Posts
I have been going Apps Mania for the past few hours.I couldn't emphasis much more on how effective, great, easy, did I mention great.. Apps from Itunes can be.
Apps have been proved to help children and especially children with special needs relate to skills we try to teach them. These Apps allow us to use low cost, space efficient, fun and interactive, multi sensory and organized resource material for us to use with our clients.These are a list of some of the Apps that I use:
1.The first ever App to use as an Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) device such as Proloquo2go
.
2.Smarty Ears by Barbara Fernandes ,a SLP who has opened up a whole treasure chest of resources for us to use.
3.Grammar Jammer with its fun rap singing explanation to what Adjectives, nouns, verbs, punctuations and more,allowing you to check the skill that you have learnt.
4.Kindergarten.com using the principle of ABA(Applied Behavioral Analysis)
5. and many relevant Apps if you look into the Education section.
Also, to hear from Barbara Fernandes writing for ADVANCE on Apps to revolutionize you Therapy.
Enjoy Apping!
Welcome to the Children's Speech Therapy Corner
Welcome to a Corner filled with Information related to the Speech and Language disorders seen in Children. Information on assessment, intervention strategies, and the latest updates in research. You will also be able to interact with other professionals and parents.
Click here to check out my website:
Click here to check out my website:
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words: Using Photo Books to Increase Vocabulary, Grammar, and Narrative Skills
2011 JULY 6
tags: literacy, reading comprehension
by Becca Jarzynski
Photo by DeusXFlorida
Making photo books with your kids is a fabulous way to help increase their language skills. It matters not if you are a mom simply looking for creative ways to provide your toddler with a language-rich environment or a dad looking for ways to help your kindergartener learn to tell stories– photo books are a flexible tool than can be used in a huge variety of ways.
How to use picture books? The general idea goes a little something like this:
1.Take pictures during a fun event such as a trip to the zoo or the beach,
2.Capture key moments in the pictures,
3.Print the pictures that highlight the key moments from the event,
4.Spend a few afternoons gluing the pictures onto construction paper, letting your children help cut, glue and color around the pictures; if your child is old enough, help him to write captions for the pictures, and
5.Laminate the pages and have them bound into a book that can be read over and over.
6.One you’ve done this, you’re all set up to use the books to help increase language. Kids love these books because they are based in experiences that they had; this makes the books both meaningful and fun. And children usually want to read the books over and over again– as annoying as this can be, it makes picture books the perfect vehicle for developing language.
With toddlers, you can use the pictures to build on language. Most toddlers love to start looking at pictures of themselves around 12-24 months, right when they are starting to rapidly increase their vocabulary and move from one-word phrases to two-word phrases. Photo books create excellent opportunities for using parallel talk, description, and expansion to help children develop new vocabulary and help them make the jump from one to two words.
I use expansion with my daughter, who is looking at a picture of herself riding a toy motorcycle with her brother, James. First, I wait for her to say something (“ride!”). Then I build on her words by putting them into short phrases, two different times. As a result, she comes back with a two-word phrase of her own (“James riding”)! No, it doesn’t always work this quickly….I’ve been using parallel talk, description and expansion with her for the past year and it’s only really starting to pay off now.
Toddlers aren’t the only ones who benefit from photo books, though. Using these books with preschoolers and early elementary age children can be great way to work on a whole variety of language-related skills. You can:
1.Work on sequencing by having your child lay out the pictures in the right order as you make the book,
2.Work on pre-writing and writing skills by having your child trace words you write or write his own words and sentences as you make the book,
3.Work on vocabulary by defining new words and integrating those words into the story and by using time words such as first, next, then and finally,
4.Work on language by using indirect correction, in which you correct errors in your child’s grammar by restating what he said, correctly and conversationally (e.g. Your child: “I runned really fast!” You: “You did. You ran so fast!”), and
5.Work on memory by having your child practice telling the story with and without the picture book in front of him.
6.Finally, photo books are a fantastic way to work on narrative (story) development. Developing an understanding of narrative structure (the typical flow of stories) is essential to being able to engage in conversations, tell others about things that have happened, and understand academic texts later in the elementary years. Enhancing narrative development is an asset for any child; I work on it with my son, often. It’s also a skill that can be very hard for children with language delays and specific diagnoses such as autism, so working on it with these children is essential. Using photo books to visually show stories in which children actually participated helps make narrative structure more concrete and easier to understand. At first, you can use photo books to help your child understand that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Later, during the early elementary age years, you can help your child form a story that has the following elements:
1.Setting (“We were at the zoo”)
2.Goal (“We wanted to see the animals,”)
3.Problem (“But Sally was scared of the lion.”)
4.Feelings (“I was so mad, because I wanted to see the lion.”)
5.Attempt to solve the problem (“So we went to see the owls instead. Then Sally was ready to see the lion. Mom just covered her eyes.”)
6. Conclusion (“After that, we had a really fun day.”)
It doesn’t have to be perfect, of course. Stories are messy, just like life. They won’t fit perfectly into those elements, nor should they. But telling stories in a way that wraps loosely around those story elements, over and over and over again, will help your child begin to internalize the flow of stories.
There is so much to do with picture books that the possibilities seem endless. What’s more, at the end of the day, you also have a book full of memories that your children will cherish for years to come. And that’s just priceless.
Becca Jarzynski, M.S., CCC-SLP is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in Wisconsin. Her blog, Child Talk, can be found at www.talkingkids.org and on facebook at facebook.com/ChildTalk.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Word Acquisition in toddlers
A team of cognitive scientists have good news for parents who are worried that they are setting a bad example for their children when they say "um"and "uh".
A study conducted in the Baby Lab at the University of Rochester, in Rochester, NY, shows that toddlers actually use their parents’ stumbles, hesitations and other disfluencies to help them learn language more efficiently.
For instance, a mother walking through the zoo with a 2-year-old may point and say, “Look at the, uh, rhinoceros.” While fum- bling for the word, the parent also is sending a signal that the child is about to learn some- thing new and should pay attention.
The researchers aren't advocating that parents add dysfluencies in their speech, but it is okay to have these verbal pauses.
From an article cited in the ADVANCE magazine . June 13,2011 Vol.21 No.10
A study conducted in the Baby Lab at the University of Rochester, in Rochester, NY, shows that toddlers actually use their parents’ stumbles, hesitations and other disfluencies to help them learn language more efficiently.
For instance, a mother walking through the zoo with a 2-year-old may point and say, “Look at the, uh, rhinoceros.” While fum- bling for the word, the parent also is sending a signal that the child is about to learn some- thing new and should pay attention.
The researchers aren't advocating that parents add dysfluencies in their speech, but it is okay to have these verbal pauses.
From an article cited in the ADVANCE magazine . June 13,2011 Vol.21 No.10
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Research Shows that Books without Text Can Increase Literacy, Vocabulary Skills in Children with Developmental Disabilities
Utah State University Study Shows Parents Are More Engaged With Their Children When Reading Books Without TextEarly Literacy Skills Are Indicative of Later Academic SuccessEmma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services Ranked Fifth for External
Compared to books with text, wordless books have been shown to increase literacy and vocabulary skills in toddlers with developmental disabilities, according to research from the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University – ranked fifth in the nation in terms of external funding for research.
The research, led by professors Sandra Gillam, Ph.D., and Lisa Boyce, Ph.D., examined the type of language mothers used when their children made comments during shared reading of a wordless picture book and compared it to the language used when comments were made during the reading of a book with text. The findings showed that more complex language and interaction were present between mother and child with the wordless book.
“We found that when creating a story or just responding to pictures, the parent used many words and complex sentence structures while engaging with their child. That level of engagement wasn’t as present when reading books with text,” said Gillam. “These results fall in line with the generally accepted belief that less structured activities, such as playing with toys or creating things with Play-Doh, elicit more productive language interactions between parent and child. These findings in no way diminish the importance of reading printed books, but incorporating interactions with wordless books is a way to build a more solid literacy foundation in children with developmental disabilities.”
Previous research has shown that early literacy skills are predictive of later academic performance, and while interventionists have encouraged parents to engage in interactions that involve traditional books, this study indicates that mothers may be more likely to respond to their child’s language attempts while sharing wordless books with their children than in interactions surrounding printed text.
“These findings are particularly important for speech pathologists who have long believed that parents of children with developmental disabilities must be taught how to respond to their children’s attempts to communicate. In actuality, many parents naturally respond to their children when sharing wordless books with them. Parents may need assistance in recognizing the skills they are already using and be encouraged to transfer them from less structured activities to literacy-based activities,” added Gillam.
“The research Sandi and Lisa are doing is really indicative of the mission of the education college at Utah State University, which is to help people lead richer, fuller lives through education,” said Beth Foley, dean of the College of Education and Human Services. “In order to best prepare our future educators at the college, we first have to have a solid understanding of how children best learn, both in the classroom and at home. This research is just one of many projects currently in progress at the college that will help us as we continue to develop the most productive and effective instructional strategies in education.”
The research “Maternal Input During Book Sharing: Wordless vs. Printed Books” was most recently presented at the Annual Convention of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association in Philadelphia.
Compared to books with text, wordless books have been shown to increase literacy and vocabulary skills in toddlers with developmental disabilities, according to research from the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University – ranked fifth in the nation in terms of external funding for research.
The research, led by professors Sandra Gillam, Ph.D., and Lisa Boyce, Ph.D., examined the type of language mothers used when their children made comments during shared reading of a wordless picture book and compared it to the language used when comments were made during the reading of a book with text. The findings showed that more complex language and interaction were present between mother and child with the wordless book.
“We found that when creating a story or just responding to pictures, the parent used many words and complex sentence structures while engaging with their child. That level of engagement wasn’t as present when reading books with text,” said Gillam. “These results fall in line with the generally accepted belief that less structured activities, such as playing with toys or creating things with Play-Doh, elicit more productive language interactions between parent and child. These findings in no way diminish the importance of reading printed books, but incorporating interactions with wordless books is a way to build a more solid literacy foundation in children with developmental disabilities.”
Previous research has shown that early literacy skills are predictive of later academic performance, and while interventionists have encouraged parents to engage in interactions that involve traditional books, this study indicates that mothers may be more likely to respond to their child’s language attempts while sharing wordless books with their children than in interactions surrounding printed text.
“These findings are particularly important for speech pathologists who have long believed that parents of children with developmental disabilities must be taught how to respond to their children’s attempts to communicate. In actuality, many parents naturally respond to their children when sharing wordless books with them. Parents may need assistance in recognizing the skills they are already using and be encouraged to transfer them from less structured activities to literacy-based activities,” added Gillam.
“The research Sandi and Lisa are doing is really indicative of the mission of the education college at Utah State University, which is to help people lead richer, fuller lives through education,” said Beth Foley, dean of the College of Education and Human Services. “In order to best prepare our future educators at the college, we first have to have a solid understanding of how children best learn, both in the classroom and at home. This research is just one of many projects currently in progress at the college that will help us as we continue to develop the most productive and effective instructional strategies in education.”
The research “Maternal Input During Book Sharing: Wordless vs. Printed Books” was most recently presented at the Annual Convention of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association in Philadelphia.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Best Practices in the Evaluation of Autism Spectrum Disorders (Ages 0-3) WEBINAR
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Time: 3:00–4:30PM Eastern
Presenter: Amy Dilworth Gabel, PhD
Register here: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/schedule/display.do?udc=an9g1u3nst4k
Putting together an appropriate battery to assess infants and toddlers with suspected Autism Spectrum Disorders can be challenging. Early intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders leads to better outcomes. Good assessment data helps to promote effective intervention. During this session we will review some of the best practices as you consider which types of measures could be used to answer specific referral questions.
Amy Dilworth Gabel, PhD, is the Training and Client Consultation Director with Pearson Clinical Assessment. She earned her PhD and MS in school psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Her undergraduate training is in psychology and elementary education from Gettysburg College. As a licensed school psychologist in Virginia, her specialty is the comprehensive evaluation of preschool and school-aged students.
Prior to joining PsychCorp, Dr. Gabel worked in the Fairfax County Public School system in Virginia. In Fairfax, she served in positions as a school psychologist, special education administrator, and due process specialist. She has provided training workshops on a wide range of topics, including linking assessments to effective teaching, AD/HD, reading disorders/literacy, executive function disorders, and a variety of assessment and intervention methodologies.
Time: 3:00–4:30PM Eastern
Presenter: Amy Dilworth Gabel, PhD
Register here: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/schedule/display.do?udc=an9g1u3nst4k
Putting together an appropriate battery to assess infants and toddlers with suspected Autism Spectrum Disorders can be challenging. Early intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders leads to better outcomes. Good assessment data helps to promote effective intervention. During this session we will review some of the best practices as you consider which types of measures could be used to answer specific referral questions.
Amy Dilworth Gabel, PhD, is the Training and Client Consultation Director with Pearson Clinical Assessment. She earned her PhD and MS in school psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Her undergraduate training is in psychology and elementary education from Gettysburg College. As a licensed school psychologist in Virginia, her specialty is the comprehensive evaluation of preschool and school-aged students.
Prior to joining PsychCorp, Dr. Gabel worked in the Fairfax County Public School system in Virginia. In Fairfax, she served in positions as a school psychologist, special education administrator, and due process specialist. She has provided training workshops on a wide range of topics, including linking assessments to effective teaching, AD/HD, reading disorders/literacy, executive function disorders, and a variety of assessment and intervention methodologies.
April is Autism Awareness Month
The United Nations declared the first official World Autism Awareness Day on April 2, 2008.
Since that time, April 2 has been the designated day to highlight the need to help improve the lives of children and adults who suffer from the disorder.
The State of Qatar and Autism Speaks spearheaded World Autism Awareness
10 ways to honor Autism Awareness Month
Posted by
Kathie Harrington, MA, CCC-SLP
Occupation: SLP, author, speaker, mother of a son with autism.
Setting: Las Vegas, NV
1.Brainstorm with other SLPs about one child in particular, not at school or in the clinic, but over a cup of coffee or a soda.
2.Find a new app on your iPad or iPhone that you can use with a client with ASD.
3.Take a client with ASD on a field trip and explore a new environment together.
4.Find three new motivators to use with students with ASD. I scavenger around in dollar stores myself.
5.Make a bulletin board for your room/office that announces April as Autism Awareness Month.
6.Call one or all of your clients with ASD on the telephone and have a conversation. I would suggest telling them ahead of time that you will call them tonight to talk about ___________.
7.Turn on some soft music, sit back for 10 minutes, close your eyes, and allow your mind to drift into the world of a person with autism. They are sensory people, so you must see, hear, feel, smell, and perceive the world as they would.
8.If you team in a school/clinic with teachers, PTs or OTs, call a 15-minute "Autism Awareness Chat." Hey, buy a dozen cookies and make it a friendly, mind-freeing experience for everyone. Fifteen minutes may lead to more, and a chat in April may lead to one in May and June.
9.Invite the parents/caregivers of your clients with ASD into the therapy setting. Demonstrate strategies and pick one or two that you want the parent to carry over in the home environment.
10.Number 10 is probably the most important of all: read something new about autism, such as a story, poem, research, therapy strategy, etc, etc. Always be informed because as SLPs we are #2 in line to help children/adults with ASD. Who is #1? You tell me.
"Speech pathologists make good things happen."
Since that time, April 2 has been the designated day to highlight the need to help improve the lives of children and adults who suffer from the disorder.
The State of Qatar and Autism Speaks spearheaded World Autism Awareness
10 ways to honor Autism Awareness Month
Posted by
Kathie Harrington, MA, CCC-SLP
Occupation: SLP, author, speaker, mother of a son with autism.
Setting: Las Vegas, NV
1.Brainstorm with other SLPs about one child in particular, not at school or in the clinic, but over a cup of coffee or a soda.
2.Find a new app on your iPad or iPhone that you can use with a client with ASD.
3.Take a client with ASD on a field trip and explore a new environment together.
4.Find three new motivators to use with students with ASD. I scavenger around in dollar stores myself.
5.Make a bulletin board for your room/office that announces April as Autism Awareness Month.
6.Call one or all of your clients with ASD on the telephone and have a conversation. I would suggest telling them ahead of time that you will call them tonight to talk about ___________.
7.Turn on some soft music, sit back for 10 minutes, close your eyes, and allow your mind to drift into the world of a person with autism. They are sensory people, so you must see, hear, feel, smell, and perceive the world as they would.
8.If you team in a school/clinic with teachers, PTs or OTs, call a 15-minute "Autism Awareness Chat." Hey, buy a dozen cookies and make it a friendly, mind-freeing experience for everyone. Fifteen minutes may lead to more, and a chat in April may lead to one in May and June.
9.Invite the parents/caregivers of your clients with ASD into the therapy setting. Demonstrate strategies and pick one or two that you want the parent to carry over in the home environment.
10.Number 10 is probably the most important of all: read something new about autism, such as a story, poem, research, therapy strategy, etc, etc. Always be informed because as SLPs we are #2 in line to help children/adults with ASD. Who is #1? You tell me.
"Speech pathologists make good things happen."
Early Signs of Autism
ADVANCE Magazine
By Jason Mosheim
The barriers to diagnosing autism before age 2 threaten to keep children from receiving early intervention. However, now that clinicians are beginning to understand what to look for-and when-those barriers may crumble sooner rather than later.
Until the last few years, professionals didn't know what to look for in children who were only 9, 12 or 15 months old. They are gaining ground in this area, but the typical age for diagnosis remains between 2 and 3 and sometimes 4.
Clinicians may hesitate to make an early diagnosis or mention red flags to parents because of the variability in early child development. Although children may appear to have early delays, some will improve and go on to develop normally while others may fail to make gains or even regress. "You might see a 12-month-old and think everything's going great, but then things begin to look worse over the next six to eight months," said Elizabeth Crais, PhD, CCC-SLP, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
One way to see what children with autism look like prior to a diagnosis is through the use of retrospective video analysis. When children are diagnosed, Dr. Crais and colleagues Grace Baranek, PhD, OTR/L; Linda Watson, EdD, CCC-SLP; and Steve Reznick, PhD, director of the Program in Developmental Psychology, ask parents to provide home videos of their children made before the diagnosis in order to review early behaviors. Currently, they are looking at videos of children in two age groups: 9-12 months and 15-18 months.
"If we can get videotapes of the kids between 9 and 12 or 15 and 18 months, it allows us to see them potentially before anybody has a suspicion and look at their characteristics or behaviors," Dr. Crais said. "Some children begin to look worse as time goes on."
According to the literature, repetitive and stereotypical behaviors appear later in development, but they can appear early on in some children. These children may turn to repetitive behaviors as a way to engage themselves because of a significant deficit in their social skills.
"We are trying to identify children early so we can prevent some of the repetitive behaviors," Dr. Crais told ADVANCE. "Opening up their social world at an early age also allows them to take advantage of all the social and? play interactions that come afterwards."
Many children also engage in sensory-seeking behaviors, she said. "We look for things like pushing themselves against you or demonstrating atypical behaviors with their hands, bodies and eyes."
Her team also looks at broad communication skills like eye gaze and vocalizations.
Videos contribute to the study of gesture development, she noted. "We look at the early gestures that kids produce or ones they don't produce. There are patterns of gesture use even at these early ages. For example, categories such as joint attention have fewer gestures. A pattern of use begins to exemplify kids even in the 9- to 12-month range."
One interesting finding, she reported, is that "gestures, or lack of them, in the 9- to 12-month range are highly predictive of later language skills at ages 3 and 4. That's pretty powerful." As a result, researchers now are paying more attention to gestures, specifically joint attention behaviors of showing, giving and pointing. Dr. Crais has seen many 2-year-olds over the years who aren't talking but are gesturing, smiling, and using other ways to communicate. In many cases these children are late talkers who probably will catch up with their typically developing peers.
"If one 2-year-old gestures, communicates, vocalizes, looks at you, and understands much of what you say and another has limited or no gestures, few vocalizations and limited comprehension, the one that has all these means of communicating is probably going to be more successful. The other child likely will continue to have language problems," she said.
Gestures can be a powerful, discriminating set of behaviors that can help clinicians decide if they need to see children in intervention or can wait, monitor them, and let them mature.
In joint attention behaviors an individual attempts to direct a person's attention to something. For example, a parent points out an airplane to a child; a child shows an object to someone; or a child gives a rattle to an adult, wants it back, and repeats the interaction. "Many little children who have something in their hand want to show it to you and will look at you to make sure you're seeing it, too, and enjoying it with them," said Dr. Crais. "Little kids with autism are less likely to engage in some of these social behaviors that represent joint attention."
The most well-known gesture is pointing. Typical children point to things with the intent of sharing the experience with someone else. Children with autism often use behavior regulation acts to try to get a person to do or not do something. "Even very young children with autism focus on those kinds of behaviors. They grab your hand to get something or take your hand and guide you to the refrigerator to get you to open the door," said Dr. Crais. There are fewer joint attention acts and less variation in social interactions but not a total absence of either type, the researchers have found.
What makes it difficult to identify some children with autism earlier is that they may participate with others in games like peek-a-boo and communicate by smiling, laughing and looking when they are younger.
"If I raise the possibility of autism, some parents say, 'But he smiles, laughs, plays with us, and looks at us.' The notion that these children don't smile, laugh, or socially interact is incorrect," said Dr. Crais. "Some are very hard to reach, but even they have times where they can be reachable. The public has the idea that these children aren't social, and that's not the case in a number of situations."
At 12 months children should be demonstrating some behavior regulation, social interaction and joint attention acts. At 15 to 18 months, they should have a variety of behaviors in each area as they begin using words. "Words are coming in and begin to replace gestures," said Dr. Crais, "but there's a period of time where words and gestures are both used. The child will point and say 'airplane.' As words become more powerful and prominent to them, gestures begin to slide away."
Another important early behavior is play. The four common levels of play are exploratory, relational, functional and symbolic. Children with autism have an easier time with exploratory and relational play. They begin to falter when they encounter functional play, which is built on relational play. At this stage, for example, children put things together or line up blocks. In order to move on to functional play, they need to have a good sense of what other people are doing.
"Some activities require children to look around, see what everybody else is doing, and repeat the behaviors," she said. "Kids with autism traditionally are not that aware of peers around them and therefore don't learn ways to play functionally with toys."
Symbolic play also can be difficult for this population. "A child who blows on an empty cup and says 'hot!' is pretending to have a hot drink. Or they put scraps of paper on a plate and say, 'Do you want some chips?' They're symbolizing that something is there," explained Dr. Crais. "Those are very hard skills for children with autism. Many researchers feel the cause is a lack of social interaction."
Research has demonstrated that the development of play and language skills runs parallel at some point, she said. "We can look at both sets of behaviors and say, 'How is this child doing in both domains, and can we use that?' If their play is good but their language is poor, can we use play to enhance their language, or vice versa?"
Dr. Crais and her colleagues are conducting an intervention study using a parent report tool they developed.1If parents score their child high on the First Year Inventory (FYI), indicating many risk factors for a possible autism diagnosis, the researchers test the child. Those children who appear to have symptoms characteristic of autism are placed in a randomized control treatment trial, where they receive project-specific intervention or are referred for community services.
"Only a few children have finished the study, but already we're seeing really nice changes," Dr. Crais said.
A number of sources have identified effective components of intervention for children with autism.2Among the most important are enrolling them in intervention as early as possible and actively engaging them in intensive instructional programming for at least 25 hours. Also key is building spontaneous functional communication, as well as the amount of time spent in speech and language intervention.3-5"It's a pat on our backs to say that it's critical for children to get into speech-language therapy so they can begin to enhance their communication and social skills," she said. "It's affirming for us as speech-language pathologists to see that."
All children should receive a 12-month well baby check-up, which is a perfect time to begin looking at behavior, Dr. Crais said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children be screened for autism twice by age 2-at 18 and 24 months.6"We would like to see a tool like ours used even earlier, at 12 months, to see if there are any signs that might be a concern," she said. "Ultimately, we would like to get early identification down to 12, 15 or 18 months because these are critical periods for some children."
References
1. Baranek, G., Watson, L., Crais, E., et al. (2003). First-Year Inventory (FYI). Unpublished manuscript. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
2. National Research Council. (2001). Educating Children with Autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
3. Rogers, S. (1998). Empirically supported comprehensive treatments for young children with autism. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27 (2): 168-79.
4. Rogers, S., Vismara, L. (2008). Evidence-based comprehensive treatments for early autism. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37 (1): 8-38.
5. Turner, L., Stone, W., Podzol, S., et al. (2006). Follow-up of children with ?autism spectrum disorders from age 2 to age 9. Autism, 10 (3): 245-65.
6 Plauche Johnson, C., Myers, S.M., et al. (2007). Identification and evaluation of children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 120 (5): 1183-1215.
For More Information
•???Elizabeth Crais, PhD, bcrais@med.unc.edu
Jason Mosheim is a Senior Associate Editor at ADVANCE. He can be contacted at jmosheim@advanceweb.com.
By Jason Mosheim
The barriers to diagnosing autism before age 2 threaten to keep children from receiving early intervention. However, now that clinicians are beginning to understand what to look for-and when-those barriers may crumble sooner rather than later.
Until the last few years, professionals didn't know what to look for in children who were only 9, 12 or 15 months old. They are gaining ground in this area, but the typical age for diagnosis remains between 2 and 3 and sometimes 4.
Clinicians may hesitate to make an early diagnosis or mention red flags to parents because of the variability in early child development. Although children may appear to have early delays, some will improve and go on to develop normally while others may fail to make gains or even regress. "You might see a 12-month-old and think everything's going great, but then things begin to look worse over the next six to eight months," said Elizabeth Crais, PhD, CCC-SLP, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
One way to see what children with autism look like prior to a diagnosis is through the use of retrospective video analysis. When children are diagnosed, Dr. Crais and colleagues Grace Baranek, PhD, OTR/L; Linda Watson, EdD, CCC-SLP; and Steve Reznick, PhD, director of the Program in Developmental Psychology, ask parents to provide home videos of their children made before the diagnosis in order to review early behaviors. Currently, they are looking at videos of children in two age groups: 9-12 months and 15-18 months.
"If we can get videotapes of the kids between 9 and 12 or 15 and 18 months, it allows us to see them potentially before anybody has a suspicion and look at their characteristics or behaviors," Dr. Crais said. "Some children begin to look worse as time goes on."
According to the literature, repetitive and stereotypical behaviors appear later in development, but they can appear early on in some children. These children may turn to repetitive behaviors as a way to engage themselves because of a significant deficit in their social skills.
"We are trying to identify children early so we can prevent some of the repetitive behaviors," Dr. Crais told ADVANCE. "Opening up their social world at an early age also allows them to take advantage of all the social and? play interactions that come afterwards."
Many children also engage in sensory-seeking behaviors, she said. "We look for things like pushing themselves against you or demonstrating atypical behaviors with their hands, bodies and eyes."
Her team also looks at broad communication skills like eye gaze and vocalizations.
Videos contribute to the study of gesture development, she noted. "We look at the early gestures that kids produce or ones they don't produce. There are patterns of gesture use even at these early ages. For example, categories such as joint attention have fewer gestures. A pattern of use begins to exemplify kids even in the 9- to 12-month range."
One interesting finding, she reported, is that "gestures, or lack of them, in the 9- to 12-month range are highly predictive of later language skills at ages 3 and 4. That's pretty powerful." As a result, researchers now are paying more attention to gestures, specifically joint attention behaviors of showing, giving and pointing. Dr. Crais has seen many 2-year-olds over the years who aren't talking but are gesturing, smiling, and using other ways to communicate. In many cases these children are late talkers who probably will catch up with their typically developing peers.
"If one 2-year-old gestures, communicates, vocalizes, looks at you, and understands much of what you say and another has limited or no gestures, few vocalizations and limited comprehension, the one that has all these means of communicating is probably going to be more successful. The other child likely will continue to have language problems," she said.
Gestures can be a powerful, discriminating set of behaviors that can help clinicians decide if they need to see children in intervention or can wait, monitor them, and let them mature.
In joint attention behaviors an individual attempts to direct a person's attention to something. For example, a parent points out an airplane to a child; a child shows an object to someone; or a child gives a rattle to an adult, wants it back, and repeats the interaction. "Many little children who have something in their hand want to show it to you and will look at you to make sure you're seeing it, too, and enjoying it with them," said Dr. Crais. "Little kids with autism are less likely to engage in some of these social behaviors that represent joint attention."
The most well-known gesture is pointing. Typical children point to things with the intent of sharing the experience with someone else. Children with autism often use behavior regulation acts to try to get a person to do or not do something. "Even very young children with autism focus on those kinds of behaviors. They grab your hand to get something or take your hand and guide you to the refrigerator to get you to open the door," said Dr. Crais. There are fewer joint attention acts and less variation in social interactions but not a total absence of either type, the researchers have found.
What makes it difficult to identify some children with autism earlier is that they may participate with others in games like peek-a-boo and communicate by smiling, laughing and looking when they are younger.
"If I raise the possibility of autism, some parents say, 'But he smiles, laughs, plays with us, and looks at us.' The notion that these children don't smile, laugh, or socially interact is incorrect," said Dr. Crais. "Some are very hard to reach, but even they have times where they can be reachable. The public has the idea that these children aren't social, and that's not the case in a number of situations."
At 12 months children should be demonstrating some behavior regulation, social interaction and joint attention acts. At 15 to 18 months, they should have a variety of behaviors in each area as they begin using words. "Words are coming in and begin to replace gestures," said Dr. Crais, "but there's a period of time where words and gestures are both used. The child will point and say 'airplane.' As words become more powerful and prominent to them, gestures begin to slide away."
Another important early behavior is play. The four common levels of play are exploratory, relational, functional and symbolic. Children with autism have an easier time with exploratory and relational play. They begin to falter when they encounter functional play, which is built on relational play. At this stage, for example, children put things together or line up blocks. In order to move on to functional play, they need to have a good sense of what other people are doing.
"Some activities require children to look around, see what everybody else is doing, and repeat the behaviors," she said. "Kids with autism traditionally are not that aware of peers around them and therefore don't learn ways to play functionally with toys."
Symbolic play also can be difficult for this population. "A child who blows on an empty cup and says 'hot!' is pretending to have a hot drink. Or they put scraps of paper on a plate and say, 'Do you want some chips?' They're symbolizing that something is there," explained Dr. Crais. "Those are very hard skills for children with autism. Many researchers feel the cause is a lack of social interaction."
Research has demonstrated that the development of play and language skills runs parallel at some point, she said. "We can look at both sets of behaviors and say, 'How is this child doing in both domains, and can we use that?' If their play is good but their language is poor, can we use play to enhance their language, or vice versa?"
Dr. Crais and her colleagues are conducting an intervention study using a parent report tool they developed.1If parents score their child high on the First Year Inventory (FYI), indicating many risk factors for a possible autism diagnosis, the researchers test the child. Those children who appear to have symptoms characteristic of autism are placed in a randomized control treatment trial, where they receive project-specific intervention or are referred for community services.
"Only a few children have finished the study, but already we're seeing really nice changes," Dr. Crais said.
A number of sources have identified effective components of intervention for children with autism.2Among the most important are enrolling them in intervention as early as possible and actively engaging them in intensive instructional programming for at least 25 hours. Also key is building spontaneous functional communication, as well as the amount of time spent in speech and language intervention.3-5"It's a pat on our backs to say that it's critical for children to get into speech-language therapy so they can begin to enhance their communication and social skills," she said. "It's affirming for us as speech-language pathologists to see that."
All children should receive a 12-month well baby check-up, which is a perfect time to begin looking at behavior, Dr. Crais said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children be screened for autism twice by age 2-at 18 and 24 months.6"We would like to see a tool like ours used even earlier, at 12 months, to see if there are any signs that might be a concern," she said. "Ultimately, we would like to get early identification down to 12, 15 or 18 months because these are critical periods for some children."
References
1. Baranek, G., Watson, L., Crais, E., et al. (2003). First-Year Inventory (FYI). Unpublished manuscript. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
2. National Research Council. (2001). Educating Children with Autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
3. Rogers, S. (1998). Empirically supported comprehensive treatments for young children with autism. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27 (2): 168-79.
4. Rogers, S., Vismara, L. (2008). Evidence-based comprehensive treatments for early autism. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37 (1): 8-38.
5. Turner, L., Stone, W., Podzol, S., et al. (2006). Follow-up of children with ?autism spectrum disorders from age 2 to age 9. Autism, 10 (3): 245-65.
6 Plauche Johnson, C., Myers, S.M., et al. (2007). Identification and evaluation of children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 120 (5): 1183-1215.
For More Information
•???Elizabeth Crais, PhD, bcrais@med.unc.edu
Jason Mosheim is a Senior Associate Editor at ADVANCE. He can be contacted at jmosheim@advanceweb.com.
Early Signs of Autism
ADVANCE Magazine
By Jason Mosheim
The barriers to diagnosing autism before age 2 threaten to keep children from receiving early intervention. However, now that clinicians are beginning to understand what to look for-and when-those barriers may crumble sooner rather than later.
Until the last few years, professionals didn't know what to look for in children who were only 9, 12 or 15 months old. They are gaining ground in this area, but the typical age for diagnosis remains between 2 and 3 and sometimes 4.
Clinicians may hesitate to make an early diagnosis or mention red flags to parents because of the variability in early child development. Although children may appear to have early delays, some will improve and go on to develop normally while others may fail to make gains or even regress. "You might see a 12-month-old and think everything's going great, but then things begin to look worse over the next six to eight months," said Elizabeth Crais, PhD, CCC-SLP, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
One way to see what children with autism look like prior to a diagnosis is through the use of retrospective video analysis. When children are diagnosed, Dr. Crais and colleagues Grace Baranek, PhD, OTR/L; Linda Watson, EdD, CCC-SLP; and Steve Reznick, PhD, director of the Program in Developmental Psychology, ask parents to provide home videos of their children made before the diagnosis in order to review early behaviors. Currently, they are looking at videos of children in two age groups: 9-12 months and 15-18 months.
"If we can get videotapes of the kids between 9 and 12 or 15 and 18 months, it allows us to see them potentially before anybody has a suspicion and look at their characteristics or behaviors," Dr. Crais said. "Some children begin to look worse as time goes on."
According to the literature, repetitive and stereotypical behaviors appear later in development, but they can appear early on in some children. These children may turn to repetitive behaviors as a way to engage themselves because of a significant deficit in their social skills.
"We are trying to identify children early so we can prevent some of the repetitive behaviors," Dr. Crais told ADVANCE. "Opening up their social world at an early age also allows them to take advantage of all the social and? play interactions that come afterwards."
Many children also engage in sensory-seeking behaviors, she said. "We look for things like pushing themselves against you or demonstrating atypical behaviors with their hands, bodies and eyes."
Her team also looks at broad communication skills like eye gaze and vocalizations.
Videos contribute to the study of gesture development, she noted. "We look at the early gestures that kids produce or ones they don't produce. There are patterns of gesture use even at these early ages. For example, categories such as joint attention have fewer gestures. A pattern of use begins to exemplify kids even in the 9- to 12-month range."
One interesting finding, she reported, is that "gestures, or lack of them, in the 9- to 12-month range are highly predictive of later language skills at ages 3 and 4. That's pretty powerful." As a result, researchers now are paying more attention to gestures, specifically joint attention behaviors of showing, giving and pointing. Dr. Crais has seen many 2-year-olds over the years who aren't talking but are gesturing, smiling, and using other ways to communicate. In many cases these children are late talkers who probably will catch up with their typically developing peers.
"If one 2-year-old gestures, communicates, vocalizes, looks at you, and understands much of what you say and another has limited or no gestures, few vocalizations and limited comprehension, the one that has all these means of communicating is probably going to be more successful. The other child likely will continue to have language problems," she said.
Gestures can be a powerful, discriminating set of behaviors that can help clinicians decide if they need to see children in intervention or can wait, monitor them, and let them mature.
In joint attention behaviors an individual attempts to direct a person's attention to something. For example, a parent points out an airplane to a child; a child shows an object to someone; or a child gives a rattle to an adult, wants it back, and repeats the interaction. "Many little children who have something in their hand want to show it to you and will look at you to make sure you're seeing it, too, and enjoying it with them," said Dr. Crais. "Little kids with autism are less likely to engage in some of these social behaviors that represent joint attention."
The most well-known gesture is pointing. Typical children point to things with the intent of sharing the experience with someone else. Children with autism often use behavior regulation acts to try to get a person to do or not do something. "Even very young children with autism focus on those kinds of behaviors. They grab your hand to get something or take your hand and guide you to the refrigerator to get you to open the door," said Dr. Crais. There are fewer joint attention acts and less variation in social interactions but not a total absence of either type, the researchers have found.
What makes it difficult to identify some children with autism earlier is that they may participate with others in games like peek-a-boo and communicate by smiling, laughing and looking when they are younger.
"If I raise the possibility of autism, some parents say, 'But he smiles, laughs, plays with us, and looks at us.' The notion that these children don't smile, laugh, or socially interact is incorrect," said Dr. Crais. "Some are very hard to reach, but even they have times where they can be reachable. The public has the idea that these children aren't social, and that's not the case in a number of situations."
At 12 months children should be demonstrating some behavior regulation, social interaction and joint attention acts. At 15 to 18 months, they should have a variety of behaviors in each area as they begin using words. "Words are coming in and begin to replace gestures," said Dr. Crais, "but there's a period of time where words and gestures are both used. The child will point and say 'airplane.' As words become more powerful and prominent to them, gestures begin to slide away."
Another important early behavior is play. The four common levels of play are exploratory, relational, functional and symbolic. Children with autism have an easier time with exploratory and relational play. They begin to falter when they encounter functional play, which is built on relational play. At this stage, for example, children put things together or line up blocks. In order to move on to functional play, they need to have a good sense of what other people are doing.
"Some activities require children to look around, see what everybody else is doing, and repeat the behaviors," she said. "Kids with autism traditionally are not that aware of peers around them and therefore don't learn ways to play functionally with toys."
Symbolic play also can be difficult for this population. "A child who blows on an empty cup and says 'hot!' is pretending to have a hot drink. Or they put scraps of paper on a plate and say, 'Do you want some chips?' They're symbolizing that something is there," explained Dr. Crais. "Those are very hard skills for children with autism. Many researchers feel the cause is a lack of social interaction."
Research has demonstrated that the development of play and language skills runs parallel at some point, she said. "We can look at both sets of behaviors and say, 'How is this child doing in both domains, and can we use that?' If their play is good but their language is poor, can we use play to enhance their language, or vice versa?"
Dr. Crais and her colleagues are conducting an intervention study using a parent report tool they developed.1If parents score their child high on the First Year Inventory (FYI), indicating many risk factors for a possible autism diagnosis, the researchers test the child. Those children who appear to have symptoms characteristic of autism are placed in a randomized control treatment trial, where they receive project-specific intervention or are referred for community services.
"Only a few children have finished the study, but already we're seeing really nice changes," Dr. Crais said.
A number of sources have identified effective components of intervention for children with autism.2Among the most important are enrolling them in intervention as early as possible and actively engaging them in intensive instructional programming for at least 25 hours. Also key is building spontaneous functional communication, as well as the amount of time spent in speech and language intervention.3-5"It's a pat on our backs to say that it's critical for children to get into speech-language therapy so they can begin to enhance their communication and social skills," she said. "It's affirming for us as speech-language pathologists to see that."
All children should receive a 12-month well baby check-up, which is a perfect time to begin looking at behavior, Dr. Crais said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children be screened for autism twice by age 2-at 18 and 24 months.6"We would like to see a tool like ours used even earlier, at 12 months, to see if there are any signs that might be a concern," she said. "Ultimately, we would like to get early identification down to 12, 15 or 18 months because these are critical periods for some children."
References
1. Baranek, G., Watson, L., Crais, E., et al. (2003). First-Year Inventory (FYI). Unpublished manuscript. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
2. National Research Council. (2001). Educating Children with Autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
3. Rogers, S. (1998). Empirically supported comprehensive treatments for young children with autism. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27 (2): 168-79.
4. Rogers, S., Vismara, L. (2008). Evidence-based comprehensive treatments for early autism. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37 (1): 8-38.
5. Turner, L., Stone, W., Podzol, S., et al. (2006). Follow-up of children with ?autism spectrum disorders from age 2 to age 9. Autism, 10 (3): 245-65.
6 Plauche Johnson, C., Myers, S.M., et al. (2007). Identification and evaluation of children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 120 (5): 1183-1215.
For More Information
•???Elizabeth Crais, PhD, bcrais@med.unc.edu
Jason Mosheim is a Senior Associate Editor at ADVANCE. He can be contacted at jmosheim@advanceweb.com.
By Jason Mosheim
The barriers to diagnosing autism before age 2 threaten to keep children from receiving early intervention. However, now that clinicians are beginning to understand what to look for-and when-those barriers may crumble sooner rather than later.
Until the last few years, professionals didn't know what to look for in children who were only 9, 12 or 15 months old. They are gaining ground in this area, but the typical age for diagnosis remains between 2 and 3 and sometimes 4.
Clinicians may hesitate to make an early diagnosis or mention red flags to parents because of the variability in early child development. Although children may appear to have early delays, some will improve and go on to develop normally while others may fail to make gains or even regress. "You might see a 12-month-old and think everything's going great, but then things begin to look worse over the next six to eight months," said Elizabeth Crais, PhD, CCC-SLP, a professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
One way to see what children with autism look like prior to a diagnosis is through the use of retrospective video analysis. When children are diagnosed, Dr. Crais and colleagues Grace Baranek, PhD, OTR/L; Linda Watson, EdD, CCC-SLP; and Steve Reznick, PhD, director of the Program in Developmental Psychology, ask parents to provide home videos of their children made before the diagnosis in order to review early behaviors. Currently, they are looking at videos of children in two age groups: 9-12 months and 15-18 months.
"If we can get videotapes of the kids between 9 and 12 or 15 and 18 months, it allows us to see them potentially before anybody has a suspicion and look at their characteristics or behaviors," Dr. Crais said. "Some children begin to look worse as time goes on."
According to the literature, repetitive and stereotypical behaviors appear later in development, but they can appear early on in some children. These children may turn to repetitive behaviors as a way to engage themselves because of a significant deficit in their social skills.
"We are trying to identify children early so we can prevent some of the repetitive behaviors," Dr. Crais told ADVANCE. "Opening up their social world at an early age also allows them to take advantage of all the social and? play interactions that come afterwards."
Many children also engage in sensory-seeking behaviors, she said. "We look for things like pushing themselves against you or demonstrating atypical behaviors with their hands, bodies and eyes."
Her team also looks at broad communication skills like eye gaze and vocalizations.
Videos contribute to the study of gesture development, she noted. "We look at the early gestures that kids produce or ones they don't produce. There are patterns of gesture use even at these early ages. For example, categories such as joint attention have fewer gestures. A pattern of use begins to exemplify kids even in the 9- to 12-month range."
One interesting finding, she reported, is that "gestures, or lack of them, in the 9- to 12-month range are highly predictive of later language skills at ages 3 and 4. That's pretty powerful." As a result, researchers now are paying more attention to gestures, specifically joint attention behaviors of showing, giving and pointing. Dr. Crais has seen many 2-year-olds over the years who aren't talking but are gesturing, smiling, and using other ways to communicate. In many cases these children are late talkers who probably will catch up with their typically developing peers.
"If one 2-year-old gestures, communicates, vocalizes, looks at you, and understands much of what you say and another has limited or no gestures, few vocalizations and limited comprehension, the one that has all these means of communicating is probably going to be more successful. The other child likely will continue to have language problems," she said.
Gestures can be a powerful, discriminating set of behaviors that can help clinicians decide if they need to see children in intervention or can wait, monitor them, and let them mature.
In joint attention behaviors an individual attempts to direct a person's attention to something. For example, a parent points out an airplane to a child; a child shows an object to someone; or a child gives a rattle to an adult, wants it back, and repeats the interaction. "Many little children who have something in their hand want to show it to you and will look at you to make sure you're seeing it, too, and enjoying it with them," said Dr. Crais. "Little kids with autism are less likely to engage in some of these social behaviors that represent joint attention."
The most well-known gesture is pointing. Typical children point to things with the intent of sharing the experience with someone else. Children with autism often use behavior regulation acts to try to get a person to do or not do something. "Even very young children with autism focus on those kinds of behaviors. They grab your hand to get something or take your hand and guide you to the refrigerator to get you to open the door," said Dr. Crais. There are fewer joint attention acts and less variation in social interactions but not a total absence of either type, the researchers have found.
What makes it difficult to identify some children with autism earlier is that they may participate with others in games like peek-a-boo and communicate by smiling, laughing and looking when they are younger.
"If I raise the possibility of autism, some parents say, 'But he smiles, laughs, plays with us, and looks at us.' The notion that these children don't smile, laugh, or socially interact is incorrect," said Dr. Crais. "Some are very hard to reach, but even they have times where they can be reachable. The public has the idea that these children aren't social, and that's not the case in a number of situations."
At 12 months children should be demonstrating some behavior regulation, social interaction and joint attention acts. At 15 to 18 months, they should have a variety of behaviors in each area as they begin using words. "Words are coming in and begin to replace gestures," said Dr. Crais, "but there's a period of time where words and gestures are both used. The child will point and say 'airplane.' As words become more powerful and prominent to them, gestures begin to slide away."
Another important early behavior is play. The four common levels of play are exploratory, relational, functional and symbolic. Children with autism have an easier time with exploratory and relational play. They begin to falter when they encounter functional play, which is built on relational play. At this stage, for example, children put things together or line up blocks. In order to move on to functional play, they need to have a good sense of what other people are doing.
"Some activities require children to look around, see what everybody else is doing, and repeat the behaviors," she said. "Kids with autism traditionally are not that aware of peers around them and therefore don't learn ways to play functionally with toys."
Symbolic play also can be difficult for this population. "A child who blows on an empty cup and says 'hot!' is pretending to have a hot drink. Or they put scraps of paper on a plate and say, 'Do you want some chips?' They're symbolizing that something is there," explained Dr. Crais. "Those are very hard skills for children with autism. Many researchers feel the cause is a lack of social interaction."
Research has demonstrated that the development of play and language skills runs parallel at some point, she said. "We can look at both sets of behaviors and say, 'How is this child doing in both domains, and can we use that?' If their play is good but their language is poor, can we use play to enhance their language, or vice versa?"
Dr. Crais and her colleagues are conducting an intervention study using a parent report tool they developed.1If parents score their child high on the First Year Inventory (FYI), indicating many risk factors for a possible autism diagnosis, the researchers test the child. Those children who appear to have symptoms characteristic of autism are placed in a randomized control treatment trial, where they receive project-specific intervention or are referred for community services.
"Only a few children have finished the study, but already we're seeing really nice changes," Dr. Crais said.
A number of sources have identified effective components of intervention for children with autism.2Among the most important are enrolling them in intervention as early as possible and actively engaging them in intensive instructional programming for at least 25 hours. Also key is building spontaneous functional communication, as well as the amount of time spent in speech and language intervention.3-5"It's a pat on our backs to say that it's critical for children to get into speech-language therapy so they can begin to enhance their communication and social skills," she said. "It's affirming for us as speech-language pathologists to see that."
All children should receive a 12-month well baby check-up, which is a perfect time to begin looking at behavior, Dr. Crais said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children be screened for autism twice by age 2-at 18 and 24 months.6"We would like to see a tool like ours used even earlier, at 12 months, to see if there are any signs that might be a concern," she said. "Ultimately, we would like to get early identification down to 12, 15 or 18 months because these are critical periods for some children."
References
1. Baranek, G., Watson, L., Crais, E., et al. (2003). First-Year Inventory (FYI). Unpublished manuscript. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
2. National Research Council. (2001). Educating Children with Autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
3. Rogers, S. (1998). Empirically supported comprehensive treatments for young children with autism. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27 (2): 168-79.
4. Rogers, S., Vismara, L. (2008). Evidence-based comprehensive treatments for early autism. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37 (1): 8-38.
5. Turner, L., Stone, W., Podzol, S., et al. (2006). Follow-up of children with ?autism spectrum disorders from age 2 to age 9. Autism, 10 (3): 245-65.
6 Plauche Johnson, C., Myers, S.M., et al. (2007). Identification and evaluation of children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 120 (5): 1183-1215.
For More Information
•???Elizabeth Crais, PhD, bcrais@med.unc.edu
Jason Mosheim is a Senior Associate Editor at ADVANCE. He can be contacted at jmosheim@advanceweb.com.
Friday, April 15, 2011
May is better Hearing and Speech Month
This annual event provides opportunities to raise awareness about communication disorders and to promote treatment that can improve the quality of life for those who experience problems with speaking, understanding, or hearing. ASHA have many resources to help you celebrate BHSM every day.
Even though this is mainly celebrated in large scale in the U.S, what can we in Europe doing to raise awareness among professionals, parents and schools.
Being in the Netherlands, with a wide population of expats, families find it difficult to find a native speaking English Speech therapist for their child. Parents feel helpless and not being able to provide help for their child.
Online Speech Therapy can be the answer.Your child can continue to receive Speech Therapy from the same therapist from back home, or find other English speaking therapists in the country. Being in the comforts of your home(both you and the child) with games to practice on their own, TinyEYE Speech Therapy Services opens a whole new magical world for you and your child.
TinyEYE has goal focussed games and you as the therapist is able to provide structured therapy, while the child plays and has fun. A tinyEYE session is usually 20 minutes filled with adventure going to Mars and swimming under water.The fun and excitement is new everytime!
Even though this is mainly celebrated in large scale in the U.S, what can we in Europe doing to raise awareness among professionals, parents and schools.
Being in the Netherlands, with a wide population of expats, families find it difficult to find a native speaking English Speech therapist for their child. Parents feel helpless and not being able to provide help for their child.
Online Speech Therapy can be the answer.Your child can continue to receive Speech Therapy from the same therapist from back home, or find other English speaking therapists in the country. Being in the comforts of your home(both you and the child) with games to practice on their own, TinyEYE Speech Therapy Services opens a whole new magical world for you and your child.
TinyEYE has goal focussed games and you as the therapist is able to provide structured therapy, while the child plays and has fun. A tinyEYE session is usually 20 minutes filled with adventure going to Mars and swimming under water.The fun and excitement is new everytime!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Reconnect
Its been a long time.. so I wish to reconnect!
Whats been happening in the last year?
1.Our second son was born.
2. We kick started TinyEYE Netherlands and started training Dutch speech therapists to use TinyEYE
3. More clients at the Higher secondary and primary international school.
4. I joined a EAL course at the International school with the teachers.
Well, thats what has been happening and its only getting more exciting and busier.
Stay tuned for some new articles and information.
Whats been happening in the last year?
1.Our second son was born.
2. We kick started TinyEYE Netherlands and started training Dutch speech therapists to use TinyEYE
3. More clients at the Higher secondary and primary international school.
4. I joined a EAL course at the International school with the teachers.
Well, thats what has been happening and its only getting more exciting and busier.
Stay tuned for some new articles and information.
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