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 II
Friday, October 22, 2010
Activities for improving oral functions
Because of hypertonia and hypotonia of oral muscle, most of the children with disability have feeding problems. It includes inability to chew, poor control tongue for moving bolus, poor jaw coordination and instability. Many of children have poor oral sensitivity varying from hypo to hyper sensitivity which also affects the feeding and speech. Children with hypersensitivity are hesitant to try new taste and tend to swallow the food than chewing. They are “picky eater”. The hyposensitive child takes longer time to eat and keeps the food inside mouth for longer time. They are less aware if the food stick around the mouth and most of time they have hanging tongue or drooling. Because of poor oral tone they develop open mouth posture.
Mouth play can improve all these above problem and even can prevent the problem to arise if started as earliest.
- Deep pressure around the jaw improves the jaw stability and awareness. It helps in improving the tone of facial muscles and helps in oral function like chewing, swallowing and sipping.
- Firm pressure on the root of the tongue with the help of spoon increases the muscle tone of tongue and increases the voluntary control over gagging. Controlling gagging reflex helps in preventing the vomiting.
- Blowing plays an important role in developing oral functioning. Assist the child to learn blowing and sipping. Both the activities play an important role in breath control and tone regulation.
- Exposure to different type of food helps to desensitize the oral hypersensitivity.
- Pleasant touch around the mouth reduces the hypersensitivity. Touch should be firm but given in a playful way so the child accepts it well. Activities like bathing and grooming can distract the child and child readily accepts the touch. For younger children mouthing toys can be helpful which assists in chewing and improves the oral tone. For elder children chewing rubber stick, tubes or chewing gums are advisable.
The above activities do need an Early interventionist, Occupational therapist or Speech therapist guidance.
Posted byNeeti at 8:50 PM 2 comments
Labels: cerebral palsy, child disability, developmental disability, Down's syndrome, early intervention, feeding, oral issues, parenting tips, play, speech therapy
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
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
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
Speech sound production
Thursday, July 29, 2010
http://www.talkingchild.com/speechchart.aspx
Posted byNeeti at 10:53 PM 0 comments
Labels: child disability, children, early intervention, information sharing, knowledge sharing, parenting tips, speech therapy, tips
Early Intervention
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Early intervention is a program to identify & evaluate as early as possible those infants and toddlers (0-3years) whose healthy development are compromised and provide for appropriate intervention to improve child and family development.
Who is eligible for Early Intervention?
- If the child is not reaching age-appropriate milestones in one or more areas of development.
- Is diagnosed with a physical, emotional or cognitive condition that may result in a development delay.
- Is at risk for development delay due to various biological and/or environmental factors
Why intervene Early?
There are three primary reasons for intervening early with an exceptional child.
- To enhance the child’s development.
- To provide support and assistance to the family
- To maximize the child’s and family’s benefit to society.
Principles of Early Intervention
The primary goal of Early Intervention is to support families in promoting the child’s optimal development & to facilitate the child’s participation in family & community activities.
The focus of Early Intervention is to encourage the active participation of families in the therapeutic process by imbedding intervention strategies into family routines. It is the parents who provide the real early intervention by creatively adopting their child care methods to facilitate the development of the child, while balancing the needs of the rest of the facility.
Early intervention requires a collaborative relationship between families and providers with equal participation by all those involved in the process. An ongoing parent professional dialogue is needed to develop, implement, monitor and modify therapeutic activities.
Intervention must be linked to specific goals that are family-centered, functional & measurable. Intervention strategies should focus on facilitating social interaction, exploration & autonomy.
Family centered:
- Support parents in meeting their responsibilities to nurture
- enhance the children’s development.
- Intervention should be integrated into a comprehensive plan that encourages trandisciplinary activities & avoids unnecessary duplication of services. The plan should be built around family routines, with written home-activity programs to encourage family participation in therapeutic activities on daily basis.
- Intervention should be monitored periodically, to assure that the strategies implemented are successful in achieving outcomes.
- Children and their families in the early intervention system deserve to have services of the highest quality possible. High standards will be set for the training & credentiality of administrative & intervention staff training, supervision & technology will be focused to achieve excellence.
Posted byNeeti at 9:23 PM 0 comments
Labels: child disability, children, disability, early intervention, education, family support, parenting tips, Therapy
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
Autism update
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Posted byNeeti at 8:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: autism, awareness, child disability, information sharing
Learn to write...
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Posted byNeeti at 11:31 PM 0 comments
Labels: child disability, early intervention, education, finemotor control, guidance, parenting tips, writing
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
