Oral Sensitivity....handle with care
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Few children have oral issues. These issues could be because of hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity of mouth or oral areas. . Oral hypersensitivity is defined as an "excessive or adverse reaction to oral stimulation" (Fraser, Hensinger, and Phelps, 1990). In many children there are no specific causes but the children with tube feeding in early days or direct stomach feed often have oral sensitivity. Children with Autism, cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome’s or other developmental delays do have some tactile and oral sensitivity. These children suffers with feeding problem, poor face and mouth hygiene, brushing problems and do have difficulties in speech and communication.
Parents are mostly worried as child denies or does not participate in feeding, brushing or likes a particular type of food, and utensils etc. some times the situation becomes more problematic when child become aversive of oral stimulation and vomits out or become aggressive. It has been seen that children with oral sensitivities do have other tactile sensitivity like excessive ticklish, under/over sensitive to pain, drooling or other body part sensitivities.
Never give a sudden touch as it increases the arousal level and child becomes more uncomfortable. Always tells the child about the steps you want to perform on the child. Music like ringing a plate attached to the spoon and tell "Here comes the food", or visually placing the food on a bright colored plate and tell him open your mouth “aaaaaaa”
Slowly desensitise the child for different textured, temperature and taste of the food.
Make the activity more playful, and start touching the hand, back, head and slowly moves to the mouth
During the other activities like grooming and bathing etc let him to touch you or vice and versa. Use of different types of toys is also recommended.
If the child is very young or less than 8 months encourage thumb sucking, foot mouth play and other clean toys.
Wash or wipe the child face repetitively with warm cloth, this is relaxing
Deep pressure before feeding, brushing and other times of the day to desensitise the oral sensitivity.
Work on the oral movement like licking, blowing, sipping, spitting, tongue movements inside the mouth and outside as well.
Some children do respond well to vibratory brush or massager.
Encourage the child to reciprocate the game which involves touch to various parts with rhymes or songs
Take a help of an Early interventionist or Speech therapist for feeding problems
Posted byNeeti at 10:10 AM 0 comments
Labels: autism, oral issues
Integrated and Scheduled Play for Autistic Children
Friday, February 20, 2009
In recent research it has been found that a children with Autism show improvement in his all developmental areas like Speech and communication, social interaction and behaviour if they are provided the Scheduled and Integrated play. Integrated and Structured play are the kind of intervention target to develop and promote social and communication skills. Structured play group children show more positive effects than the controlled group where the children were not provided integrated play sessions.
Despite of number of opportunities or children for play, the children with Autism or with Social difficulties do not naturally play, pretend, participate and coordinate in social activities with other children. Problems conveying and interpreting social-communication cues make it difficult to join peers in play. Because of both communication and social problems the child tends to withdraw himself from the group and enjoys to play of his own. Many children spend their precious time alone, preoccupation with some material or in pursuing repetitive and rigid activities. Without appropriate intervention, they are at high risk for being excluded from their other peer groups and leading impoverished play
The Integrated Play or Structured Play groups are designed to support children with social and play difficulty. Play groups can be arranged at home, school or other community parts or societies. Initially the parents may need a professional help of Early interventionist or Play therpaist who can guide the play as facilitator (play guide). Children meet regularly in small groups with a theme play. Each group is customized as a part of a child’s individual education / therapy program. Through a costumized system of support, emphasis is placed on maximizing children’s developmental potential as well as intrinsic desire to play, socialize and form meaningful relationships with society.
This not only helps the children with Autism but also sensitise the community about their difficulties and hence helps in social inclusion. An equally important focus is on teaching the peer group to be responsive, accepting and inclusive of children who relate and play in different ways.
Posted byNeeti at 7:57 PM 4 comments
Learning Disability
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Children with learning disability, the most common of the psychiatric disorders that appear in childhood, are often the subject of great concern on the part of parents and teachers. It is estimated 5-6 % of school children have learning disability. ADHD sometimes associated with conduct disorder, behaviour problem, emotional instability, and drug abuse.
Learning disability it is not a single problem rather it is combination of multiple problems. Attention deficit, un coordination, poor balance and clumsy, poor friendship, self activity and poor academic performance etc are common problems.
Learning disability may overlap to mental retardation. Generally, a LD child, the intelligence scores in average limits. He can talk properly and sensibly but can perform good in academics. Some signs of learning disabilities present themselves in early childhood which is beneficial because the earlier a problem is recognized, the sooner an intervention can be made, allowing for a better prognosis. Like poor walking, left right confusion in wearing shoes, delay in speech, difficulty in writing and shoe lacing etc
Learning disability could be of different kind like mathematics, writing, reading, motor dyspraxia and poor speech and language coordination.
Various theories for the causes of the Learning Disability have been explained. Theories vary from the brain damage during birth, sensory problem to environmental and family issues. Sometimes, they may be an obvious cause but sometime it is not. Most of the children with learning disability don’t have physical problem so it sometimes take more time to get proper diagnosis and treatment. The problem is problem in different perception and interpretation of codes
As a part of treatment, learning disability response well to multi mode approach including medications, therapy and child and family counselling. Relaxation and physical training is also beneficial.
Apart from the medications it needs a plan therapy if various areas:
- Give lots of visual inputs with enlarged view of objects in various colours and let the child to do in big sizes on the chart papers, on sand or on wall.
- Improve eye hand coordination
- Teach the left and right concept
- Give small, clear and loud commands which are easy to comprehend
- Work on discrimation skills like sorting the objects and phonics and alphabets for younger kids
- Be gentle and patient
- Work on sensory systems and their development (may need a specialist consultation)
- Improve physical movements for better coordination and balance.
- Since the child have poor attention so start working on the objects which child like, initially start the session for short duration and then increase gradually.
- Find the child preference in learning ie auditory, visual or kinaesthetic and work accordingly.
Posted byNeeti at 9:38 PM 1 comments
Labels: disability
Eye Screening Event
Sunday, February 8, 2009
On 7th Feb, Sakshum volunteers with collaboration of LV Prasad Eye Institute conducted the Eye Screening event in St Issac School, Hafeez pet near Kondapur. This event was under the project “Eye Care, I Care”. During the event, the children from the classes IInd to VIIIth were screened. 232 children were screened and 18 children were being identified with some kind of vision problems. Those identified children would be referred to the LVPEI for their further evaluation and treatment. Free spectacles would be provided for the children with vision problems.
The children were also counselled about the healthy practices for vision. The nutritional importance of Vitamin A, Good reading habits and Eye Care was taught to children. Chocolates were distributed among children.
Mrs Seema, Murli, SP Murli, Ashish, Vivek, Neeti, Mohaan and Kirthiga were the volunteers from Sakshum and Mr Veeru from LVP Eye Institute. Seema, Murli, S P Murli, Ashish, Mohaan and Kirthiga performed screening with Mr Veeru. Neeti took the charge for Healthy practices and Nutritional counselling and Mr Vivek arranged logistic.
Posted byNeeti at 3:06 PM 1 comments
Labels: eye care I care
Play... A Platform For Learning
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Play is an integral part of child development. During first few years of child age, he spends most of his time in playing and learns through it. It is the child’s work and he enjoys it because it is fun. Play is a way for interacting yourself and with environment. Toys are the aids or props to assist the play. Play may or may not require toys.
There are different developmental stages for the play but most important is that the child should enjoy it and learn from it. Play provides the platform for developing the other milestone of development. It helps in improving communication, social skills like turn taking and sharing, physical and fine motor development, cognition and emotion. Other important skills like joint attention, competitiveness, leadership and team building.
Play is the spontaneous activity which most of the child learn by themselves, but for transition it into skill it may need guidance or skill training. Play becomes different for the child with developmental delays. It becomes ritualistic, repetitive, non spontaneous, purposeless and rigid.
Most of the Children with Autism have problems with play. They have problem because they have difficulty in imagination, joint attention, fine motor, understanding the language, or sensory problems.
Play therapy is the specialized area where the play is taught as per the child ability. To make some children to learn play may need early interventionist or occupational therapy assistance but for some parents themselves can work. It may need patient and creative ideas from parents. Professionals can help you to make the process easy as they helps in treating the child issues like the sensory problems or fine motor problems. Professionals also guide about the required play for the child. Various types of play are Physical play, Water play, Sand Play, fine motor play and pretend play
Tips for the parents:
1. Keep the session short initially and then increase the time.
2. Be patient and gentle
3. Start up with simple toys and then go next level.
4. Buy the toys by seeing the purpose rather than the price tag
5. Start up with the activity or play which the child like and then add one more similar activity with different purpose
6. Play should also be purposeful
7. Give the child to explore and imagine, wait for the child’ anticipation
8. Never dominate the play, start up as assistant and then after building rapport with the child.
9. Add music or rhyme in the play session
10. Always end the session with a good note or the activity which child enjoys
Posted byNeeti at 3:01 PM 2 comments