How do I know if tutoring is not working for my child?

Four signs point away from a tutoring problem: gains do not generalise beyond the tutored subject and fade once tutoring stops; effort is not the variable, because the child is working as hard as or harder than peers who do better; the same kind of breakdown appears across subjects; and homework takes dramatically longer than it should. If a term of tutoring does not produce improvement that survives into the next unit without the tutor present, you are treating a symptom.

Should my child see an executive function coach instead?

Consider executive function coaching when the student understands the material but cannot run the work - the essay is written and never submitted, revision starts the night before, materials are disorganised. That points at planning, task initiation, time management, working memory, self-monitoring and self-advocacy rather than at comprehension or underlying processing.

What is educational therapy?

Educational therapy takes place within specialized, one-on-one sessions tailored to the specific academic needs of the individual student. Various methods are used to optimize the student's strengths so that they may be used to fortify weaknesses. Because many students need concepts broken into manageable chunks, the educational therapist approaches sessions with methodical organization and structure. Educational therapy also teaches compensatory strategies that allow the student to experience success in the classroom and beyond, and can improve underlying processing skills so that learning new material is easier.

How is educational therapy different from tutoring?

Educational therapy addresses underlying learning skills such as visual and auditory processing, attention and focus, and memory. Academic skills such as reading and writing are remediated by teaching the strategies necessary to read, write, calculate and problem solve. An educational therapist has completed graduate and often post-graduate training in working with all types of learners. Tutoring, by contrast, focuses on re-teaching academic subject matter and helping with homework, and a tutor can be anyone proficient in the subject at hand.

Who needs educational therapy?

When a child continues to struggle despite parent-teacher interventions or private academic tutoring, they should be evaluated for underlying learning deficits by a licensed neuropsychologist or clinical psychologist who specializes in learning issues. Children do not outgrow learning problems, and it is important to begin intervention as early as possible to mitigate and potentially prevent self-esteem problems and unnecessary daily stress.

How long are educational therapy sessions and how often should they happen?

Sessions are one-on-one and run 50 minutes, with the educational therapist and student working intensively together. A minimum of two sessions per week is recommended, though each student's plan is discussed on a case-by-case basis during the intake session.

What learning differences do you work with?

Our network of independent professionals brings extensive experience with ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, language-based learning differences, processing weaknesses and anxiety, helping students identify and develop their strengths.

Which areas of Los Angeles do you serve, and can sessions be virtual?

We serve Calabasas, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Sherman Oaks, Encino, the South Bay, Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Sessions are available in-office, in-home, in-school, in the community, in college settings, or virtually.

How are students matched with a specialist?

We assess each student's needs, learning preferences and personality, then refer them to the right specialist - a qualified educational therapist, learning specialist or executive functioning coach - rather than assigning whoever is available.

Does My Child Need a Tutor or an Educational Therapist?

Q: What should I do before hiring an educational therapist?

Get an evaluation. When a child keeps struggling despite parent-teacher intervention and private tutoring, the next step is assessment for underlying learning deficits by a licensed neuropsychologist or clinical psychologist who specialises in learning issues. A public school district can also be asked in writing to evaluate a student it is responsible for.

Q: How much does educational therapy cost in Los Angeles?

Los Angeles practices almost never publish rates, and AET publishes no rate guidance or member fee survey. The most-cited figure is a 2023 Wall Street Journal report putting educational therapy at roughly $125 to $250 an hour in cities like Los Angeles and New York, which should be treated as one journalist's reporting from three years ago rather than a current market rate.

Q: Does insurance cover educational therapy?

Generally no. Educational therapists are not licensed in California, so there are no billing codes to submit to an insurer. There is a documented tax route instead: IRS Publication 502 allows medical expenses to include fees paid, on a doctor's recommendation, for a child's tutoring by a teacher specially trained and qualified to work with children who have learning disabilities caused by mental or physical impairments. The same conditions can support FSA or HSA reimbursement with a letter of medical necessity. Consult a tax adviser.

Andrea Chernin
Aug 4
6 min read

Updated: Aug 10

An adult sitting beside a child at a desk, working through a worksheet together.

If you have already paid for tutoring and the problem came back, you are not imagining it, and you did not choose badly. You may simply have bought the wrong tool for the job.

Most families arrive at this question the same way. The child is bright, the effort is visibly there, and the grades still will not move. Someone suggests a tutor. Two terms later the grades have improved in the subject the tutor covered and nowhere else, and the following year the same problem reappears in a new class with a new teacher.

The difference between tutoring and educational therapy is not intensity, and it is not price. It is what you think is actually broken.

The short version

Tutoring re-teaches content. Educational therapy remediates the underlying skills that make learning content possible. A tutor asks why this student got these questions wrong. An educational therapist asks why this student, across every subject, keeps getting this kind of question wrong.

The Association of Educational Therapists states it plainly in its own fact sheet: educational therapists address the underlying issues that impede learning, and therefore should not be considered tutors.

When a tutor is the right call

Tutoring is the correct, cheaper and faster answer more often than the internet suggests. Hire a tutor when the difficulty is confined to one subject, when a student missed a specific block of instruction through illness or a school move, when the material is genuinely new and hard rather than persistently inaccessible, or when the student can learn it perfectly well the second time it is explained.

There is a clean test for whether that was the right diagnosis. If a term of tutoring produces improvement that survives into the next unit without the tutor in the room, tutoring was the right call. If it does not, you are treating a symptom.

Four signs it is not a tutoring problem

1. The gains do not generalise. Grades rise in the tutored subject and stay flat everywhere else, then slide back once the tutoring stops. The student is borrowing the tutor's thinking rather than building their own.

2. Effort is not the variable. The child is working as hard as, or harder than, peers who are doing better. Mel Levine's line is worth keeping in mind here: laziness is a myth, and everybody yearns to be productive. When a child who wants to succeed cannot, something is in the way.

Tutoring is the right answer to a content gap. It is the wrong answer to a processing problem, and no amount of it will close one.

3. The pattern crosses subjects. Reading comprehension in history, word problems in maths, and instructions on a science lab all break in a similar way. That points at processing, attention or memory rather than at content.

4. Homework takes dramatically longer than it should. Two hours of work stretching to five, most nights, is a measurement worth taking seriously. So is a child who understands the material in conversation and cannot get it onto paper.

Educational therapy addresses that layer directly: visual and auditory processing, attention and focus, memory, and the strategies needed to read, write, calculate and problem-solve. Sessions are one-to-one and typically run 50 minutes, at least twice a week, with the plan set case by case at intake.

Where executive function coaching fits

There is a third case that neither tutoring nor educational therapy is aimed at. The student understands the material and cannot run the work. The essay is written and never submitted. The revision starts the night before. The backpack is a compost heap. Nothing is wrong with comprehension; what is missing is planning, task initiation, time management, working memory, self-monitoring and self-advocacy.

Executive function coaching targets that layer. Plenty of students need it alongside educational therapy rather than instead of it, and the two are often sequenced rather than combined. If this description fits better than anything above, start there.

Get the evaluation before you buy the intervention

When a child keeps struggling despite parent-teacher intervention and private tutoring, the next step is not a different tutor. It is an evaluation for underlying learning deficits by a licensed neuropsychologist or clinical psychologist who specialises in learning issues. Children do not outgrow learning problems, and early intervention is what prevents the self-esteem damage that arrives later.

Be warned that published estimates for a private neuropsychological evaluation vary enormously, from several hundred dollars to eight or ten thousand, depending on scope and on whose figures you read. There is no authoritative Los Angeles number.

It is worth asking your paediatrician and your insurer before assuming the private route, and worth knowing that a public school district can be asked in writing to evaluate a student it is responsible for.

Check credentials, because only one of these titles means anything

Educational therapist is the only one of these roles sitting on a documented credentialing ladder. AET's ET/P designation requires a qualifying master's degree, 1,500 direct service hours completed within the past ten years, and formal supervision by a board-certified educational therapist at one supervision hour per ten hours of client service.

BCET sits above it and adds a further 1,000 hours, a longitudinal case study following one client over one to two years, and a written ethics examination.

Ask what the person is certified in, by whom, and what that body required of them. A good practitioner will not mind the question.

Learning specialist, by contrast, is a job title rather than a profession, and its meaning is set almost entirely by the employer. Executive function coach is unregulated by any body, with no licensure and no title protection, and certifications range from demanding to about twelve hours of coursework. Ask what specific credential a practitioner holds and who issued it.

One clarification that trips families up: AET credentials are conferred by a professional membership association, not by the state. There is no California licence for educational therapists. Some private organisations use the words licensed and licensure for their own certificates, which means something quite different.

What it costs, honestly

Rates in Los Angeles are almost never published, by anyone. AET publishes no rate guidance and runs no member fee survey.

The most-cited figure in the field is a 2023 Wall Street Journal report putting educational therapy at roughly 125 to 250 dollars an hour in cities like Los Angeles and New York, and it is worth treating that as one journalist's reporting from three years ago rather than a current market rate.

Expect to ask directly, and expect the answer to depend on the practitioner's credential level and on whether assessment is billed separately.

One thing worth knowing before you plan a budget: educational therapy is generally not covered by health insurance, because educational therapists are not licensed in California and there are consequently no billing codes to submit. There is, however, a documented tax route.

IRS Publication 502 allows medical expenses to include fees paid, on a doctor's recommendation, for a child's tutoring by a teacher specially trained and qualified to work with children who have learning disabilities caused by mental or physical impairments.

The same conditions open the door to FSA or HSA reimbursement with a letter of medical necessity. All three conditions have to hold, and this is a question for your tax adviser rather than for us.

The bottom line

If the gap is content, hire a tutor. If the gap is in the machinery that processes content, tutoring will keep producing gains that evaporate, and educational therapy is the intervention aimed at the actual problem.

If the student understands the material but cannot organise themselves around it, executive function coaching is the better first move. And if you genuinely cannot tell, get the evaluation first. It is cheaper than a year of the wrong intervention.