The lovely surprise

The Dad came home early on Thursday to bring me something rather lovely.

He had spent many hours working on this beautiful book.

With the help of http://www.mycreation.co.uk/photobooks.php

(Even the back ground is made up from photos)


It is the story of M's early years with a lovely tribute to me on the back page.

Thank You x

Supportive Behaviour Management

I was really pleased this week to receive an email from Mike Temple, behaviour expert and author of this website http://behaviourmanagement.ning.com/
Mike has had extensive experience working with challenging students, within mainstream education.

He describes SBM as ‘an inclusive, emotionally intelligent approach to behaviour management which open the doors for teachers and pupils to access on-demand support and strategies to manage the sometimes difficult situations that can occur in the classroom’

In this video link to a Teacher’s TV item on behaviour management, Mike explains the impact that exclusion from school has for children with emotional, behavioural and learning difficulties and how SBM may be used to help them .
http://www.teachers.tv/news/31486

The Dad and I have put a lot of thought into the language we choose, when dealing with difficult behaviour. The importance of this was emphasised during the ICAN and Parent workshop: - http://sunshinetc.blogspot.com/2008/04/friday-040308-i-can-workshop.html and the parent line plus parenting course:-http://sunshinetc.blogspot.com/2008/03/13032008-parentlineplus-getting-on-with.html. I really liked Mike’s link to the ‘Teacher’s at risk blog’ http://www.teachersatrisk.com/2009/01/09/this-is-not-a-punishment/ to a post about the words we choose to speak to children who are disruptive in class.

My final link from this excellent site is to ‘My Tree’ http://behaviourmanagement.ning.com/profiles/blogs/emotions-tree this enables children to pick a character, whose emotions they identify with, In order to leave a post which expresses their feelings.

Mozart

I have been on a quest this week to source all of the tools and equipment we need, to begin M's sensory diet. One of things suggested was the calming effect that Mozart or Gregorian chant music has, for children who suffer auditory defensiveness. Some Gregorian chants are winging their way to me courtesy of Lily, my learned sister.

I was interested by this article, written abort the calming effect of Mozart music for a group of schoolboys with behavioural difficulties, in a school in Aberdare:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/387632.stm

The article mentions the Tomatis listening method, which seems to work on a similar principle to the Auditory Integration Therapy programme. I'd love to hear more from the experts on this, if anyone has more info:-http://www.henryspink.org/the_tomatis_method.htm

The Vikings

At school this term, M and his classmates have been learning all about the Vikings. They had a Viking dress up day when they had to adopt a nordic name. M was Rig which means King. I thought that this was a fitting name, following his sterling performance of one of the three wise Kings in the Christmas play. We also had fun on a fact finding mission, surfing the net to find out all about the food, clothes and roles that children had to play, helping to work alongside their parents.

Of all the subjects that M finds difficult, history seems top of the list. He lives very much in the here and now and finds it very hard to imagine scenes from the past, to which he has no visual connection. He doesn't yet have the extensive vocabulary he needs, to help him link history to things that are familiar to him. Whilst the creative curriculum helps to bring projects to life, learning about history in the classroom, does involve sitting and listening to facts which are not tangible.

Last Thursday, I braved my fear of lots of people in a confined space and volunteered to help out in M's class for the morning. A local lady had brought in hand looms, similar to those that would have been used in the days of the Vikings. The children were given some wool to hold, whilst she demonstrated how it would have been spun, using a potato spindle.

After this, we split into groups of three and the children were shown how to weave the yarn on the looms. M was completely enthralled and we did not hear a customary growl, grumble or moan for over two hours. We were told about locally run, family loom days, where families get to weave a piece of cloth to take home. I shall definitely sign up for this, since M gained much from this hands on approach to history.

A Little Time out

The Dad and I have had a lovely weekend. M stayed with Mum and Dad for the weekend and by all accounts has had a lovely time. He didn't want to leave and cried all the way home :(

Yesterday, we went to see the new Will Smith 'Seven Pounds'. Although we had lots of plans for today, we slept until ten and then had a very leisurely lunch, followed by a read of the Sunday papers .I hadn't realised just how tired I have been of late, but a little time off has made me feel like a human bean again! I'm looking forward to sitting down with the Dad tomorrow, to work out what equipment we needs for M's sensory diet.Some of the strategies, we use having leaned what works by trial an error.

Meetings

I apologise for the lack of posts this week. We had a follow up meeting with the behaviour support unit on Monday and the feedback meeting with the occupational therapists on Tuesday. there has been a lot of information to read through and take on board.

On Monday the meeting went well, we gave our permission for the behaviour support advisor, to work directly with M and we were introduced to the new special needs support teacher. Since M’s history and needs are quite complex (school have two ring binders full of papers) I agreed to write a potted history. When I sat down to do this, I realised that sheer number of people have come in given advice and their take on his difficulties and disappeared again. If you add in to this the alternative routes we have taken, it isn’t surprising that we have all been under a great deal of stress at times.

It was great to be able to relay how well things have been going with the behaviour plan. M has recently shown a lot of affection and kindness, here at home. He has actively been looking for ways to please people. We have made the reward chart much more visible with a magnetic white board and the sticker system at school is in sync with this. We have taken a consistent approach with timing out, added in verbal warning as to what the consequence will be if M doesn’t do as we ask. I think that these clearer boundaries help M feel more secure.

The long awaited feedback meeting with the OT was very interesting. There were a lot of recommendations, some of which can be adapted at school. We are aiming to reduce M’s mouthing of objects, so that he explores more with his hands and to help him give us a signal when he feels hyper sensitive to sensory input. I am going to have a good look at the sensory diet over the weekend and will explain what we will be doing, in more detail, in a future post.

Happy 70th Birthday Spuds

It was a special day today and M mastered the art of chopsticks.

Guess which one of us was 70?

I'm not sure that it was M's turn to blow out the candles!

But it was a beautiful cake.

Happy Birthday to a dear Dad and Grandad!

Dogged Determination

Do those of my readers who are parents of children with language difficulties, ever marvel at their ability to put two and two together to make 64? The latest bee in M's bonnet came about during the walk home from school yesterday.

"I smell barbecue" he said sniffing the rain dampened air. "I can't" I said "Its winter, We only have barbecues in the Summer!" "Quick Mum smell here" he said hurling me across the pavement with his Herculean strength. "Ah" I said in my best Berkshire accent "That's not a barbecue, that's a garden fire. People will be getting rid of all their garden rubbish."

A myriad of expressions fleeted across those blue eyes and he jumped up and down with excitement. Sensing an ominous disappointment looming, I chipped in "How about we make a fire....." "Yes Mum quick now. I can get the twigs and leaves and build...." "Noooo M, I meant a beautiful fire picture!!!!!" I said imploringly. "Yes you will make the instructions" he said, nearly bursting with enthusiasm "And I will build the fire please, please, please!"

I tried to back track the whole way home. I got out some paper, showed him some gorgeous orange card and black sugar paper, all to no avail. He spent the entire evening gathering sticks and leaves. I even had to intercept him, sneaking past with a lighter, that I had thought I'd carefully hidden. I tried cajoling, bribing and down right pleading, but he would not budge from the garden. As the twilight set in, the little pile of sticks got closer and closer to the patio doors and an unhappy, chilly little figure sat rubbing too sodden twigs together in the hope of a little spark.

Paper Chasing

There are quite a large a number of professionals involved in M's care and added to this I attend a support group and have an excellent parent partnership advisor. Since I am not the most organised person, I have spent this week trying to organise the many emails, reports and letters, in an attempt to create a kind of paper based history. This has not been easy since there are many matters pending and one of my biggest difficulties as a Mother of a child with special needs, is keeping track of where we are at with everyone.

Today's link is for Say and Play, a speech and language therapy clinic in Surrey, http://www.speechandlanguage-therapy.com/downloads.shtml who have some excellent PDF/downloads for activities to help encourage children's speech. These include Go games, activities to help with listening skills and sound matching games.

Executive Functioning

We had another rather horrible time, on and off at the weekend. I think that I may have jinxed things by thinking "M has made some really big improvements lately, I think that things are going to get a little easier." He has of course and things are vastly different from the way they were when I started to write the blog, a year ago. I fully expect times when M will regress into bad behaviour and old habits.

As if by magic or by fate this link from About.com popped into my inbox: http://www.ldonline.org/article/29122 Executive functioning isn't a term I have come across before, but this article by Joyce Cooper-Kahn and Laurie Dietzel, really gave me an insight into what maybe at the root of M's concentration and organizational problems. " A road trip without a map" is a good way to describe these difficulties. Those of you in my email group, may also think that I have similar problems myself, especially today ; )

This link http://www.ldonline.org/article/5736 : The Value of Strategies by Regina G. Richards also featured on the About.com special needs news letter has some useful tips for visual organizers, which are probably useful for older children, with language difficulties. I went back to school to obtain qualifications as an adult in my thirties and found visual mind maps a valuable method, to help me retain things I needed to learn.

Ghosts

My Great Grandfather

My Grandmother and Great Aunt


My Great Aunt and great role model


Me

I have been overjoyed that M has been asking dozens of questions of the last few months, but some of them have been a little difficult to answer. He has been watching 'Muppet Christmas Carol' and has been a little perturbed about death and ghosts. M asked whether the tiny frog puppet playing Tiny Tim, had been taken to the vet to be put to sleep. He was trying to make sense of the scene when the little soul is being mourned by his family. M was also very worried that ghosts would come into his room and although I assured him that that they were just pretend and anyway Scrooge had been a really bad man. He then worried that they might go into "other bad people's bedrooms at night" We have had long, rather morbid chats about bodies being put into beautiful boxes in the ground (I didn't fancy tackling cremation, just yet.)

All this talk got me thinking about what the term 'Ghost' really means. When I was a child I was lucky enough to have close contact with both my maternal Grandmother and her sister. They were strong, gentlewomen who had lived through two world wars. My Grandmother was sprightly and mischievous at times. My parents once came home to find her holding court (in her seventies) whilst trying to stand on her head.

In their latter years, they lived in separate flats with the same sheltered block. I used to travel over to make them lunch and manicure their nails, whilst they regaled me with their stories of their youth. Despite the fond memories, life was often far from easy and money was scarce. My grandmother grew up in a family of eight (surviving) children, in Edwardian Britain.

I learned that the five sisters had been Flappers;

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3svvCj4yhYc&feature=related during their dancehall nights in 1920's. It is only in later years that I wished I'd asked all about the new and exciting 'modern' times. It must have been liberating to wear the new raised hemlines and to learn daring dances like the Charleston. Later, in the 1940's, my grandmother was a bit of a trend setter, since she was of the first women, in her circle, to wear 'slacks.'

Some of the old photos, give me little more than an inkling, of what facial characteristics I have passed on to M by DNA. I know little about my great grandfather, except that he was a hotel porter. What fascinates me more are little things, from the past, that I now see in M. There are certain mannerisms, a slightly quaint turn of phrase, or a fleeting expression, that feel like shadows of those lovely ladies. More than anything, I feel that both he and I have inherited a little of the steely determination, or dare I say stubbornness, that flows through the family veins.

The Dad The Run and ICAN

As you may know the charity ICAN is very close to our hearts. I don't think that it would be an overstatement to say that the ICAN assessment, at the Meath school, last year has changed M's life. M has gone from strength to strength and the recommendations we had from the ICAN report, galvanised us into action. With the support of two great independent SALTs and M's school, we are looking at a very different little boy.

Aside from this very personal experience, ICAN campaign relentlessly to raise awareness of the impact of speech and language disabilities and were on the advisory board of the Bercow review.

The Dad has been in training for the Reading half marathon, partly to get fit and partly to be able to keep pace with M, who is still shaping up to be a promising athlete. Since the Dad's employer matches any monies raised for charity, the Dad will be running to raise funds for ICAN. We have been really humbled by the emails and donations we have received so far and I shall let you know all about the big day in due course.

Dispatches Channel 4 Britain's Challenging Children

I only caught this programme part way through last night and so will be watching it again on catchup; http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

The programme covered the progress of four schools who have set up "Nurture" outreach groups, which tackle the underlying reasons for challenging behaviour. The staff in these units provide a 'safe' place for these children to express their feelings and calm teaching methods in order to help them learn.

We have recently seen a good level of improvement since M has been visited by the behavioural outreach service, I would dearly welcome a group of this nature, at his school. It must be beneficial for children to understand that there are others who struggle due to learning and social difficulties. The programme showed just how far the children's self esteem and behaviour, improved as a result of this input.

I was saddened to learn that at least one of the units were under threat, as a resulting of lack of local funding. I think that the average cost of the unit per child was about £600 per term. The Bercow review and subsequent parliamentary debates, explored the high level of young offenders who have expressive language difficulties. ICAN have also provided details of this study;

http://www.ican.org.uk/talkingpoint/sitecore/content/TalkingPoint/Related%20topics/Behaviour/More%20articles%20on%20Behaviour/Speech%20and%20Language%20Therapy%20for%20Young%20People%20in%20Prison.aspx

It appears to me that money invested into services to help children who have problems, from key stage one onwards, is money well spent!

Delight

For some reason it is always the things that children say about M's progress that delight me the most. We were at a birthday party yesterday and the Mother of the Birthday boy, told me that he had jumped in on M's behalf, when another child referred to him as "naughty". The little boys had told his friend that M isn't naughty, but just an individual and his own self. "We all different and we all have our own 'special' gifts, he said. I think this child's Mum should be justifiably proud!

Daily Mail article 02/01/2009

Thanks to Auntie L for giving me the heads up on yesterday's article in Daily Mail, by Sarah Harris;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1103997/Every-child-checked-speech-difficulties-age-two.html

Leaving aside the 'blame the parents for speech and language difficulties' slant, which I have probably discussed to death, I am delighted that every child will have a speech and language assessment at age two. I hope that the money and resources promised in the Bercow report, will come to fruition, and that children with difficulties will be given access to quality SALT services.

I say amen to these words, by Mr Bercow himself, which featured at the end of the article;

'The reality is that for far too long, speech and language problems have been under-recognised.'

Mommy Speech Therapy Blog

I have realised that my blog is pretty weighted toward language disorders and sensory difficulties, so today I link is for the above blog, written by a speech pathologist named Heidi, which also focuses on difficulties with articulation of speech; http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/

It is beautifully put together and there are useful milestones on this post;
http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?p=82 and handy downloads here;
http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?page_id=55

Whilst it hasn't been updated for a little while, the archives are well worth a look too.

Happy New Year

I hope that everyone has recovered from last night's jubilations. We threw the towel in at 11.30pm only to be woken up by all the fireworks at midnight, of course. I have to say that 2008 was a great year, with many more highs than lows.

M was bouncing off the walls today, so we took him to one of those indoor soft play centres. He quickly bonded with a brother and sister and we didn't see him until it was time to go.The Dad told M off for something minor and the boy that he was playing with said, "Don't tell him off, we think he is totally awesome" They certainly put the 'Happy' into my New Year!