It is very common for parents to feel like they’re play guessing games when it comes to understanding their non-verbal or young child’s needs.

Signing can be a good option for young children that have not yet found the words to express their wants and needs or alongside other augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC).

Using signs with children can encourage clear communication, whilst improving their speech and language development.

Key Word Sign (KWS) is a technique of using signs from Australian Sign Language where speech and signs are used for words that carry the most important information. Single signs are frequently used as alternatives to gestures such as pointing, reaching, crying, screaming.

When introducing key word signs, you may start with meaningful signs such as ‘more’, ‘finished’, ‘eat’.

eat

more

finish

Start by using these signs in context for example when you finish a game with your child, introduce the sign for ‘finish’ before packing up.

When teaching signs to a child, it’s important to show it, sign it and say it as some children may not remember the word or action when it’s only signed and spoken.

Your child may not begin with the exact sign. Accept their version of the sign and gently guide their signs to become more accurate by repeat the meaning back to them – “Oh you want ‘more’! Let’s do ‘more’.”

If you are considering introducing key word sign to your child, speak to a trained speech pathologist who can help you to implement signs in your everyday lives. The following links are also helpful resources and information:

The Auslan Signbank Dictionary –

www.auslan.org.au/about/dictionary

Getting Started Key Word Sign Booklet –

https://www.scopeaust.org.au/shop/getting-started-key-word-sign-auslan-edition/

Key Word Sign App –

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/key-word-sign-australia-auslan/id1037292601?mt=8

Key Word Sign Youtube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBoz41x5Y4V4hHvTqpzu7FA

References:

American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA). (2018, Sep, 26). 11 Tips to Improving a Child’s Communication Using Signs [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.asha.org/2018/09/26/11-tips-to-improve-a-childs-communication-using-signs/

Scope. (2018). Key Word Sign Australia. Retrived from https://www.scopeaust.org.au/key-word-sign-australia/

Sign Planet. (2018). Baby Sign. Retrieved from http://www.signplanet.net/BabySign/BabySignPrint.asp

By Joanne Tran (Speech Pathologist)

Respiration or breathing is another super power! As we all know, our body automatically breathes at a resting rate to supply our bodies with oxygen for survival. Our breath also changes to meet our bodies demands. If we need more oxygen and energy we breath faster, if we need less, we breath slower.

When in ‘fight, flight or freeze’ our breathing also changes. We often have faster, deeper or even shallower breathes in order to cope with the ‘threat’. This enabled our bodies to react fast in emergency situations, to fight, flight or freeze.

In the modern day, the perceived threats have changed. Rather than running from a Dinosaur, we may perceive a loud bang as a threat or walking into a busy shopping centre. Children who are feeling anxious or worried, or are feeling overwhelmed may have respiration changes. These are important to look for as a sign of how a child is feeling.

The greatest power is that we can control our breath! We can also teach our children how to control and use their breath to self-regulate and feel calm in these situations.

Some go to OT strategies or activities to encourage slow and controlled breath include:

• Do 10 deep breathes
• Blow into your drink bottle straw for 10 seconds
• Blow an imaginary candle out
• Blow up a balloon or balloon animal
• Draw a picture with blow pens
• Blow your 5 fingers down
• Create a bubble volcano, fill a container with water and soap, let the child blow through a straw until it overflows
• Use toys that require breath, such as whistles, instruments, floating ball toys
• Blow a cotton ball or tissue in a race
• Roll over a fitball on your tummy breathing out as you roll, do 10 rolls/breathes

Focus on a slow and controlled rate, use a slow soothing and rhythmic voice to encourage this.

Written by Laura Taylor, Occupational Therapist.

Parents often ask questions about their child’s speech sound development and what is expected for their age. Some of the questions we get asked are “My four year old child cannot pronounce the /l/ sound and says yemon for lemon. Is this okay?” or “Should my three year old child be saying his /th/ because he says fum for thumb?”

A child’s speech sounds gradually develop with age. Although the development of sounds can vary slightly, most children attain certain sounds by certain ages. Here is a general outline of when children develop the different sounds:

You can use this as a general guideline to see if your child is more or less following the pattern.

If you have concerns about your child’s speech sound development, contact a speech pathologist and book an appointment. The speech pathologist will be able to tell you if your child is presenting with any speech difficulties or if your child is following the typical speech sound development.

Early intervention is important for improving your child’s clarity of speech.

Written By Tasneem Abdulsamad, Speech Pathologist

There are a few different things that you may notice if your child has trouble holding a pencil properly.

Isolating finger

You may notice that your child has too many fingers involved. This usually means that your child does not have enough strength in the small muscles of their hands.  Because they do not feel strong enough to hold the pencil, they use too many fingers (i.e. more than the thumb, index and middle fingers).

Thumb wrapping

You may notice that your child wraps or curls their thumb around the pencil too much.  This prevents free movement of the pencil and effects pencil control.  This is usually because of lack of strength in the small muscles of the hands, and your child is attempting to stabilise the pencil with the thumb.

What can you do?

Lots of activities designed to strengthen the small muscles of the hand.  The challenge is to find fine motor activities that they will enjoy so that they can build up the necessary muscles in their hands and feel more confident in their fine motor skills. Any activities that involve “pinching” are excellent.

• Clothes pegs – use them to hang up art work, or doll’s clothes, to build a fence around an ice-cream container, or pretend that they are crocodiles.
• Playdough- encourage lots of pinching e.g. making pinch pots, roll a snake and pinch it, or make a dragon and pinch spikes up along its back.
• Use tweezers to pick up small items as a race or to sort small items into categories. This is particularly beneficial if the tweezers are held in a similar position to a pencil.
• Rolling small balls of putty or playdough and even practising soccer flicks into a soccer goal (great for isolating fingers)
• Spray bottles with large handles encourage finger opposition and increase muscle strength of the entire hand. Water pistols will encourage opposition of the thumb, index and middle fingers.  Your child can water the plants with the spray bottles.
• Tearing paper by holding between the thumb, index and middle fingers.
• Eye-dropper filled with food colouring to make a ‘water drip’ picture as this requires the thumb and index fingers for precise ‘drips’.
• Any type of cutting activity will enhance pencil control as the fingers and muscles required for cutting are the same fingers and muscles are used for both.
• With the following activities, start with start with larger items and move on to small items:
  • Unscrewing nuts and bolts
  • Spinning tops
  • Buttoning and unbuttoning
  • Lacing and threading activities

Keep an eye out for the next blog on pencil grip development where we will focus on arm and wrist movements that influence pencil grip.

If you have any concerns about your child’s pencil grip development get in touch with an occupational therapist to assess and support your family.

Written by Alannah Sofianos (OT)

Cutting is tricky! Not only do our kids need to use both their hands doing completely different actions – one hand opening and closing and the other manoeuvring what’s being cut, but we usually also want them to cut on a line as best they can. AND usually within a loud classroom environment!

Consider the following when supporting the development of your child’s cutting skills:

Provide hand over hand assistance with your child if required. This allows them to get used to the correct way of holding scissors and how to open and close them.

Prompt your child to hold the scissors properly. This means the thumb is always ‘up’ and they can use one or two scissors in the bottom hole of the scissors. Some easy ways to remind your child to hold their scissors properly is

• Say to them: Thumbs up! This should remind them to keep their thumb at the top
• If they are using too many fingers in the bottom hole place a small piece of foam from a dishwashing sponge in their hand. Have them hold this in place with the other two or three fingers, which stops them from using these fingers for cutting.

Start with cutting shapes and line that are thicker lines and slowly work down to thinner lines. From here you can continue to gradually and gently ease your child into more tricky cutting obstacles.

Use your imagination! Cutting different items found provides your child with more information about how to hold scissors and how hard they need to press down in order to cut. This all assists them in learning more about cutting. Household objects like sponges, different types and textures of paper, newspaper, toilet paper, playdough, drinking straws, grasses and plants.

Consider what size and type of scissors you are providing your child to use and if these are appropriate for their current developmental level of cutting skills. As you transition your child to ‘grown up’ scissors provided them with visuals to support them with the transition.

The development of cutting skills is complex and it is important to consider the whole body and whole this is influencing your child’s fine motor skills and bilateral hand coordination. If you have any concerns get in touch with an occupational therapist who can walk you through each step.

Written by Alannah Santomartino, Occupational Therapist.

A calm corner is a great addition for any household! As Occupational Therapists, we often work with children who may experience ‘sensory overload’ that is, where a child is bombarded with sensory demands from the environment (sights, sounds, touch), leading to a physical and emotional sense of overwhelm. Or we often hear “my child is does well at school and kinder, but when they get home it’s like an emotional volcano!”.

The idea of a sensory calm corner is to support a child to associate the space as a place where they feel safe, supported and calm. Importantly, this is not only for moments of overwhelm or big emotion, it can be accessed when a child is feeling okay, or just needs a moment to re-centre.

Step 1: Find a space in your home that is hidden away from the noisier rooms such as the kitchen/living areas. This space ideally has dimmer lighting and is away from visual clutter or electronics.

Step 2: Create sensory blackout! Create a mini cubby house with a pop-up tent or a dark coloured blanket draped over a table. Provide dim lighting or natural lighting. This limits visual processing demands, blue lighting and creates a cosy hideout feel.

Step 3: Fill with soft textures such as bean bags, soft toys, weighted blankets/toys, cushions, doona’s or blankets! Providing deep pressure and touch sensation to a child’s body, such as the sensation of being swaddled, provides calming sensory input.

Step 4: Have options for calming activities such as reading, listening to music, a favorite fidget toy or massage toy, or respiration toys such as bubble buckets. This supports a child to be occupied by supportive sensory activities. Respiration toys such as bubble buckets, balloon animals or magic ball pipes support a child to slow their breathing.

Step 5: No technology! The purpose of a calm corner is to promote and support a child to learn to self-regulate!

It is important for a child to have frequent moments of calm in their day to avoid a ‘Volcano’ build up!

• Access the space for 10 minutes before school. After the rush of getting ready!
• Access the space immediately after school
• After bath time before bed

Written by Laura Taylor, Occupational Therapist

Understanding words like ‘in’, ‘on’ and ‘under’ help a child understand simple instructions (e.g.: Put your spoon in the sink), ask questions to clarify (e.g.: Is the ball in the basket?”) and engage in conversations. These words describe the location of an object. Other examples of words that describe the position of an item are ‘over’, ‘between’ and ‘beside’.

Children with language delay often have difficulty following instructions containing these words. They may also use these words incorrectly in their expression. For example, instead of saying ‘on the box’ they may say ‘top the box’.

Here are some strategies speech therapists often use in their sessions to help children understand and use these words confidently. You can teach your child by following these tips.

1) Start by teaching one word at a time. Speech Therapists often start with ‘on’ or ‘in’ and then move on to ‘under’.

2) Use real objects to demonstrate the position and tell your child where it is. For example, place a ball on the table and say “on” or “ON the table”. Make sure to emphasize the key word. Repeat this with different objects.

You can use hand gestures to give your child visual support. There are videos on you tube that show fun hand gestures to learn words like ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’, ‘over’, ‘in front of’, ‘behind’.

3) Get your child to follow your instruction

Teach your child to follow instructions containing the word you were teaching them. Use the real objects. You can place a box or container on the table. Hand your child a toy and ask him/ her to place the object ‘on the box’. Keep repeating until your child is able to follow the instruction without your prompt.   If your child is following your instruction correctly, remember to praise them.

4)  Ask your child where the object is.

Once your child is able to understand the meaning of the word that you are teaching them, you can now encourage them to use the word. You can put an object on another object and ask your child “where is the _____?” If he/ she identifies the position correctly and expresses it (e.g.: “on”, “on the table”), then praise your child.

Once your child has achieved this, you can teach them the other words in a similar way. Always try to use real objects that your child is interested in. This make it fun and engaging for them!

A Speech Therapist can help if you have any concerns about your child’s understanding of instructions and help to identify if your child has any underlying difficulties with understanding words that describe position such as ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’.

Written by Tasneem Abdul Samad, Speech Pathologist

Theraputty is a bit like playdough and slime, but it can be stretched and can be a variety of different strengths. We use Theraputty at De Silva Kids Clinic in many of our occupational therapy sessions. Below are some reasons why we love the versatility of Theraputty and a fun school holiday recipe to make you own at home.

Why do we love Theraputty so much?

Theraputty provides:

• A fun way for increasing strength and range of motion of the hands and fingers against resistance
• A tactile sensory input to increase motivation in engaging with the activity and assist with initiating calm and to increase tolerance to a variety of tactile sensations
• Bilateral hand coordination when use both left and right hands at midline
• Helping with force grading when manipulating the putty
• Attention and concentration, not only to the task but to attending to verbal directions
• Play and creativity is developed through a motivating activity
• Imitating and copying actions being modelled – important for learning new skills. This includes rolling, pushing, pulling, pinching and squeezing
• Motor planning combined with finger strengthening to manipulate the putty within an activity

A fun activity this school holidays may be to make your own Theraputty at home.

• 1 cup white glue
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon borax
• Food colouring

1. Mix glue and cold water in a bowl. Stir as best you can. Add food colouring here to make your Theraputty a fun colour.
2. In a separate bowl mix warm water and box until all of the borax is dissolved
3. Pour the borax mixture into the glue mixture. You may try to mix this with a spoon but using your hands and getting messy is the best way to bring the putty together
4. You can experiment with more resistance in your putty by using less water in either of the above steps!

It is always important to check with your childs therapist for specific recommendations around use of Theraputty at home. If you have any questions about your childs fine motor skill development, please feel free to contact De Silva Kids Clinic to chat with an occupational therapist.

Written by Alannah Santomartino, Occupational Therapist.

Children are masters of surprising us daily with new skills and talents leaving us constantly questioning “wow! how/when/where did you learn that?!”. Unfortunately, Toileting is rarely one of those miraculous surprises! It takes time, patience, commitment and a few key signs that your child is ready. There is no perfect age for mastering toileting, it depends on each individual child and when they are ‘ready’ both physically and emotionally.

Here are a few of the signs to look for that shows your child may be ready to take the leap!

• Your child has an interest in all things toilet! Including frequently invading your own toilet privacy! This is an important step for a child to develop and interest, understanding of the process and provide a motivation! Children may also begin to add toilet time to their pretend play.
• Your child is aware when they are wet/soiled. Some children with sensory processing difficulties can experience low sensory awareness making it difficult to know when and how to activate/relax the right muscles.
• Children may begin to show discomfort or request to be changed almost immediately. Children may communicate with words or gestures that they need to be changed.
• There are clear signs before the event. The signs may be a verbal or non-verbal or physical sign, such as facial expression, holding our diaper, squatting or hiding.
• Your child has frequent dry periods. This is where a child demonstrates that they have some control over their bladder. Before the age of 2, children and babies have little to no bladder/bowel control.
• Your child has a predictable routine of bowel movements. We can use this to our advantage! If we can predict when a child is likely to pass motion, when can support them to sit.
• Sitting! When your child feels comfortable and supported for a short time on the toilet. Some children benefit from additional supports such as potty seats with back and side supports or a stool to support their feet. This is very true for children whom may have poor muscle tone or instability.

If your child is showing some or all of the signs it is worth giving it a go! Occupational Therapists can support children who are having difficulty reaching this milestone. OT’s look for signs or barriers that may be delaying success such as sensory processing difficulties, muscle tone or other difficulties.

Written by Laura Taylor, Occupational Therapist.

How much more can your bucket hold?

One of the ways we can think about dealing with stress and emotions is the idea of a bucket. Some days, sensory information in the environment may lead to sensory overload – your bucket is near full and you are unable to cope. Buckets in this state will fill quickly and easily, and it is only a matter of time before they overflow.

On a ‘good’ day, your bucket might have plenty of room for stressors before you feel overwhelmed. Each and every day can be different.

We need to find ways to filter through our bucket to allow for space to take on stressors throughout the day.

Here are some tips for managing bucket levels:

Look for signs of a rapidly filling bucket. Don’t wait until the bucket is on the verge of over-flowing!

• Bottled up stress and frustration can be explosive. Each child’s signs will be different.

Remove any environmental factor. If you suspect that auditory (sound) input has caused overflow, it does not necessarily mean that is what needs to be removed at that moment. Try removing another environmental factor ie. Turn off the lights or providing a safe space.

• Ask your child to write down or draw what has made them feel frustrated and stressed. Who? When? Where? Why?
• This can help with identifying what can be removed from the environment.

Calming strategies

• Long breaths, deep pressure and rhythmic movements are most effective!

If your child is experiencing a full bucket regularly you can reach out to an occupational therapist who can help with strategies to help with a more organised processing of the world for your child.

Written by Alannah Santomartino, Occupational Therapist.