Showing posts with label sensory integration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sensory integration. Show all posts

Yoga is an excellent system for promoting healthy development. It is a preventive medicine as it facilitates the overall wellness and health. Yoga is a form of exercise, meditation, and breathing practices from Indian roots to bring harmony to the mind, body and soul.
It is always advisable to start yoga in childhood as young bodies and minds are prone to learning new things easily and quickly. With the help of Yoga, they can become more coordinated and flexible. Yoga is safe foe every one but for children it should be done under supervision or by qualifies yoga trainer.
The benefits of yoga can be defined in 3 major areas.
Physical Benefits
Yoga helps in developing the flexibility and strength. Regular yoga poses train the child for coordination, agility, stamina and focus. There are many poses in yoga and they have different role. It helps in developing strong, flexible and healthy bodies where a healthy mind resides. Yoga improves the digestion and circulatory system. It helps in elongation of spine which assist in having good posture and better concentration.  Healthier and physical strong body has better immune system which helps the child to have better immunity for fight the physical and mental stress
Stress Reduction
Because of the competitive world, most children are under great stress. Endless homework, tough competition, student relationship and the pressure from peers and parents are major cause of stress. They have to learn to deal with various problems. Fortunately, with Yoga, children can learn ways to relax and get control of stress in their lives. It negates the negative effects of the stress.
Self-discipline
Yoga means connecting to God. A child's mind has a pure mind. The yoga helps in developing the discipline by organising the sleep cycle. The child becomes more positive and self confident. It helps them to channelize their energy in more productive way. Yoga increases the emotional stability and quotient. It increases the concentration and self awareness and hence overall learning improves.
Yoga for children with special needs
By teaching self awareness, self control, and concentration, yoga can also help to manage children who have been diagnosed with ADHD - attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, autism and learning difficulty. Yoga has also been used to develop strength and coordination in children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other childhood disability.
Many studies have shown that many children who practice Yoga, especially those with problems such as ADHD, are able to concentrate for longer periods of time. It benefits the overall development and also helps them to adjust with the transitions, which is important for the children with special needs. In an era of children acquiring conditions and diseases, proper breathing, exercise and deep relaxation may be the powerful healing force.
A best gift for a child is to teach himYOGA. 

Posted byNeeti at 11:54 PM 2 comments  

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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  

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Happy feeding
Thursday, October 14, 2010

Feeding to infant is difficult but pleasurable act. It is not only the source of the nutrition but also for emotional and early communication. Infant spends most pleasurable time with mother during feeding. However, feeding is not pleasurable to mother and child every time. Many a time it needs lots of effort from parents. But, little modification may bring comfort and pleasure to both.

1. The feeding position should be comfortable to both child and mother. Mother should be comfortable and have proper support in cradle position for infants and tailor position for toddlers. The child hands should be placed forward and head tilted little forward. This helps in smooth swallowing and prevents choking and aspiration. This position not only provides stability but also opportunity for eye contact and early communication of their emotions. This position also helps in head control and midline orientation. It is important for children with Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy. For children with special need, this position avoids the excess air intake which may lead to stomach cramps.

2. Environment plays an important as well. The environment should be calm and less distraction. The act should be pleasurable by adding some music or singing lullabies

3. Mouth play is important for developing better oral functioning and speech

Enjoy feeding!!!

Posted byNeeti at 11:44 PM 2 comments  

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Vowels in Speech therapy
Thursday, August 26, 2010


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/.

Stressed vowels are difficult because they need more planning, coordination and lingual strength. Dipthongs are further difficult as they require 2 oro motor movements than one, thus requiring further motor planning.

In order to help children to pronounce vowels more accurately some visual or tactile (physical) cues should be provided.



Posted byNeeti at 11:05 PM 0 comments  

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Brain Gym
Sunday, June 27, 2010

Remedial educationist Dr Dennison, developed simple pattern of 26 exercises based on movement. According to him, movements are important keys for development and learning. Originally it was developed for Reading difficulties among children but later it was proved beneficial for the children with learning difficulties, ADHD, Autism and other disorders of coordination. It helps in improving memory, coordination, learning, attention, behaviour pattern and hence overall performance.

According to brain gym theory, some specific movements stimulate specific brain area and hence, stimulate its function. It also increases the coordination among various brain areas and increases learning. As a whole brain is stimulated in various but specific activities it also improves the emotion, cognition, understanding, conceptualization, abstract thinking and coordination.

PACE is one but important part of the brain gym. PACE stands for

P: Positive: hook ups
A: Active: cross crawl
C: Clear: brain buttons
E: Energetic: water

Other activities are important but this group stimulates the learning maximum.

Posted byNeeti at 11:25 PM 0 comments  

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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  

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