Here are a few fun things to try:

-use a straw to blow a cotton ball or small pom-pom

-blow bubbles into a dish pan of water with liquid soap.  Watch your little one laugh when the bubbles form in the water as a result of their hard work of blowing!  *Of course, make sure they don’t drink the water

-hold a cotton ball in your hand or place it on the edge of the table and have him blow it off.  Make a silly sound as it falls

-whistles of all sizes are fun, each differently shaped whistle changes the muscles used by the mouth, so be sure to provide a variety of sizes for super great exercise

-sucking on candy canes of different flavors is a super activity during the holidays.  Not only does it provide work for the oral muscles, but it provides many taste experiences.

-use pixi sticks and place their contents around the child’s mouth at different places, allow the child to use only his tongue to lick it off in front of a mirror

-straws of different sizes can be placed into your child’s favorite drinks

**REMEMBER** the smaller the straw, the harder the oral muscles will work to get the air out.  Begin with a larger, straighter straw and work down to a smaller, curvier one.

Let me know how these activities work for your child!

Post some of your favorites to share.

I encourage you to examine your own reactions to the New Year-wheather they are positive or negative.  Then, look at your child who is a visual learner.  WoW!  The visual stories that you can create to help your child have the potential to create REAL change to their daily lives.  Giving a visual along with your verbal praises, directions, and emotions can be a great help!  The visual image you assign can help your child immensely.  I have made a great many social stories for clients (and my own children) and have seen big changes in their ability to transition and complete activities of daily living with greater ease.  We all need visuals from time to time and don’t think much about them in our own lives.  We all experience the changes that come with New Year’s Day and I’m hoping that you take a minute out of that day to reflect on your child and the potential you have to make a positive difference in his/her life!

Happy VISUAL New Year to All!

Wishing you many blessings in 2012……..from your friends at Route2Greatness.

Have you noticed increased stimulatory behavior?  Increased “scripting?”  Increased need for jumping, crashing, deep pressure activities?  This is a normal response to the overload of sensations that come from the holiday season.  Let’s dissect the Christmas tree:

1) It’s new to have a tree inside of your home vs. outside.

2) The smell of a real tree or the materials of an artificial tree….yes, the fake tree has a smell (ask your child with autism!)

3) The lights coming from the tree and bright ornaments cause the brain to process more visual input.

Then there’s the music, Santa in his bright red suit, the excitement of presents, the change in routine in school to special programs, concerts, and parties…..

Please consider that your child may need extra time to process and to complete homework and activities of daily living.  Be patient and try to maintain structure as much as you can.  My son’s need for a visual schedule with rewards is strong every year at Christmas.  Our kids with sensory processing difficulty may not wear the fancy clothing, ties, or sweaters that we’d like for them to….that’s OK!  Let them wear that seamless shirt, sweatpants, or comfy clothing if they want.  Make a nice handout for your family about sensory integration issues if you need to and kindly give it out as needed.  Your child will thank you for understanding and giving them a little extra patience this time of year!!

Please let us know what your child’s struggling with this holiday.  We can help each other out with ideas and suggestions!!

We are thankful for each precious moment with our children.  It’s not easy to raise children and is even more difficult when they have special needs.  God has blessed us with the opportunity to learn how to use sign language, feeding tube, PECS, and behavior charts.  We have met wonderful therapists, friends, and other parents who have children like ours.  Facebook and blogging have brought us even more helpful connections.  Indeed, we have MUCH to be thankful for.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING from Route2Greatness to your family!!

Looking forward to sharing the life of raising a child (or many) with special needs with you!  We parent two wonderful children who have special needs!  Today, we’d like to say that we are tired of the saying, “You only get what you can handle.” CLEARLY, a parent of a child with special needs did NOT make up this saying. We handle what we HAVE to handle and are thankful for it, even learn to enjoy it! I don’t think most of us dreamed of parenting a child with special needs, but we’re all here. We can either sit and complain about it or learn to enjoy each little thing our child does. Each gesture, each word, each little milestone which would seem so small to those with typically developing children is so huge to us! Enjoy!!!!

http://www.bjupresshomeschool.com/content/special-education-document-resources

Yesterday, I proudly put on my new cottony winter shirt.  As I cut the tags off, I slyly thought, “It’s about time you bought something for yourself!”  After feeling quite confident that I would be stylish as I did my errands, off I went!  It was about thirty minutes into my trip that I realized I was getting warm.  After cranking up the A/C, I still felt un-comfortable and a little itchy.   Soon, I tried to push up my sleeves with no success.  You see, they were tapered down  my arm and were going to stay that way-like it or not.  The situation become dire as I felt sweaty, irritated, and a bit nauseaus from the lack of control I had over my own body temperature and sleeves!  After hours of this torture, I cut my day short and returned home to throw off this terrible shirt and put it into the Goodwill pile.  Ahhhhh..sweet relief.

Now, I will not be forcing my son to wear anything he doesn’t want to wear.  Think of this situation or your own similar one when you work with or live with someone who has sensory integration difficulty.  Every seam, bump, or roll on clothing may cause an unexpected reaction.  You just never know what someone else is experiencing!

The first step to learning how to help your child is to get a better understanding of what’s really going on.  The way each of us views the world we live in is totally subjective.   Every opinion, reaction, or idea we have is based on our experiences in life.  When we are created, we have several senses that help us to learn about our world.  The five most known senses are:  touch, taste, hearing, smelling, and seeing.  However, there are additional senses that most of us forget about or aren’t even aware that we have.

Proprioception   Is a sense that uses receptors on nerve endings found in muscles, tendons, joints, and the inner ear that relay information about our body position and movement in space. These proprioceptors detect subtle changes in movement, position, tension, and force  within the body and allow muscles to contract quickly and help protect us from injury.  Here’s an example of proprioception in use:  We trip and fall and sub-consciously, we put out our hands to brace ourselves.  The fall happened so quickly that you didn’t even think about your response, it happened naturally-to protect you.

Vestibular   The vestibular system is believed to be the single most important sense we have as it affects each and every area of our ability to function in everyday life.  It’s center is in the inner ear and it involved the visual, auditory, and movement receptors.  If you’ve ever had an ear infection that affected your balance, than you know the importance of the vestibular system.  If there is a problem with this system, results may be extremely disruptive to our bodies-headaches, nausea.  The vestibular system controls our balance and movement.  In fact, we can think of this as:  Am I moving?  Is something around me moving?  Is something I’m on moving?  Here’s an example.  You are at a red light.  You look down for a minute to adjust the radio and then look back up.  The bus next to you is moving, or wait, did your foot slip off of the brake?  You have to re-orient yourself to your surroundings.  Which one was it-your car moving or the bus?  Another example:  You are sitting on a boat in rough water.  Close your eyes and you feel your body moving about with the boat.  How did you know you were moving?  It was your vistibular system telling you!

Tactile  I mentioned touch above, but want to give you a little more information.  The tactile sytem involves recognizing temperature, pressure, hard/soft.  If you walk into a dark room, you need to find the light switch.  You know to feel for a rectangle that’s smooth and hard.  You know that it has a smaller switch in the middle of the switchplate.  Your hand finds it by feeling for it along the wall.  Example:  You walk in the park, you feel a light tap on your shoulder.  You immediately turn around to determine the source.  OR You walk in the park, someone accidentally crashes into you while texting and running.  You feel the impact and judge it accordingly.

When senses develop correctly, our bodies are able to take information in, process them through our nervous systems, and react to them.  We touch a hot stove accidentally,  we seemlessly and quickly remove our finger.  We didn’t think about how we were going to do it, it just happened.  Our sensory system is much like a computer.  It takes in information, processes it, and gives our bodies a job to do or an output.

What happens when things go wrong?  Tune in!!

We moved to a room that had natural light and was on the second floor-away from the noise of daily life.  As a side note, we used to have a one-bedroom studio and moved the classroom to the corner of the apartment most removed from outside stimuli.  The most important thing is not to have a big or small room, but to establish a clear border for your child.   If a room is situated in an open area, place a masking taped border in the area of the classroom.  Again, a clear and visual border is key to the success of the classroom.  Think about the usual kindergarten classroom with carpet squares or taped off sections to ensure the children stay within their limits.  Clear rules about the limits of the classroom are key here.

Open bookshelves are usually cost effective and easy to assemble.  The downfall to them is that their openness shows the colorful folders, markers, and containers that they hold.  We used a white sheet purchased for a cheap price.  Cup hooks were placed directly into the shelf and the sheet hung onto the hooks.  This set-up was an easy way to minimize the distraction of the bookshelves and my son’s desire to play with all of the items inside!

We use cardboard document boxes purchased at Wal-Mart to contain the items for each subject.  The markers and the visual schedule posted on my son’s desk are color-coded so that he can identify the color of the writing with that subject.   OT NOTE:  Having your child actually carry the boxes filled with the items for that subject is and excellent way to build in that “heavy work” which is so calming to little bodies.

More to come….

Let’s start with the preparation.  We are huge fans of the social story in our home.  To begin, we took pictures of Joshua, his desk, books, paper, pencils, etc.  The book started out with, “My name is Joshua and I love to learn new things.  I like to play with letters, trains, elevators….”  So, we outlined Joshua’s strengths and favorite activities to bring his attention to the book.  Next, we used the pictures of school supplies and named each one for him. “Here are some things that I may use in school.”  Finally, we had him sit at his desk and wrote on that picture, “I am very happy and feel proud of myself that I am a big boy and can have school in my house.”

We read this throughout the weeks preceeding school.  He was ready and this year, wants to have his book near him for security.

For all of us, knowing what to expect allows us to feel more comfortable and prepared for what’s ahead.