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Understanding Your Child’s Diagnosis

March 30, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Understanding Your Child’s Diagnosis

When your child receives a diagnosis questions can (and usually will) begin to flood your brain to ask your doctor. In addition, before you know it you could very easily overwhelm yourself with questions of your own. What do I do? Who do I talk to? What about school? What about their future? What will my family do? How will I personally cope with this? It is important that when we hear a diagnosis, syndrome, or condition we remember what it means and do not give it more power than it deserves – i.e. it is simply that; a diagnosis. It is not a predictor of whether or not your child will be happy, and it is not a sign of bad parenting.

When we hear a diagnosis we may have a natural tendency to think about someone we know who has the diagnosis, or something we have read online or heard in the news. We do not want to fall into this “mind trap” though because a child with a diagnosis is like any other child; they want to play, laugh, smile, love, and be loved. A diagnosis does not take this away from them. Each child is still special and unique with or without a diagnosis, and each child continues to need Love and support from their family so they can continue to grow and learn about the world around them – a diagnosis does not change this.

If your child is diagnosed, feel free to reach out to your therapist and express any concerns you may have. It is in their training and caring nature as therapists that make them good listeners and eager to help. Oftentimes they may be able to give you some insight into the diagnosis in addition to ideas of things you can do at home to carryover and reinforce what is worked on with your child in therapy. Autismspeaks.org offers a family support kit that offers various guides for family members and helps explains the effects Autism may have on different people in the family (parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, etc.) (https://www.autismspeaks.org/family-services/tool-kits/family-support-tool-kits)

autism-awareness-month

Mike-Occupational Therapy Team

T.E.A.M. 4 Kids Pediatric Therapy Team

Photo Courtesy of: (http://www.bocatc.org/blog/2014/04/)

App of the Week: Super Baby (video center for infant development / gross motor skills / baby milestones)

January 29, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

This week’s App of the Week comes from our Physical Therapy team and is a great pairing with the most recent Physical Therapy Blog Post: Physical Therapy: Appropriate Gross Motor Skills. Super Baby is a video center for infant development to reach gross motor skills and baby milestones, developed by a pediatric physical therapist and pediatric occupational therapist.

“From rolling over to crawling to walking, Super Baby’s videos will help your child reach the key milestones in his/her physical development.” It provides “baby exercise videos to help your child soar through the first year of life. Super Baby has over 40 different videos including clinically proven therapeutic techniques to help your baby be the best baby it can be. Super Baby’s developmental activities give your child a head start towards life long development. Perform the different developmental activities with your child a few times a day to improve their developmental success.”

Enjoy!

Amanda, Physical Therapy Team

Super Baby 3

Creating Verbal Routines for the Late Talker

August 5, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Most parents can’t wait to hear their child’s first words. It is so exciting to finally get a peek into what they are thinking isn’t it? For parents of late talkers anxiety can start to build when the words don’t seem to be coming when they should. Creating verbal routines is one tool that Speech Language Pathologists use to encourage speech in the late talker. Verbal routines are made up of words that are repeated at a predictable time during an activity. A verbal routine occurs any time a person says the same words, in the same way, for the same things, every time a specific activity occurs.

One common verbal routine is saying “ready, set, go.” For example, when pushing your child on a swing or when they go down a slide. We can also find verbal routines in books that have a repetitive nature such as “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See,” or in your child’s favorite songs, such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or The Wheels on the Bus. You can even create your own verbal routines with your child that fit into your everyday routine. The key is to invest the time to create these routines with your child and make them fun! As your child learns the routines, pause at key points to see if they will fill in the blanks. I have included a link to a great website with some fun songs and printables to help you establish verbal routines in your home. These printables are great because they help to link the vocabulary in the song with the picture. If you are concerned about your child’s language development call Team 4 Kids to schedule a speech therapy evaluation with one of our wonderful Speech Language Pathologists.

Link for songs and printables to help you establish verbal routines in your home:

http://www.aromaofhim.com/2013/10/encouraging-speech-with-songs-rhymes.html

Katie, Speech Therapy Team

Why Ball-handling Skills are so Important

May 13, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

One type of skill that is important for both social interaction on the playground and performance in physical education is ball-handling skills. These skills typically include throwing, catching, and kicking. Many physical educators consider ball-handling skills to be the most important motor skills taught in physical education because they are the cornerstones of many games¹.

So what type of skills are we looking at for some of the ball activities?

Kicking works our ability to rotate our trunk, something we need to do for proper walking posture. By kicking a ball we are working on our balance. We must stand on one leg while the other leg contacts the ball and with luck not fall. This skill also helps children when it comes time to step up on a curb or step over an object we must stand on one leg and balance. Coordination is needed in almost all ball activities and kicking is no exception. Our bodies must move, rotate, balance and move again very quickly making coordination an important skill and a functional one too.

Rolling works our bilateral motor control of the upper extremity. To sit and roll a ball calls for both sides of our body to work together. If one side of our body is slower to receive the message from the brain the ball will not roll straight but most likely veer off to one side or the other. We use trunk flexion and extension to roll a ball two motions with several important muscles that help us with posture. Upper body strength is also needed to roll a ball the amount of strength will depend of the weight and size of the ball.

Catching a ball requires hand-eye coordination and reaction time or speed of process. Many of the benefits we get from the kicking and rolling cross over into this action as well. The more we preform each task the better our bodies will become at executing the required actions. We can then use this memory in other functional activities throughout our daily living.

– Josh, Physical Therapy Team

Sources:

1 – Williams N. Throwing and catching: a steady diet. Journal of Physical Education Recreation and Dance.1992 ;64:14.Effects of Testing Context on Ball Skill Performance in 5-Year-Old Children With and Without Developmental Delay, Journal of Physical Therapy Association September 1999 vol. 79 no. 9 818-826

App of the Week: My PlayHome

May 8, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

This week’s app of the week is recommended from our Speech Therapy Team – The app is called: My PlayHome.

My PlayHome is an interactive dollhouse where your child can ‘use’ everything in the PlayHome. They are able to interactively ‘pour’ the cereal and milk, ‘blow’ bubbles, play ball, choose clothing or ‘brush’ their dolls teeth! This app is great for learning new vocabulary, following directions or finding target articulation words/sounds. It is an all-around fun, interactive and educational app!

As always, feel free to share with friends and family who could benefit from this app.

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