Early Stimulation II
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Early visual stimulation
Young babies are attracted by bright, irregular shaped or patterned objects. Irregular shaped objects enhance the contour, depth perception and discrimination function of vision. It is good to use patterned objects and surrounding to enhance visual functions like bed sheets and dresses. Use of large, bright, red objects in the line of the vision is suggestive. Move child hands for hand regard and midline orientation. Expose the child to various areas of house and let the child interact with family members during meal time and play time.
Mirror shadow attracts the child. Expose the child to mirror and assist him to watch himself and tap on the floor. Mirror should be placed 7-8 inches over head or in front of the child to avoid accident and this placement enhance the visual function. This activity is important for body image development. Body image is important for efficient use of the body parts in space.
Large sheets of colour paper or gift wrappers attract the child not only for visual awareness but also for movement. Place the plastic sheet under the child. The child gets excited to move when he hears the crepitus sound of sheet while moving.
Posted byNeeti at 8:10 PM 0 comments
Labels: child development, developmental disability, early intervention, speech therapy, vision therapy
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
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
