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Showing posts from March, 2021

Seven Totally Terrific Treatments for Autism that Might Be the Ones that Work for You [Update]

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 Did you know: according to the CDC, approximately 1 in 54 children was diagnosed with autism in 2020.   With so many children being diagnosed, many want to know: what are some ways that autism can be treated?  In this post I'm giving seven terrific ways to treat autism: Applied Behavior Analysis-- where rewards are given for valued behavior in order to increase that behavior. DIRFloortime-- a relationship-based treatment where the adult meets the child at his or her level. Lego therapy--  where playing with legos is used to teach skills like listening, turn-taking, and sharing. More Than Words-- a parent-mediated program that uses everyday activities to help children improve social skills SCERTS-- a support process where communicative partners are taught to implement teaching strategies during "real world" experiences. Social Stories-- where stories are constructed that explain social situations to children Video-based instruction-- where video recordings are given as a

What if my child can't talk with people?

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What if you didn’t know how to talk to people?  It’s estimated that 7.5% of kindergarteners have social communication impairments!    In this post you’re going to learn about social communication disorder— what it is and one idea for helping.   What is social communication disorder? It’s where there are problems with social interaction— that is, difficulties in using social language verbally and nonverbally. Its cause is unknown, but it may happen with with learning disabilities, traumatic brain injury, ADHD, and dementia. It’s different from autism since an autism diagnosis includes restricted and repetitive behaviors, like getting upset about transitions or lining up toys instead of playing with them.   These are in addition to social communication problems. Some things that are affected by social communication disorder include: Using greetings, adjusting to a communicative partner, repairing breakdowns that happen in conversation, making inferences, using figurative language, and ma

Lego Therapy

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Building with legos as a way to help people with autism? It's listed as a promising therapy by raisingchildren.net.au, and I believe it! Children learn the skills of "turn-taking, sharing, listening, conversation, teamwork, shared attention and problem-solving" while interacting through playing with legos (https://raisingchildren.net.au/autism/therapies-guide/lego-therapy). I love it! Children take on different roles like "engineer" or "builder" and work together to build a model. Sign me up!

Social Communication Disorder

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I did my master's thesis on social communication. Not too many years later, social communication disorder became an official diagnosis in the DSM-5. What is a social communication disorder, and what causes it? What are some things families can do to help with social communication disorders? Check here: https://www.autismspeaks.org/.../social-communication... and post your favorites in the comments!

What's a speech sound disorder? Specifically, what's a phonological disorder and how can I help?

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Between 2.3-24.6% of school-aged children are estimated to have a speech sound disorder. In this post you’re going to learn about speech sound disorders, specifically phonological disorders. What’s a phonological disorder, you ask? Watch to the end of the video and read to the end to find out and to find out how you can help with phonological disorders! I got much of the organization of this information from the American Speech Language Hearing Association website practice portal on articulation and phonology https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/...​. What is a speech sound disorder? It’s an umbrella term— it can have to do with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds. What is phonology? It's a system of contrastive relationships among speech sounds that are the fundamental components of langage— it's systems of sounds. What are articulation disorders and phonological disorders? Articulation disorders focus on substitutions or d