Tips for the Whole Year
You know your child best!
January
If you are a new parent of a child with a disability, you may feel that you have entered a world of a variety of professionals, complex terminology, and tons of information and opinions from others. It can be overwhelming! Often, you must trust the expertise of professionals to guide you in decisions impacting you, your child, and family. So, get to know the professionals in your child’s life. Don’t hesitate to share your concerns with them, or ask any questions that will make you feel more comfortable. There is much to learn and do, but always remember -- you know your child best!
And if you are a professional, parents are relying on you! Sharing a concern about a child’s development with a parent is never easy, but it can be an important way for you to make a tremendous difference in the child’s quality of life, learning, and later development. If parents come to you with concerns about their child, listen respectfully. Find ways to support parents so that they feel confident in making important decisions about their child’s care and learning.
Effective parent and professional partnerships depend on building trust through listening, understanding, and respectful communication.
Play, and have some fun!
February
Play is important to healthy brain development. From the very start, developing infants are learning to play -- they gaze at people, turn toward voices, grasp a finger, and even smile. Through play they use their creativity, to learn, imagine, express emotions, build active healthy bodies, and interact in the world around them. For children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), these early “play” skills may not automatically develop. They may have difficulty giving eye contact or showing interest in you or others, and may use toys differently than their peers. The social world may seem confusing. But young children with ASD can learn and develop the skills needed for play, and you can help. Watch a child and try to ‘catch’ times when she shows interest in an activity. Even if what the child is doing might seem routine to you-- these are perfect times to join in with their play. Use these moments to show and encourage, take turns, and explore objects with them. Build playtime into everyday routines like bath time – splash the water, rub soap between your fingers, pass a rubber duck back and forth. Have some fun! Any time there can be joint activity between you, the child, or even another person is a potential chance for play. Children with ASD want to enjoy play and have friends. Start now. Play experiences that happen at a young age are opportunities to teach and practice social skills – and those are the skills with lifelong impact that enable us to enjoy interacting with family members, be loyal friends, good colleagues, and responsible co-workers.
You can track a baby's development with an app! Text4baby
March
A child smiles for the first time, takes a first step, utters a first word -- these are all developmental milestones. From birth to 5 years, children reach milestones in how they play, learn, speak, act and move. Paying attention to how children grow and learn, and keeping track of their developmental milestones, can help you understand their abilities. It can also help you act early if you have any concerns about a child's development. The Text4baby app can make it easy and fun! Text4baby is a free cell phone text messaging service for pregnant women and new moms, giving tips on pregnancy and the first year of a baby's life. If you sign up, three times a week you receive a text message that provide tips on things like breastfeeding, car seat safety, developmental milestones, emotional well-being, exercise and fitness, immunizations, labor and delivery, nutrition, prenatal care, safe sleep, and quitting smoking. You can time the messages with your due date or the baby's date of birth, so the messages are relevant for what you need. The app also provides 1-800 numbers and other resources, like how your baby is growing each week and medical updates. Learn more and sign up here.
Want to learn more about developmental milestones? View easy checklists here to help track the way a child develops from 2 months to five years old.
April is Autism Awareness Month!
April
This month, take the time to learn a little bit about autism spectrum disorders. There are early signs that can help you recognize autism. You can learn about them here.
Ohio has a guide to help parents and family members understand autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Basic Introduction for Families (include live link to booklet). The guide walks you through the characteristics of autism and also provides helpful tips for families that may be new to the diagnosis. This month…share this guide with someone you know... and they can share it with someone they know... and then you too can be part of spreading a message of autism awareness and understanding in Ohio.
For more information about autism and resources, visit the OCALI's Autism Center website
Get your Spring Cleaning on!
May
Are you new to parenting a child with special needs? If so, you may feel you are entering a new world and there is so much to learn and do. You may already have mountains of paperwork about your child (like records, brochures, information sheets) that have been shared with you by many professionals. As you receive this information from many sources, you may feel overwhelmed. This is where a little spring cleaning can help! Organizing the information and records that you collect is an important part of managing your child’s care and progress. Your child will have different needs at different points in her life, so start your organizing early! If you set up a simple system, things will be much easier over time, especially as the number of professionals you meet with grows. Many parents find that folders or binders are a great tools for keeping the paperwork organized in a manner that is easier to share. This is a simple way to take information with you to all appointments and meetings. Many use online methods track records and share information.
Guiding People Through Systems (GPS) is an online care notebook to help families, children, teens and adults with disabilities organize important medical and school records into one convenient, online resource. With this tool, you can build a virtual binder of information that can be shared with schools and healthcare or service providers (ohiogps.org).
Summer is Just Around the Corner!
June
Summer is just weeks away, which means not only are we looking ahead to warmer days, but also to favorite summer activities. But if you are a parent of a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it is sometimes easy for your child and you to become isolated -- especially if your focus on ASD consumes every-waking moment. You can change that! Try to have some sort of adult life, while also allowing your child to develop the skills to have one of his own. Brief yet ongoing activities in your community, together and apart from your child, can refresh and energize you. Take advantage of all of the opportunities that are available to your family and you in the community: a local parent support group, YMCA, local parks and playgrounds, libraries, community theater, neighborhood gatherings, summer camps, book clubs, recreational clubs, and others. These early experiences can pave the way for your child to be a lifelong, active and welcomed member of the community.
Want some tips? Check out Out and About - Preparing Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders to Participate in Their Communities in OCALI’s Lending Library.
Improve Your Interactions – 5 Fun Tips
July
Busy schedule? Feel like you have limited time to enjoy just simple everyday play opportunities with your child? Here are 5 simple things you can do ANYTIME to make interaction with your children fun and meaningful:
- Be on his level so that you can see what your child is interested in. Lay or sit on the floor, place yourself across from your child in his high chair, share face-to-face interactions. Find ways to position yourself, so you can be present and on your child’s eye level.
- Wait and allow your child time to communicate. Give her a chance to respond if you ask a question or want her to join in an activity. Waiting can be hard to do! Try counting to 10...lean forward and show your child you are anticipating and interested in her response.
- Take turns. Think about it, our most pleasant interactions with others are when we are taking turns with one another, whether it be in conversations or activities. Start out small, follow the child’s lead and do something he does, like add a block to a tower – then wait for the child to take a turn. Don’t be afraid to clown around a little, make a game out of it!
- Let your child make choices. “Do you want bubbles or Legos?” Giving choices can motivate a child to participate in an interaction or learning opportunity.
- Sing! Create songs to go along with daily routines. The sillier the better! Use them to help with snack time, bath time, dressing, toy clean-up, diaper changes, and other activities during the day.
Make Sense?
September
You see, hear, smell, touch and taste things -- your senses give you clues about the world around you. Most of the time your brain is working behind the scenes, sorting and categorizing all the sensory input, telling you what you like and don’t like and how you should react. For children with autism spectrum disorders, the way they experience sensory input may be different than the way you do. They may over- or under-react, like finding certain kinds of lighting and sounds distressing and preferring to only eat certain foods because of the texture, smell, or taste. They may wear only one type of clothing because of how it feels on their body, often finding tags and seams uncomfortable. The scent of an object or person may be appealing, or distressing. They may walk a bit awkwardly, have an unusual posture, have difficulty with balance, or not understand when they are standing too close to someone. You may notice them showing little or no reaction to pain, such as ear infections or broken bones; however, experience smaller things, such as a hangnail as traumatic. They may not sense the feelings of hot or cold, like not understanding that a cup of hot chocolate could burn their mouth. Every individual is different. So be aware of a child’s sensory preferences and difficulties, and how he reacts to things that he sees, touches, hears, and smells. Addressing the sensory needs of children with ASD can help them make sense of the world, while having a positive impact on their comfort and ability to participate in day-to-day activities.
Follow their lead -- be a kid again!
October
Watching the way children play with toys, listening to their words and sounds, and tuning in to the activities they enjoy gives us clues about what catches their interests. When you join in their activities by following their lead, you immerse yourself into their world. Recognize what captures their attention and share in the joy of their play experiences together. Jump right in there to build on the sounds they make, the words they say, and the actions they do. These natural opportunities create nice back-and-forth exchanges and shared interactions between you and the child. Research tells us that this shared interaction is the foundation for a child’s ongoing learning and communication development. So, join in! Sit on the floor with you child – and enjoy being a kid again!
Pizza on Friday nights – routine and predictability!
November
We all fall into routines. A cup of coffee in the morning…a story before bedtime…pizza on Friday nights. Routines are important; they provide us with predictability in our lives. The same is true for babies, toddlers and preschooler. Routines can provide children a feeling of comfort and safety. They learn to trust that others will take care of them so they can be free to relax, explore, play and learn. Routines (like bedtime routines) can help make transitions between day-to-day activities easier, allowing young children to anticipate what will happen next. What a great way to help limit the amount of “no’s” you find yourself saying to your child throughout the day, when they learn to anticipate and expect what comes next. There are many opportunities to embed routines from the beginning to the end of your child’s day at mealtimes, bath time, playtime, clean up and more. Learn more how routines provide the two key ingredients for learning: relationships and repetition here
Slow down and wait a minute!
December
Often when we ask a question or give a direction, we expect a quick response from youngsters. But slow down and wait a minute! Wait time is essential for young children, it can take them a little longer to process your information and then form their own response. Sometimes, as adults, we find it hard not have answers NOW. But be patient…wait…and when you think you’ve waited long enough, count out five more seconds in your head, and wait just a little longer. Each child has their own response time, it may take a few tries to figure out how long they need. Giving children “wait time” helps them process their thoughts, learn language and speech, and build self-confidence. Try it! As their little brains work a mile a minute to figure out an answer, see how their eyes light up having been given enough time to respond!