A Sensory-Motor Approach to Feeding

Thanks to Lori Overland for sharing this article with me.  In my search for more information regarding the pre-feeding exercises…specific to children with Down Syndrome…I found this article very informative.

http://div13perspectives.asha.org/content/20/3/60.abstract

 The Goal of the pre-feeding program is to develop the motor skills for feeding.  Following task analysis/evaluation of the sensory and motor systems, the clinician designs a program to help the child develop skills needed to support safe, nutritive feeding (Overland, 2010).

 

 

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Motivating your child with Down Syndrome to talk


Thanks Jen at http://talk-ds.org/ for letting me post this.  Jen is a great resource and has helped me so much in my journey as an SLP.  We just met via the web a few months ago…but I have already learned so much from her site.  Please read her blog post below and be sure to go to her site.

Motivating your child with Down syndrome to talk

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Children need motivation. Especially children with Down syndrome who have speech or language disorders. Internal motivation is difficult enough for those of us without language-learning difficulties. This is why support groups for dieters are so successful. How do we encourage or motivate a child with Down syndrome to talk more? How can we help them make  that connection:  I want you to talk + you just talked = more talking

Imagine you are a child with DS. You understand more than people think you do. You get frustrated because it is so difficult to let them know what, how, and why you are feeling a certain way. People are always correcting you – your parents, siblings, teachers and therapists. You are told “No” frequently. So you become resourceful. You use behavior – your body, voice, or facial expressions to get you message across. You prefer to play alone your way than to interact with those who don’t understand you. Are you really motivated to communicate more?

Waiting for your child to learn to talk can be torture. You think, “If only he would talk! Then he wouldn’t get so frustrated.” And you are frustrated (mixed with sad). The good news is there are three things you can do to help your child. These techniques are borrowed from my colleagues in psychology and set the foundation for positive interaction with your little one.

First, I want you to pick a routine or activity during the day when you spend 1:1 time with your child that is also enjoyable for them. Is it bath-time? Playing with cars? Going on a walk? Choose something you can do together. During this time you are going to focus on three key words: praise, paraphrase, and point out. In psychology they call this “the 3 P’s.”

  • Praise – Probably the most common thing parents do, but I want you to change it up a bit. Be very specific with your praise. This is also known as “labeled praise.” Point out the behaviors you like: “I like it when you use your words,” “Good job signing,” “Nice job showing me what you wanted!”
  • Paraphrase – This is when you reflect or repeat back statements. In language therapy we use this to affirm the child’s attempts to communicate with words. For instance: Your child is playing with a car and says, “Beep-beep!” You say, “Beep-beep!” and push the car. Your child says, “My pizza.” You state, “You do have pizza. Yum!”
  • *Point Out - This is when you state exactly what your child is doing. You are like a sports announcer giving play-by-play feedback. For example: “You are feeding your baby doll. You are putting the spoon on her lips. Now you are giving her a drink. You gave her the bottle!”

Use these three techniques during your routine with the most time spent on praising and paraphrasing. *Pointing out is helpful, but too much came be overload for the child with DS. Make sure you are giving him “equal air time” by waiting for responses during a period of silence. If you have a hard time being quiet after pointing out, count to 10 silently in your head. Children with DS typically respond when given increased time to listen and process what’s being said.

There are also things to avoid during this activity time. You won’t eliminate them from your life – just during the routine we talked about above.

  • Questions – American parents ask TONS of questions. All the time. Set a timer if you need to. Try 2 minutes, no questions, and work your way up to 10-15 minutes. You willfail at first, so don’t beat yourself up. Try again. It’s easier to think about switching out questions with “pointing out” than, “Don’t ask questions…don’t ask questions…”
  • Avoid commands - let the activity or routine flow on its own. Let your child lead and observe how they communicate with you. Do they use words or do they pull you by the hand, point, or gesture? Gently guide them back into the routine if they quickly lose interest – or see what they are moving on to – the activity the choose themselves may be more motivating to talk about.
  • Avoid negative talk - this include statements like “no,” “stop it,” “quit,” or “don’t do that.” Unless the child is doing something harmful to himself or others – let the mistake go
  • Avoid distractions – Turn off your phone for 10-15 minutes. Don’t check email or Facebook. Protect your time. It will be easier for both of you to focus.

Children with Down syndrome are usually motivated by social interaction. Using the 3 P’s will increase the quality of communication during your routines. Your child will notice the way you are positively interacting with him and his motivation to communicate with you will increase.

More resources on the 3 P’s and active listening:

How to use labeled praise 

Don’t be afraid to praise

What to do when you’re waiting

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Sound development chart specific to diphthongs…

Thank you to Caroline Bowen for helping me once again…following my tweet on Twitter:

 

My Tweet:

Does anyone have a sound development chart specific to the diphthongs?

 

From Caroline:

No available.  Vowel/diphthong/triphthong errors drop to 0-4% @ 35 months (Pollock & Berni, 2003)

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Best apps for kids

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/play-2-learn/id538731401?mt=8

PLAY 2 LEARN!

 

Play To Learn: What Sound? is a fun game that teaches your child to discriminate one sound from another.  Being able to match a sound and the corresponding picture addresses your child’s auditory discrimination skills-this means your child’s ability to understand the differences between sounds and the ability to discriminate one sound from another.  This motivating game will help to improve your child’s ability to discriminate the sounds in English, which will help speech development as well as literacy skills.  The vibrant pictures and stimulating sounds provide a motivating activity so that your child will learn as they play.

 

 

 

 

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A favorite speech therapy toy for toddlers and preschoolers

LeapFrog Shapes And Sharing Picnic Basket

There is so much I love about this toy.  I can work on following simple directives.  For example when you push the butterfly button and your little one will hear a simple directive she needs to follow such as: put the green cup in the purple one.  Great for working on shapes, colors, matching and sorting.  A new fave of mine!

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Set a space for fun, learning and sharing. The Shapes and Sharing Picnic Basket helps little learners explore shapes, colors/colours, manners and more. Over 30 audio responses encourage pretend play, and the 14-piece set helps children build motor skills as they sort, match, stack, empty and fill. Parents can connect to the online LeapFrog Learning Path for customized learning insights and ideas to expand the learning. Appropriate for children ages 6 to 36 months.

 

 

 

suv covers

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Happy Communion to My Gregory!

GMGregory received his First Holy Communion on Sunday, April 28, 2013….this is what he said to me right after receiving:

“I can’t wait to come back next Sunday for my Second Holy Communion”

I love this delicious little man.

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My favorite part of the day and a G-ism

2011 292g9.12

~My favorite Part of the Day~

This tradition was adopted from my sister Aly (so thanks AW!).  Gregory loved this dinner ritual so much (not as much as he loves his cousin HFP…we miss you guys!)…….that he insisted we also did so:

Every night at dinner we go around the table and say what our favorite part of the day is….well for me…this is what I will say tonight:

“Watching my Katie play soccer with such determination while my Gregory watched with me…and played with my hair and then said: mom your hair reminds me of red velvet cupcakes.”

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Being grateful for health and happiness

From the Womb to the Tomb

Posted dedicated to E.H and her family

rainbow

When my oldest was around 4 months of age…still at a time in his life when he screamed incessantly…I sat with my amazing grandmother, Lilla….telling her how I could not wait until I didn’t worry about Zach:

“Soon it will be grandma..when he stops crying so much…I will stop worrying then.”

She laughed a little…and said:

“Kimberly, you will worry from the womb to the tomb about your child.”

I will never forget that moment in time…I will never forget sitting in her kitchen..drinking a cup of tea with her…and listening to her speak about how she worries still about her three grown children…and how she worries about her grandchildren..and now her great-grandchildren…and that she will worry until the day she dies…until she is in her tomb.

I often think about what she said..and how worried I was about Zach crying so much…and how my life was completely up-side down…because he had reflux…yeah…it was just reflux…he did not have a life threatening anything…he was going to “grow out of it“….and he would be just fine..but for this mama…in those moments of incessant crying..and for the entire year that he cried….I worried…I cried…and I was and am forever thankful for my family for their help, love and support.

This post is written for a little one I see…..she is going through some pretty big stuff right now….I of course can not give details…but she has been in the hospital for quite some time…and she just had a pretty significant surgery last week….and the recovery is and will be a struggle.  What I am in awe of is her mother and her family.  This mama always seems to have a smile on her face…..she is a really funny mama…and definitely uses humor to I am sure help her make it through the tough and toughest of days.

What I am more in awe about..is it would be okay for her to carry something heavy on her shoulders….to show the world what is on her plate and how very “tough” it is for her.

But she does not.

She is surrounded by an incredible family…from her husband to her other children and of course her amazing mother.

So today I ask…..pray for EH and her family…share this post with your family and friends.

Just like the Christmas Miracle we performed in December of 2012…for the B family.

Let’s use the power of prayer for this family…let’s pay it forward with prayer.

Anyone wanting to give a food donation…please let me know…I can drop off….it would helpful for the grandma at home with the siblings while mom and dad are in the hospital with EH.

xo

Kim

coats machine

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How to raise your children to be good people.

cropped-Zach.jpg

 

 

 

Wanted to share this story about my oldest son, Zach:

Zach told me just the other day how grateful he is for all we have given him and for all that he has.  And..that he appreciates that me and my Kate “cooked awesome food and snacks for him and his friends last night.”  Then he told me-as he stepped out of the car to interview at Friendly’s:

“I try to be as humble as possible for all that I have.”

Mind you he describes himself as a minimalist..never asking for anything but what he needs.

All I want to accomplish in this journey as a mama is to raise good and happy children who will be good and happy adults.

My friend KT once said to me….when she thinks of Zach and how he lives his life…she often says to her children in given situations:

WWZD?

I think my Zach teaches me something everyday.

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How to teach your child to understand WH questions


 

ANSWERING WHAT QUESTIONS IN REFERENCE TO ACTIONS:  (FOR EXAMPLE: WHAT AM I DOING?)

Asking questions to your little one will help to elicit language….and also will help in their understanding of language……however…you have to be sure of what your expectationsare and what your little one is capable of understanding and communicating.

Let’s start off with the first picture above….you can clearly see that the girl is jumping.  A great strategy to help your little one both understand and use language is this:

Therapist:

As you are jumping…ask your little one: What am I doing?……wait and see if she is able to answer.  Hopefully the visual of you jumping will cue her to say jumping….even if she is not understanding the phrase: What am I doing?….she may answer correctly by saying JUMPING….because the visual gives it away…..now this is not cheating….it is helping your little one to understand language better….because you are tieing your action and words together.

Now if she does not have the language to answer the question….you answer the question for her…..with a simple one word response: JUMPING.  Being sure to change your pitch and inflection…giving your verbal production some melody.

Continue asking simple action questions….remember to choose actions that are familiar to your little one…..here is a list below:

1. clapping

2. eating

3. sleeping

4. sneezing

5. crying

6. walking

7. running

8. Smiling

9. coughing

10. dancing

 

 

Now let’s refer to the second picture above…

ANSWERING WHAT QUESTIONS IN REFERENCE TO OBJECTS: (FOR EXAMPLE: WHAT IS THAT?)

 

In order to help your little one understand WHAT questions (in reference to objects) and also use her language to answer WHAT questions….you can use the strategy listed below:

Therapist:

Find familiar objects in your home….you should use objects that your child is familiar with….so that answering the question is not too much of a challenge.  Point to an object and say: What is that?  Now your child may answer the question and say: BUS….because you are pointing to the BUS.  She may not be understanding the actual question: WHAT IS THAT?  However, the more you repeat this type of question…and point to the object as you ask the question…..the easier it will be for her to answer the question without the visual of you pointing.  So moving forward….she will eventually understand a question like: What is that?……without the visual (you pointing to the object).

Now if your little one can not answer the question…..answer it for her…changing your pitch and inflection…putting a little bit of melody to your answer…with a one word response: BUS.  Questions like: What is that? as you are pointing to the object…are the easiest types of WH questions for your little one to answer.

Remember children learn through repetition.  Continue to practice the WH questions in reference to actions and objects.  And if your child can not speak yet….and can not imitate what she says….no worries….take the pressure off of her…….you do the talking….use the self talk strategy…(find this strategy above on this page:  teach me to talk page).

 

 

 

Remember too…tying music and language together can help promote language development.  Be sure to look to the right of my home page for information on how music can help language.

And of course be sure to search YouTube!

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