Eye contact...
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Children with specturm diagnosis have difficulty in eye contact and theory suggests that human eye contact increases the anxiety among them. but, eye contact is a part of development as it assist in communication and socialization. Many a time it is difficult to get the eye contact from the child with ASD even if you physically prompt.
The main idea to promote eye contact is creating a need for child. this indirectly enhance the communication, verbal or non-verbal. The simple line is always remembered "create needs and provide opportunities to child".
for eg: tickle the child for 3 times with counting numbers and then stop. Since the child likes the act he would look at you or ask for more. This example was giving opportunity by tickling him and then creating a need by stopping the activity. once, he looks at you, appreciate and reinforce by giving him a kiss or smile.
Use verbal command often "look at my face". However. it is found that "look at my face" is reinforcing than look into my eyes. The step is data collection. Maintain a record for how often the child looks at you on demand. If sometime the child does not follow use the physical prompt to encourage him to look at you.
The timing for eye contact and persistence is important. If he is engaged in other activities it is difficult for him to acknowledge the command. Prompt him physically or wait for his involvement.
Posted byNeeti at 8:31 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, child disability, early intervention, eye contact, parenting tips, play, speech therapy
Early Stimulation I
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Early stimulation is essential for every child but it is necessary for the children who are diagnosed with or “at risk”. It forms the platform for the development of refined and mature skills. Early stimulation is a holistic approach including multi sensory approach.
Early stimulation has various areas and it includes
- Motor which includes gross and fine motor
- Auditory stimulation
- Visual stimulation
- Tactile stimulation
- Oro motor stimulation
- Cognitive stimulation
- Speech and language stimulation
- Socialization and emotional development
- Self help
Posted byNeeti at 10:48 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, child disability, early intervention, parenting tips
Mouth play I
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The child learns through their mouth first. The mouth sensation develops even before their birth. Around 5 months in utero or womb the child brings the hands to mouth and sucks the hands. This is the first exposure of mouthing. After birth the child first exposure to mouthing is mother feeding. During feed the child does not even get touch sensation inside mouth but also around the mouth. This is favoured by rooting reflex which is a primitive reflex. According to Freud's psycho-sexual theory of development, the oral stage is a primary focus of libidal energy or libido. At the age of 3 months the child start bringing his hands in midline and starts mouthing. This way the child preoccupies with the pleasure of mouthing. Oral stage prepares the child for better oral functioning. It prepares the child for sucking, chewing and swallowing and later for speech.
Mouthing the toys and other objects helps the child to learn jaw control, chewing, tongue movement and speech. During this process the child learns to use different part and angles of the mouth. This prepares the child for transition of food from liquids to solids.
This is a normal process and most of the children undergo to this process by their own but it is not automatic process for children with special needs. They need assistance to learn it through guidance with early interventionist or occupational therapist.
Posted byNeeti at 10:43 PM 3 comments
Labels: autism, cerebral palsy, child disability, Down's syndrome, early intervention, occupational therapy, oral issues, parenting tips, play, primitive reflexes, sensory integration, speech therapy
Child development and Early intervention
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Most of the parents have concerns about their child development. Many of them often visit to paediatricians for regular physical and well being check-ups. In our countries due to the lack of awareness, many a time the development screening either does not complete or remains superficial. Moreover the paediatricians are busier in immunization or vaccination. Many a time they miss the developmental delay or forget to refer to early interventionist or developmental paediatrician for further evaluation.
Here as a parent, you should be aware of child’s development and behavioural growth so that you can share your concerns with the professionals and if there are issues then you can intervene earliest.
DEVELOPMENT
All children go through developmental “stages” in various developmental areas like motor, fine motor, cognition, speech and language etc – typical and predictable changes in the areas.
The next stage of development depends on the previous stage and hence they are interrelated.
Every child develops on his own pace.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING
- The checklist which guides the child development with respect to normal population. Experts have developed a list of developmental milestones in all development areas. Most of the time, it is conducted by psychologist, early interventionist or a developmental paediatrician.
- Screening includes interactive session between parents and specialist. This may include a checklist or questionnaire about the family, prenatal, natal or antenatal history. The developmental history includes all developmental areas.
- According to evaluations and results, recommendations are made for further services.
IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING
To determine the healthy growth of the child and to monitor the child development.
To detect the developmental issues at earliest and intervene early.
CONTACT
Child’s paediatrician or EARLY INTERVENTIONIST or child psychologist can provide developmental screening.
Posted byNeeti at 11:09 AM 0 comments
Labels: autism, child development, child disability, child education, early intervention, education, knowledge sharing, parenting tips, red flag sign, screening
TV the idiot box...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Most of the times parents of children with language or communication delay complaint or have concern about their children watching television for longer time. Recently a parent approached me and had a concern that child talked very less and whatever he talked was monotonus or like parrot talking. During assessment it was found that both the parents were on full time work and they left the child at home alone. A nanny took care of him and most of the time child was kept in front of cartoon channel and there was very less human communication with child.
Other child of 6 years was indulged in watching a DVD. She had almost memorize the whole DVD and she could repeat the whole DVD without mistake. most of the time, child was preoccupied with the self talking and it was all about the DVD content.
Researches have proven that excess TV watching is associated with delayed language development. Research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical period for speech and communication development and that needs direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Children who watched television alone were 8.47 times more likely to have language delay when compared to children who interacted with their caregivers during television viewing. As recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children under the age of 2 should watch no television at all, and after age 2 watch no more than one to two hours of quality programming a day. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged. Parents should engage children in more conversational activities to avoid television-related delays to their children language development, which could impair their intellectual performance.
Posted byNeeti at 10:01 PM 2 comments
Labels: autism, child disability, child education, children, communication, developmental disability, disability, early intervention, education, Learning disability, parenting tips, speech therapy
Vowels in Speech therapy
Thursday, August 26, 2010
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For the children who are learning to speak, it is difficult for them to pronounce the vowels and consonants combination in initial stages. It is advisable to start with lax or open vowel sounds than the stressed vowels. Lax vowels mean which are open and have short sound like /a/ than /o/.
Posted byNeeti at 11:05 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, early intervention, information sharing, knowledge sharing, parenting tips, sensory integration, speech therapy, tips
Babbling...
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Children with apraxia or children with Autism, mostly have low oral tone and poor oral coordination. It is hard for these children to plan, coordinate and execute oral movements, resulting in poor verbal skills. Imitation and verbalization both are difficult for them.
As normal speech development, a child at the age of 5-6 month starts babbling. Babbling helps the child to practice oro motor function and develop the ability to change what he hears and understands the motor act of verbalization. Babbling helps in syllabic understanding and production hence, it facilitates the normal speech and language production. Babbling at earlier stages has vowel both short and long vowel but, long vowels predominate. After this, babbling changes to reduplicated babbling - sequence of identical, repetitive sequences of CV syllables (e.g /ma/ma/, /da/da/). Later it changes to CV, V, VC, VCV format.
Initial forms of vowels are /a/, /aa/, /oo/ and then /i/, /e/ and then dipthongs (combinations of 2 different vowels like ie/, /io/)
Initial course of speech therapy should follow normal course of development. Babbling should be a part of curriculum and used as methodology during speech therapy. However, teaching to speak is not easy task. The child who does not speak will take longer time to learn to speak than child who can speak few words.
Posted byNeeti at 11:20 PM 1 comments
Labels: ADHD, autism, child disability, early intervention, parenting tips, speech therapy, tips
Easy Flashcards
Friday, August 13, 2010
Recently i started designing flashcards and got an easy idea. Cut the cardboard of the desired size and put stickers. These stickers are easily available in markets and durable. They are mess free than the cut and paste books. They are attracting because of their colors.
Posted byNeeti at 6:32 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, early intervention, education, flashcards, parenting tips, speech therapy, tips
Friendship for children with Autism
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Most of the parents of the children with Autism desperately search for friends for their children. They feel that the things would have been better if their children could have friends. But, there are no shortcuts or different methods of having and keeping friends. What matter are the social skills or socialization.
- Instrumental skills
- Relationship skills
Posted byNeeti at 10:44 PM 1 comments
Labels: autism, child disability, early intervention, knowledge sharing, parenting tips, play, relationship
Taare Zameen Par...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Most of us here must have seen Taare Zameen Par, a story of a dyslexic child and an art teacher. If the art teacher role played by Aamir Khan, would have not realised the problem of dyslexia in his student, the child would have never done something special and hence, accepted by the society. The teacher has recognised the child so well and soon not because, he was teacher, but because he himself claims that he was dyslexic too. That’s all about a movie which always has to have a happy ending and that’s why called as a beginning. But like this special need child, there are thousands of children who are having some or other (personal/family) issues that continuously bother them. However, we can understand the problem better if we have been anytime in our life, have came across with it.
The regular school teachers should know or understand a little about the early sign or so called ‘Red Flag Sign’ of conditions like Autism, Dyslexia and other learning disabilities and Mental Retardation especially the borderline cases or mild to moderate cases. It is not to blame teachers, but I think it is the system that has always trained them for the regular students only.
In our country given the paucity of trained resources in the rehabilitation field, it is impractical to think replicating developed world model of health care. So, we need to develop resources locally, which can be available by training and developing skills to enhance care level. Empowering teachers, educate them with the basic child development and psychology can help in identifying the problem areas earliest. Any ignorance or lack of knowledge can aggravate the problem. In
Conditions like ASD (Autism spectrum Disorder), learning Disability, ADHD (Attention Deficit hyperactivity Disorder), mild/ moderate Mental Retardation; Family issues etc generally don’t attract attention early as the child grows physically normally. However, to handle the special need children the school may need the special staff if the child gets into inclusive education. Besides, family the teachers are the care takers and are considered to be the builder of a person. So, if the teachers are aware and educated about the above problems, they can help them by referring earliest. Hence, the child can get the benefits of Early Intervention. However most of teachers might feel uncomfortable to handle special needs children as they require more attention and effort.
Teachers can play an important role because:
Ø The parents think always optimistically and not ready to accept the problem or can easily be misguided by the surroundings. So, teachers should always be alert to notice the signs and then refer to further assessment and evaluation.
Ø Now days most parents are working so, they have little time to spare with their children. Maximum time of the children goes in their Pre schools with primary teachers. So, teachers need to be more prompt to realise the problems.
Ø Since, every parent wants their child to get proper education so they send them to the best schools as per their affordability. So, if teachers are aware that something is different with the child, they can inform parents and ask them to take professionals help.
The child development is flexible and its potential may vary with the environment. Every child is different and hence, special. The distribution curve shows that most children resemble with the average in many traits, but there are few children who deviate from the generally accepted norms in any one of many ways. These deviations may give rise to multifactorial problems of adjustment at home, school and social setting and thus, leads to addition of problems in deviation. Deviation can be in terms of physical, social, emotional and mental characteristics.
According to PWD ACT 1995, the differently abled children are to be integrated in regular school. Integration in regular school promotes personal, emotional and physical adjustment to establish healthy interpersonal relationship.
As very well said for teachers, "I touch the future. I teach." (Christa McAuliffe)
Teachers are one who polishes the child to diamond; otherwise no body can recognise the capacity of child. If the teachers are cooperative and encouraging, the slow learners and mild to moderate MR can learn in control and stimulated environment. However, the teachers have to bear the extra load of arranging the different curriculum and have to be creative. For these special need children, the teacher has to play a role of designer, instructor, motivator and trainer.
Posted byNeeti at 10:52 PM 4 comments
Labels: advocacy, autism, awareness, child education, early intervention, Experiences, guidance, inclusion, information sharing, Learning disability, tips
Education is not for all
Monday, July 5, 2010
Success school, “it is not our name but, it is our aim too”. The school in
The child who is in PPI has diagnosed with Autism. The parents have already discussed the issue with the school principal and Director. Inspite of knowing the school wanted to increase the strength and repetitive asked the parents to pay the fees earliest and block the seat for the child in school. The parents have paid the fees in April and secured the seat.
If somebody sees the prospectus it is designed with fake photos from google image and designed on international standards. In prospectus so many fake promises and commitments are done. But, on the other hand it is a small building with poor ventilated class rooms. No where, in the school prospectus, the actual standards of the school are mentioned. All 10-12 pages of prospectus are filled with fancy and promising words which actually don’t mean anything for any one.
Isn’t so sad? Where should those parents go? It is already a financial burden for a parent to bring up a child with disability and on the top if schools act like this, further add on the psychological distress. What about these schools that don’t even bother to implement the Laws and Policy.
Posted byNeeti at 10:33 PM 3 comments
Labels: advocacy, autism, awareness, child disability, early intervention, education, Experiences, parenting tips
Brain Gym
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Posted byNeeti at 11:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: ADHD, autism, awareness, brain gym, early intervention, information sharing, knowledge sharing, movement, sensory integration
Autism update
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Posted byNeeti at 8:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, child disability, information sharing
Movement therapy...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Researches have proved that persistence of primitive reflexes and fixed motor patterns may be responsible for learning difficulties in children with ASD, ADHD and other disabilities. So, movement therapy, reflex inhibition or rhythmic movements or motor repatterning therapy can help child to learn better from his environment.
Most of us don’t know that sitting still is a tough and actually a complex brain mechanism requiring certain developmental processes in proper function. If functions are not proper, then to sit is something like sleeping. So, to be active and alert the child must move. For those children who have poor initiation or whose arousal level is too high they need movement therapy even in the class room. For example, doing an activity on the therapy ball or on the water bed.
Somebody correctly said “what we call thinking is [actually] the internalization of movement. Cognition and movement are really the same.”
Posted byNeeti at 11:46 PM 1 comments
Labels: ADHD, autism, child disability, earlyintervention, movement, parenting tips, Therapy
Sensory awareness month
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
From the Vedic science to the modern science, Senses are given utter importance for human development. For overall development senses play an important role. We can not even think our life if we don’t have or have a disturb sense.
Senses don’t work alone. Sense organs sense the sensation or stimuli and brain turns the sensation to perception. Perception is a form of learning. Most of us have near to normal functioning of all senses in coordination. But, sometime because of known and unknown reason the process of sensory process get affected which may further leads to problems in routine life. If problem is minor and mild it can be compensated but if processing is effected on larger scale may affect our functional and occupational life.
Children with ADHD, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, speech disorder, brain injured, Down’s syndrome, dyslexia and other learning disability and neurological disorders do have mild to severe degree of sensory problems. However sometime children with normal development do have sensory issues.
Let’s make Sensory awareness month a campaign to arise awareness about sensory processing disorder among parents, teachers, community and professionals. This will not only help in creating awareness but also make us to understand our children behaviour in better fashion rather than thinking the behaviour as odd.
Sensory integration therapy looks like organised and structured play which has an objective or goal. SI activities provide the right challenge (not too difficult and not too easy) so that the child is motivated to achieve the goal.
Posted byNeeti at 4:18 PM 1 comments
Labels: ADHD, autism, awareness, children, early intervention, knowledge sharing, sensory integration
Primitive reflexes and their inhibition with therapy
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Posted byNeeti at 6:29 PM 2 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, disability, knowledge sharing, Learning disability, Therapy
Massage for children
Friday, September 11, 2009
Physiologically, touch is the first sense developed to the human. Gentle and loving touch is healing. Babies are known to grow poorly or fail to thrive if physical and loving touch is not sufficient. According to TRI (touch research institute) in Miami, "Every child should be massaged at bedtime on a regular basis"
Massage proved to be best for relieving stress to all of us and same for children as well. It boosts the immune system, tunes the tactile system, and at subtle level make the child daring and courageous. It elevates the mood, reduces anxiety and make children comfortable and happy.
Massage plays an important role for the children with developmental delay, sensory processing disorder, Autism, Hyperactivity, ADHD, preterm and prolonged illness. Deep pressure along with proper massage calm down the system and organize the child activity. Children with Autism and ADHD with associated hyperactivity requires lots of pressure and touch to decrease the sensitivity and improve attention span. It boosts the self esteem and reduce the fear. It improves the motor skills and regulates the sleep pattern. It helps in developing self and body image which indirectly help in organizing the child activity. However, for special purpose parents may need professional guidance for strokes and directions.
Posted byNeeti at 3:55 PM 1 comments
Labels: autism
Hand Dominance... its relevance
Friday, August 28, 2009
Handedness is an attribute of humans defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands. Some are left handed and some are right handed. However, there are 2 more types of handedness seen, Cross dominance and Ambidextrous. Cross dominance means the child uses one hand for one particular activity and other hand for other specific activity. Ambidextrous is a unique quality that a child can perform a particular skill with both the hands with equal quality. Crossed dominance and ambidextrous is not a problem every time until it affects the function.
Handedness is comprised of hardware (musculoskeletal, strength) and software (neurological), interacting to produce an efficient action. Handedness depends on neurological inhibiting of the recessive hand, so that the dominant hand can develop the precise, corrective, rapid movement without any competition from the non-dominant hand. Generally hand dominance is established at the age of 3 to 4 yrs but as late as 7 yrs. It is important to develop the hand dominance. However most of the child does develop hand dominance spontaneously at age but sometimes children with developmental delay and autism may have problem with it. Parents often have concerns that their children can write from both the hands but not sure.
To develop hand dominance it is important to know the preferred hand of child. Parents and teachers can observe the child in various functional activities. Observe child closely for preference of hand, control, strength and stability. Observe the child in unconscious and sudden or alone without interfering or biasing. It gives a better idea than intentional observation which sometimes becomes biased. Sometimes poor shoulder stability leads the child to keep on shifting the hand which gives a wrong expression of poor hand dominance.
Many activities like horizontal and vertical eight can help in finding the midline orientation and laterality. Bilateral hand activities like scissoring, hammering, tearing the paper, screwing, unliding the bottles, pick up games, lifting heavy objects, push ups and pull ups can be done. Observe the child preference and effort during movements. Once if it gives the idea of hand preferences stimulate that side with graded finger and shoulder exercise.
Posted byNeeti at 10:51 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, disability, knowledge sharing, parenting tips
Reading habits...
Thursday, August 20, 2009
To develop reading habits in children with special needs is always a concern for parents. Reading habits are very important for academics. Most of the special need children have poor visual function i.e. fixation, tracking, sorting, depth perception and discrimination. Many a time poor sitting tolerance and hyperactivity make the reading habit a daunting job for the educators and parents.
Tips for developing reading habits
- If hyperactivity is diagnosed as a sensory issue, resolve it with guidance of Early interventionist or occupational therapist.
- Work on developing the visual functions like sorting, matching, tracking and visual discrimination etc. this can be done with lots of visual cues and visual supports.
- Most of autistic children are visual learner, so use this strength to develop reading and matching skills.
- Read lots of story books, depending upon the age and child understanding level, the books can be selected. This not only creates the interest in child but also helps in improving further the visual memory. Repeat the story of the child favourite character and then keep on adding the new concept. For e.g. if the child likes “POOH”, create a story with some more pictures to teach the social skills and other functional activities.
- Be patient as it may require lot of time and efforts. If you are patient the child tend to calm down easily and that further helps you and your objectives.
- Bed time is best time for some children as they are calmer during that time.
- Always remember every child learns with difference pace as every child is special
Posted byNeeti at 3:32 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, education, parenting tips
Fine Motor Control
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Whenever there is poor fine motor control, the therapy plan should start from the shoulder and back stability exercise. This other way helps in better posture, core stability and better functioning of fine motor control.
Use of therapy ball, full range of shoulder movements (extension, flexion, rotation and circumduction) should be designed and practiced in the form of functional activities like drawing a big circle on wall or on floor in clockwise and anticlockwise direction, stair climbing etc. Various asanas like bhujanasan, tadasan, sarpasan should be practiced if the child understands the commands and above 8 yrs. Younger ones should practice under proper professional guidance. Asans in whole help in developing core stability, flexibility and relaxation
Fine motor activities like tearing the paper, crumbling the big sheet of newspaper, pegs activities, screwing and unscrewing movements, scissoring activities, pasting and folding, balancing, play dough activities, movements with the elastic bands in fingers, art and craft activites with different textures materials, strengthening of various grips and grasps (palmer, pincer, cylindrical, spherical, diagonal volar grasp and tip to tip grasps) etc.
Sometimes poor hand functions are associated with poor visual information process or poor visual perception. Activities should also includes eye hand coordination and midline and laterality orientation. other aspects like fixation, tracking and discrimation
Posted byNeeti at 11:37 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, finemotor control, knowledge sharing
