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
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
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
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
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
