Special Smile for the Sunflower Princess

I was most honoured to find myself on the blogroll for this http://mysunflowerprincess.blogspot.com/ lovely blog which I must confess, I have only just worked out how to translate into English from the google translate icon on the blog's right hand sidebar! It is always interesting to read the stories of other parents navigating the same kind of difficulties with their children. M sends his best smile and I have added this link to my blogs of note.

Speech and language downloads

This is a speech and language therapy blog that I have featured before;
http://www.speech-language-development.com/index.html

Whilst having a good look round this old favourite recently, I noticed this link http://freelanguagestuff.com/ which has some excellent free downloads.

The Birthday Bandits

It has almost become a family tradition, that my Birthdays past have been hampered by 'The Birthday Curse.' In times past they have been marred by dying relatives, floods, divorce and a whole host of other misdeeds or bad luck.

Today, was no exception. We had planned a quiet picnic by the river, but M who seems to has developed either a tic or a cough which fell foul to a fully fledged asthma attack on route. After an emergency dash to the chemist, the rest of the day went off without a hitch and was really rather lovely.

Since major disaster seemed to have been averted, I decided to treat myself to a Birthday nap. I settled down under the duvet taking care not to disturb the nest of discarded gifts envelopes and wrapping paper. Suddenly, there was an almighty crash and two bandits waving light sabres burst into the room hollering a ferocious war cry. As I stumbled around in the darkness semi dressed, the Dad was nowhere to be found.

'Where is Dad?' I bellowed. "We have banished him and disappeared him to the dark side" came the helpful reply. Thankfully he had merely decided to do a rare bit of tidying up in the garage and had left the front door on the latch!

A little update

It’s been a while since I have written specifically about how M is doing speech wise, because I have been a little distracted by the sensory side of things. We have recently experienced another of M's language explosions, since we have been following the sensory diet. M's syntax has improved dramatically, as has the rhythm and intonation of his speech. Whilst pro noun reversal is still a problem, the emergence of the Wh questions has heralded a real jump in the number of new words and concepts he has learned. When M was assessed at age six by the Meath school, he was struggling to follow two stage instructions. He is now following three stage instructions competently and in recent weeks, he has been managing to remember four. He has a small leather bracelet with four wooden beads on his wrist.

His SALT has taught him to repeat back each instruction and to touch each coloured bead by way of multi sensory reinforcement. He is then able to use the beads as a visual aide whilst repeating back the set of instructions, which helps to improve his auditory memory. I was completely amazed after school one day when he was able to re tell a long and detailed story that he had constructed with the aide of a series of pictures, earlier that day.

Being able to read well has really helped strengthen M's vocabulary and he seems to be making far more connections. Adjectives and categorisation seem to be a particular area of strength for him, although his use of the past tense is still fairly problematic. He still says 'didded' and 'hadded' a lot especially when he is tired.

Turn taking, beginning and ending conversations and social language such as saying hello and goodbye is still a problem for M. It struck me recently that he may not tune into faces easily, because he has to look away from a face to process the speech. His EP told us a while ago that he is very single task focused and planning tasks can still be problematic. I am very proud of his progress and am anxiously awaiting the annual assessments from his SALT.

I am hoping that the huge improvements in his functional speech will be a platform for his social communication, an area he still struggles with. I have a visual feelings chart and we talk about the feelings of the characters in the story books that we read together. I feel that the more structured social stories will be more useful in the near future. M is now showing an interest in pleasing others and the other day, he drew and cut out a heart for me that read 'I Love you'. I shall be keeping that one in my memory box, to look at when he is a grotty teenager.

To put into context how these improvements have impacted on M's progress at school, one of his IEP targets at the beginning of last year was to sit still on a yellow spot at carpet time. M now volunteers to do tasks in front of the class on a white board. He enjoys making the other children laugh with his ability to mimic and his sense of humour. M also loves anything to do with dressing up and role playing. On days when things have been difficult for M at school, I have to remind myself just how far he has come.

Today's link was recommended by a Mumsnetter and is for a blog called Autism Games which is written by a speech and language pathologist http://autismgames.blogspot.com/. Whilst it is based around children on the autistic spectrum, I feel that some of the posts would be useful for parents of children with SLI, especially for those with younger children.

Autism genetic break through

Well it is official, I am definitely losing my memory. Firstly today, I managed to delete all of my links and have had to page through the bog from day one to reinstate them. Then, when the Dad kindly sent me a link to the Daily Mail article on this news:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6369347.stm I insisted that I have already written a post on it!

Nuts and Bolts # 2. How to help your child to cope with Bullying

This workshop was pretty enlightening, not least because we were able meet other parents of children who have experienced bullying. The mood of the group was unsurprsingly subdued and some of the stories pretty grim. The course was run by Mencap and I was shocked by the statistics quoted from the NAS ‘B is for bullied’ report:-
http://www.autism.org.uk/bullyingengland
The report on a study of 1400 children on the autistic spectrum, states that 40% of children on the Autistic spectrum are bullied. Another study investigating the bullying of children with special needs found that 54% of the children surveyed in mainstream schools had been bullied and that 25% of these children had been excluded for their own safety.

Bullying includes persistent verbal abuse as well as behaviour which constitutes physical harm. This includes name calling (particularly names relating to the child's disability), excluding children from conversations and play, ganging up or groups of children who send children to Coventry. In short this is anything that reflects sustained behaviour which undermines children with or without disabilities.

The group leader gave some general advice such as keeping a detailed log of the incidents including dates and locations, both inside and outside of school. This would form the basis of a report of evidence, in order that schools can investigate the matter thoroughly. She also indicated some signs to look out for, which may indicate that a child is being bullied. These include torn and dirt clothes and withdrawn behaviour and changes in temperament or a child refusing to go to school. We have experiences all of the above over the last few years.

She also suggested that parents should follow the school complaints procedure from speaking to the teacher through to complaining to the board of governors. If matters cannot be resolved this way, the next step is to speak to the local education authority and the LEA anti bullying officer. In cases where the matter cannot be resolved locally, parents can consult The Children’s Legal Centre http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/ for advice.

Each school should have a disability equality scheme which should enable to school to positively discriminate for children with disabilities. In our case this has taken the form of the school allowing me to drop M off a little later and collect him a little earlier. Schools should also have an anti bullying action plan, of which a copy should be available to parents on request.

In the event that a child is affected severely enough mentally to warrant being kept away from school, parents should obtain a medical certificate from the GP.

The group leader also suggested some strategies that have worked well in other boroughs such as a buddy scheme, circle of friends and a school map with safe places, for children who feel vulnerable. there are also a number of useful organisations that I shall post on the sidebar under bullying.

NIDCD

Today's link is for an article from the US National Institute of Deafness and other Communication disorders website. It gives a fairly extensive view of speech and language development and includes language milestones and lists of useful US organisations.

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/speechandlanguage.asp

Parent Partnership Nuts and Bolts Day #1. Social Communication

On saturday we took the opportunity to attend a conference for parents of children with special needs. This was run by Parent Partnership and there were a number of workshops to choose from. These ranged from specific disabilities such as ‘Living with ADHD', to more general workshops on bullying and CAF and TAC. The children were also catered for and were able to choose from activities such as messy fun, football and chilling with songs and stories. I was really impressed by the way the event was run and by the stalls which had leaflets and resources for children with special needs. We will definitely be paying a visit to Thomley Hall activity centre http://thomleyhall.org/ which is a play which is designed to be safe for children with disabilities.

Since each workshop was worthy of its own post, I shall start with the ASC workshop on social communication. It was run by an SALT and special needs teacher and kicked off with a brief chat about the issues that a child with ASD may have when it comes to communication. These included the obvious language barriers for some, lack of eye contact and repeated loss of concentration, for those unable to screen out the sensory output around them.

We were split into two groups and played games to that would help with social communication. One team were asked to hold up a card with an object or card detailing a specific interest and they were asked to list three facts about the subject, before letting the next person take a turn. This was designed to help the more verbal children on the spectrum limit the amount of time they are allowed to speak and to practice turn taking. In our group we played a game which was like a non verbal version of Chinese Whispers. The first person would pull an exaggerated expression and the next would mimic this to the next person and so on, all around the group. This is designed to help children tune in to facial experssions and emotions. We also played a game where you had to give a mane for something in a certain category such as a zoo animal or a girl’s name. This again reinforced turn taking and categorisation.

We were given lots of hand outs with strategies such as allowing the child to draw cartoons in order to help express a difficult event, and using PECs to help with social skills such as saying ‘hello and ‘goodbye (we haven’t managed this with M yet.) It was suggested that the child is shown the picture sequences repeatedly and praised when he/she complies. We have used drawing as a medium to help M express himself, from about the age of four. He is now a pretty talented and prolific artist. I think that the cartoons will help to take this on a stage, although M has now started to write notes and is beginning to touch type. This again has been a real platform for learning and expressing ideas. There was also a hand out which detailed how helpful labelling, sequencing and visual timetables are, which I can already second from personal experience.

Finally we had just about time for a question and answer session. One of the Mothers wanted to know how she could stop her young son from hugging everyone in sight. I was really impressed with the idea of presenting people in coloured circles, which start with the child in the centre, through to family and friends and eventually strangers in different colours. The idea is that you take the child to the chart to explain when and whom it is appropriate to share different behaviours with. I am going to give this a go with the shouting problem which seems to be a tough behavioural nut to crack at school. I also liked the five point scale PEC style chart for both voice volume control and from anger to calm to help children articulate how they are feeling. I shall also be pinching both of these ideas.

M coped well except for one minor episode when he was hot by another child and wanted to retaliate, the play worker got him to squeeze her hand, a distraction technique similar to our silent whistle. All in all it was a really useful day.

The Great British Countryside

For those of you tuning in for helpful advice about speech and language, you may be excused because I am about to spin a yarn. About a year ago my doctor advised me in no uncertain terms that I must loose at least a stone and a half in weight. I should, she chirped brightly, forget the gym and walk for forty minutes a day, five days a week. I have managed to loose about twelve pounds, but the dial on the scales has stuck stubbornly in the same place since the New Year.

At the weekend the Dad bought a book of circular country walks in our neck of the woods. Since the day dawned bright and fair, we headed off to a local beauty spot for a long ramble. When we arrived the Dad realised that he didn’t really know which direction the walk should start off from, since we didn’t have a compass or an ordinance survey map.

A very cheery looking woman strode into view, wearing a dark blue turban, luminous pink socks, three quarter length trousers and a large orange fleece. Since she looked the friendly sort, we asked her if we could kindly help us with directions. She snatched the book from the Dad and declared that we should follow her, since this was her Boxing Day walk.

“I’m not going to take you down that way”, she said “because this walk is my treat for doing the recycling. I know the walk you want to do, because it is my Boxing Day walk." She repeated. "One can come up here to get way from the b----y family” she quipped. We wandered over hill and dale, trailing limply and despondently behind the lady. “Oh it’s a day for the great outdoors” she boomed “I’ve got rid of the telly, well not the telly but a telly” “Oh right yes” I agreed in a small voice. She eventually handed the book back to a hand, now worried looking Dad and waved us off cheerily in the direction of some woods.

We trundled through the woods (which I have to say were beautiful) and across a field where we were chased by a herd of goats. I swallowed a fly, argued with the Dad about which set of arrows we should be following and nearly expired climbing a gentle slope (read gigantic hill) I hate to admit that some of the stiles were so high that I couldn't’t lift my leg over without assistance! (Oh that it has come to this!) How glad I was to finally see the car.

"Fancy a bar snack?" said the Dad "Go on you've twisted my arm," I replied just a second too soon to be convincing. On reflection, I have to thank God for great British eccentrics. We are a hale and hearty breed!

Stephenson's Rocket

Blenheim Last year

I am sorry for the resounding silence lately, I seem to have lost my blogging voice a little of late. When I was a child I was mortified at being given the nickname Stephenson's Rocket. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/launch_ani_rocket.shtml This was bestowed on me by a delightful teacher, who was referring not only to my surname but also with irony, because I learned French at a snail's pace.

I wish in retrospect that he could have seen my son today, since I should imagine he would have been forced to eat his words. M's first race of the season was held in the beautiful grounds of Blenheim Palace. It was a one mile fun run and he finished 30th out of 158 finishers. M came in 2nd in the under nine category and was competing against many children from good athletic and running clubs. He finished in 7 minutes 18 seconds, shaving 50 seconds off last year's time. The core stability exercises in the sensory diet have obviously paid off.

I was even more impressed by the fact that M managed to speak into the microphone, for a local radio station that were covering the event. For a child who up until recently was often rendered mute, this is a massive achievement and I hope that you will forgive me for having a proud Mummy moment!