Tanya Dukhovnikova Neuroeducational Specialist

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Tanya Dukhovnikova Neuroeducational Specialist

Neuroeducational Specialist | Founder, Mosaic Minds CIC.

Building bridges for children others don't know how to reach. 📖 Make Reading Irresistible - Coming Autumn 2026 🌉

15/05/2026

Yesterday I attended an annual review that left me both inspired and deeply frustrated.

Inspired - because a child who hadn't engaged with education for three years is now thriving. Her school understood her needs, made the right adjustments, and got it spectacularly right. 💙

Frustrated - because her receiving secondary school stated those provisions would be unavailable. Their reason? They're 'too big' to cater for individual needs! 😲

This child receives 30 hours of funded support (offered through school's usual budget and topped up by high needs funding) and yet the school cannot:

❌ Provide one consistent key adult to build a relationship
❌ Offer small group interventions
❌ Create a safe, predictable space for her

Instead? Ad hoc adults only when available!

The school doesn't commission therapeutic services either. So what exactly is stopping them from using that funding creatively?

This isn't inclusion - this is a child being asked to fit around a school's arrangements.

Reasonable adjustments are called 'reasonable' for a reason. A key adult costs nothing extra and small group interventions can be arranged creatively. Flexibility is a mindset, not a budget line.

When schools get transition wrong, the cost is enormous - to the child's self-esteem, to their family, and to the services they worked so hard to leave behind.

We owe these children better than 'we're too big to care.'

14/04/2026

Yesterday at the library, my student and I stumbled across a beautiful Autism Acceptance Month display 💙🦋

We stopped and read every poster. We also took photos and learned together.

Three things that stayed with us:

🦋 The autism spectrum is not linear - it looks more like a wheel: multidimensional, complex and deeply individual.

🦋 Every autistic person's experience is unique and challenges that are invisible to others can be all-consuming.

🦋 Masking is exhausting...My student knows this first-hand. Years of masking in school led to burnout and a complete withdrawal from education. She is healing now through self-acceptance, self-care and self-love 💙

We also explored the evolution of autism symbols and both fell a little in love with the infinity symbol and butterflies 🦋

Happy Autism Acceptance Month 💙

30/03/2026

Wishing everyone a peaceful and restful break! 🌸

Taking some time to recharge before some exciting developments for Precise Tutoring and Mosaic Minds CIC.

Looking forward to sharing more about the opportunities ahead, including some big announcements coming soon!

Hope you all have a wonderful break with family and friends. 💚

26/03/2026

This week we welcomed a new learner with one of the most complex profiles I've encountered in over 20 years of practice...and with complexity comes collaboration.
I've been fortunate to work alongside an incredible Multi-Sensory Impairment specialist teacher, whose expertise and generosity in sharing his knowledge has been truly invaluable. That partnership will make all the difference for our new learner.
This is what good practice looks like: not one person with all the answers, but the right people coming together around a child.
To every specialist who shares their knowledge so freely - thank you. You matter more than you know. ✨

23/03/2026

Had such an inspiring meeting with Amar Nota from Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce last Friday! 🌟

What was meant to be a quick 10-minute chat turned into 45 minutes of amazing conversation about supporting neurodivergent children in our community.

So grateful for business leaders who genuinely care about making a difference and take time to listen to local social enterprises.

Feeling excited about the possibilities ahead! 💪

18/03/2026

Great connecting with my colleague Navneet at the SEND conference in Manchester!

We're exploring exciting collaboration opportunities to support more schools, councils, and families with specialist SEND intervention.

Perfect timing with the new government white paper backing exactly the approaches we use - evidence-informed support for vulnerable learners who need it most.

Exciting partnerships ahead! 🌟

16/03/2026

Just returned from an incredible SEND conference in Manchester - my mind is buzzing! 🧠✨

Six seminars, countless connections and game-changing insights for supporting vulnerable learners.

🎯 KEY TAKEAWAYS:

🔹 Standards & Inclusion = two sides of the same coin
🔹 Child development foundations matter for ALL learners
🔹 Trauma-informed practice is essential, not optional
🔹 Transition takes as long as each child needs
🔹 Focus on spiky profiles and strengths, not deficits
🔹 Every child is forever evolving - no fixed limits

After 20+ years in education, these insights reinforced what I know: every child has potential, every journey is unique, and our role is to meet them exactly where they are.

🤝 Huge thanks to all the inspiring speakers and fellow educators I connected with - looking forward to future collaborations!

💭 Which insight resonates most with you?

11/03/2026

What does reading look like for a child with a really complex profile? 👇

This week I began working with a new learner and reading to them looks nothing like a book...

It looks like this:

👀 Intensive interaction - tuning into every signal and every response
😊 Facial cues - reading expression, emotion, connection
🖼️ Picture prompts - bridging the gap between experience and meaning
🌿 Sensory storytelling - texture, sound, smell, touch woven into every narrative

And at its heart, reading is about making meaning from the world around us.

For my student, that journey began long before a single letter was introduced -in the warmth of a shared moment, a familiar smell, a face that says "you are safe here."

This is the part of my work that reminds me why literacy is never one-size-fits-all.

Every child deserves a pathway to meaning. Whatever that pathway looks like. ✨

09/03/2026

The government has recently released a potentially game-changing SEND White Paper and, as someone who works daily with neurodivergent children and young people, here's what I think every parent needs to know. 👇

💰 £1.6 BILLION going directly to schools for SEND support.
Exciting news and let's see how far this fund will stretch...

🧠 EXPERTS AT HAND in every school.
Specialists embedded where children actually learn. Potentially no more waiting lists and no more referrals into the void. 🙏

👥 RECOGNITION OF 'SENbetweeners.'
Children clearly struggling but not meeting the threshold for an EHCP have been invisible for too long. This acknowledgement matters enormously.

💚 MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT for young people withdrawing from education.
For families with children at home, anxious and isolated, this is long overdue.

I'll be watching implementation closely and supporting schools and families to make the most of these changes.

07/03/2026

💡 20 years in education. Here's what I know for certain:

1. Development doesn't follow a timeline. Our job is to meet children where they are and not force them forward.

2. Compliance isn't learning. The most compliant students often understand the least. They've learned to mask, to perform, to survive.

3. Parents know their child best. Every time I've listened first, we've made faster progress.

4. Trauma shows up as behaviour. School refusal. Mutism. Explosive reactions. These aren't choices - they're nervous system responses to feeling unsafe.

5. Inclusion is meaningless without belonging. Placement doesn't equal inclusion. Without expertise and adaptive frameworks, we're just setting students up to fail...

6. You can't skip developmental stages.

7. This work is never "just" teaching: it's therapeutic, it's relational, it's about seeing the whole child.

And 20 years in, I'm more convinced than ever:

Every student can learn. We just need to find their pathway. 💙

Address

London

Website

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatiana-dukhovnikova/, https://www.instagram.com/tanyadukhovnikova/, https://mosaicmindscic.

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