills’ work for Kaiser is strictly for the study.).

Richards first became interested in Mills’ work when a patient of his, a dyslexic boy, suddenly showed significant improvement in his school work while he was studying art with Mills.

When he met Mills, “she talked to me about her approaches, and her enthusiasm about writing a book about Young Art,” Richards said. “There was never any doubt that her methods improved art ability, but we wondered if there might be a spill-over into the areas of math and reading.

“I decided to allow her to show me what she could do.”

The project began in October. Eight students were pretested, then tested again in June to see if there were improvements. Richards said results will not be conclusive because of the small number of patients and the variety of problems, but if the results look promising, he can test further. He will be studying the test results throughout the summer.

“I suspect,” he said, “that it (the results) will not be across the board. . . . Using art to help these things is not new, but her approach is unique.

“Kids love it. I’ve used art therapy with learning-disabled children before, with someone else, and the kids didn’t want to come after awhile.

“Mona is an exceptional person. I have high praise for how she handles kids. I wouldn’t hesitate to send anyone to Mona. She is very positive. If I think a child needs hand-eye coordination, I will suggest parents call Mona and go into her program.”

Though Melissa is not in the pilot program, Richards, who has been her doctor for 11 years, did give his OK for Melissa to take Mills’ training.

Melissa has a lot of basic problems and a poor self-image, he said. “Any benefit for Melissa will be exciting. I sent her there because she needed something good in her life,” he said.

“You don’t have to be an educator to help learning-disabled kids.” Mills does not have special training as a special education teacher.

Barbara Hardin, Melissa’s mother, said she asked Richards about Mills’ program after reading about it. “Dr. Richards is understanding and helpful--down to earth. He doesn’t give wild promises, but doesn’t take away hope either,” she said.

“The method of math has helped Melissa, and her level of confidence is raised. She feels a great deal of satisfaction and pride in her artwork, and she needed that. There are so many areas she is not effective in. It’s good for her to feel she can do something well.”

According to her mother, Melissa, who appeared to be perfectly normal at birth, quit breathing at 10 weeks of age.

“Her airway was swollen shut, which possibly resulted in minimal brain damage,” Hardin said. “For three years, Melissa had a tracheostomy (in place), so she had no language for three years.” She has been in special education classes since age 3.

Barboza was so impressed with Melissa’s improvement in math after Mills worked with her that Barboza has attended Mills’ in-service classes for teachers.

“Melissa used to sit for days trying to come up with certain answers. All of a sudden, she could do large numbers,” said Barboza, who now uses the methods in her classes. “Mona has a delightful way to explain how children do the work. I like the visual presentations and story anecdotes to give children something to grasp. The visual concepts make it easier to remember. Mona is dynamic and knows what she is doing. I’m glad I found something like this. It’s working!”

She added, “Melissa now helps the other students, and I feel this is good. In helping others, she can self-correct--and it helps her with verbal expression.”

When Melissa helps the others, “they say I’m magic. They are crowding around,” Melissa said. “A lot of people didn’t like me before. Now they love me.”

“Melissa,” Mills said, “represents almost all the learning problems in one very nice young person. She’s highly determined, uses the methods and is succeeding.

“The children I work with are, for the most part, intelligent children who can’t process. They feel dumb. They are called dumb. Their self-esteem is low when I meet them. Unfortunately, a lot of esteem is based on school success.

“My alternative methods of doing math, reading and art enable children to be successful. They can go back to the special ed classes and take these methods with them. And acceptance of the child where he or she is is important, because each is wonderful.”

Mills considers herself a metaphysical painter. One of her paintings is of a wave carrying a large sea flower.

“I’m an innovator,” she said, and she uses the word “spiritual” cautiously to explain her special expertise. “I’m interested in a communication with life--the reading of life.” She explains that her spiritual life and the fact that she is helping children are interwoven.

Mills’ attitude in working with children is upbeat and playful. “I’m their good friend, but I’m very strict about doing things we need to do,” she said. “There’s no fooling around.”

Then she paused, with a twinkle in her eyes, “Except with me!”

Then she added, reflectively, “I worry about the testing on these children, because they don’t hold up well in test situations. They blank out, freak out. It’s part of the nature of their disability.

“The importance of the human being is really where it is.”