Jewel Autism Centre

Cruising A milestone in  child development  which comes after the  child learns  to stand. Once the child learns to stand by himself/ herself, the next step is to start taking steps forward, holding onto any furniture. This is called cruising. It occurs between 8.5 to 11 months. This milestone proceeds walking independently. Once the child gains confidence to take steps holding furniture, then he/she would proceed to the next milestone of walking independently which would be achieved by the time the child celebrates his/her first birthday.

Oro motor Exercise Oral-motor refers to the use and function of the muscles of the face (lips, tongue, cheeks and jaw) for speech, chewing and swallowing. These exercises are designed to increase the range of movement in your tongue, lips, cheeks and jaw. When doing these exercises, it is important to move the designated area as far as you can in each direction until you feel the muscles stretch, but should not make it pain. Practice these exercises, once through, 3-5 times a day initially and later 5-10 times. JAW EXERCISES  1. Jaw Opening     Open the jaw as wide as you can until you feel a stretching, but no pain.  Hold this furthest open position for 1-2 seconds initially (later 5 seconds) then relax and close your mouth.   Repeat this open posture 3-5 times.Do the same while producing the sound /ah/  2. Side-to-Side Movement     Move your jaw to the right side as far as you can until it pulls but does not hurt.  Hold it there for 1-2 seconds then relax.  Move your jaw

Sitting Learning to sit the baby will get a new perspective on world and a little more independence. The back and neck muscles will gradually become strong enough to hold it upright. The child then realise where to put the legs to sit comfortably. You can help your baby to sit by gently easing legs apart to form a V-shape. This will help to give the balance and stability the child needs to sit without toppling over to one side. Once child can sit happily on his/her own and play, it’s just a matter of time until the child moves on to crawling, standing, and walking. When will the baby be able to sit up by herself? The baby will start to learn to sit at about the same time as the child managing to roll over and hold her head up. The muscles the child gradually developed from birth, is finally becomes strong enough to sit between four months and seven months. By the time baby is eight months old, he should be able to sit well without support. Nearly all babies can sit on their o

Standing Many babies move on to other  milestones  long before they master rolling. Between four months and seven months, your baby will spend time learning to sit up, using his hands to help him balance. At around five months, you can help him to  stand  up by gently pulling on his arms. Try to work at your baby’s pace. Six months to 10 months Between six months and 10 months your baby will probably start trying to pull himself up to stand while holding on to furniture. Learning how to fall is an important part of mastering standing and walking. You can see this process starting at around six months. When you’re supporting your baby in a standing position, he’ll put his arms out to save himself if he tilts off balance. A month later he will have learned to extend his arms and hands forward to help him gently fall to the ground on his front. 10 months to one year At 10 months your baby may start to learn how to bend his knees and even sit after standing. This is harder than y

· Communication tips Can’t get something for nothing : Try to always have the child do something to get a desired item or activity. Whether it’s a point, a vocalization, or a verbal request, the child should always have to do something to get something. Use the Visual Schedule:  Most classrooms have a visual schedule, but you can also use visual schedules to enhance conversation at home. Have the child interact with the schedule throughout the day to tell what you did, what comes next, and to prompt conversation. Practice Conversation Turn Taking : Set a timer and let the child choose a topic to talk about then when the timer goes off, reset the timer and then the child has to have a conversation with you about something you choose. Play ‘Dumb’:  Pretend you don’t know where a child’s lunch is or what item the child needs to complete a task. The sillier, the better! Have the child tell you (verbally or gutturally) where to find the item or what to do. Model Social Interac

Dyslexia | Learning Disability Dyslexia is also called as learning disability. Children with dyslexia have problems with reading, spelling words and sounds. Children with dyslexia have coordination problems. Difficulties faced by children with dyslexia can be observed from childhood. Dyslexia is the difficulty or inability of the child to understand the relationship between words, spellings, and sounds. These are the primary symptoms that can be noticed in a child at an early age, especially during the early school days and it is important to understand that no two dyslexic children display exactly the same symptoms. One should always remember that a certain dyslexic kid will not necessarily show each of the symptoms. The major difficulties that they come across are the following: Extremely smart when you talk to them but faces difficulty to read or spell words. They find it very hard to understand and deal with numbers too. Children are Good in Creativity but Academics aspe

NORMAL NON – FLUENCY GUIDELINES TO PARENTS NORMAL NON – FLUENCY GUIDELINES TO PARENTS Listen with pleasure with no completion of speech. Be interested and show the child that you are. Give him/her plenty of time to talk. Give him/her more opportunities. Encourage a pleasant relationship with others at home. Develop a sense of responsibility. Get him/her interested in/outdoor sports. Help him/her not to fear situations, words. Read stories together. Encourage singing. Make most of her assets. Help children in neighborhood and classroom understand her problem. Encourage him to have an objective attitude towards his problem. Prevent experiences that set off periods of excessive trouble. Talk slowly and distinctly yourself. Slow the place of your own movements. Keep your anxiety and concert away from the child. Occasionally fake some breaks in your rhythmic pattern. Give the child additional opportunities to talk in periods when there is fluency. Convince him

Prone on Elbows Prone-on-elbows posture. (6-9months) The child appears to be bearing his body weight on his elbows and forearms. The child’s elbows are flexed to about 90 degrees, and they are directly under the head of the humerus. Prone-on-hands posture. The child is bearing weight on his hands. The child’s hands are directly under the head of the humerus, his elbows are extended fully, and his entire chest is lifted off the floor. Typical children shows Sufficient postural stability Arms and legs outstretched Experiments with more movement of trunk in prone Begins to assume quadriped position Tries to move self on floor Atypical children – Preference for supine over prone Inability to roll Inability to sit Lack of motivation to move Compensations to accomplish age appropriate task Treatment Walking on hands off lap or foam roller This exercise will teach your baby how to move their arms forward which will prepare them for forward motion as they le

Specific Language Impairment Specific Language Impairment is a language disorder that delays the  learning of language skills in children  with no hearing loss or other developmental delays. It is diagnosed when a child’s language does not develop normally and the difficulties such as slow development, physical abnormality of the speech apparatus, autism spectrum disorder, apraxia, and acquired brain damage cannot be counted as SLI. The children with SLI are late to talk and may not produce any words until 2 years of all. At age 3 years they may talk but won’t be understood. As they grow older they will struggle to learn new words and make conversations. The cause of SLI is unknown, but recent studies suggest that it has a strong genetic link. Children with SLI are more likely than those without SLI to have parents and siblings who also have had difficulties and delays in speaking. In fact, 50 to 70 percent of children with SLI have at least one other family member with the dis

Crawling – A developmental milestone Crawling is your baby’s first method of getting around efficiently on his own. In the traditional crawl, he’ll start by learning to balance on his hands and knees. Then he’ll figure out how to move forward and backward by pushing off with his knees. At the same time, he’ll be strengthening the muscles that will soon enable him to walk. When do babies start crawling? Most babies learn to crawl between the ages of 7 months and 10 months. Your baby may opt for another method of locomotion around this time, though – like bottom shuffling (scooting around on her bottom, using a hand behind and a foot in front to propel herself), slithering on her stomach, or rolling across the room. How babies learn to crawl Your baby will likely start crawling soon after he’s able to sit well without support (probably by the time he’s 8 months old). After this point, he can hold his head up to look around, and his arm, leg, and back muscles are strong en

Phonological processes Phonological processes are patterns of normal development in which young children simplify standard adult speech. All children use these processes during their  speech and language development  because they don’t have the ability to coordinate the lips, tongue, teeth, palate and jaw for clear speech. For example, children between 1-3 may say “wa-wa” for “water” or “tat” for “cat.” Some children may delete the final sound in words (for example, “pi” for “pig” or “ha“ for “hat.”).  As the age progresses, their speech get improved and they will stop using these patterns to simplify words. By the age of 5 most children will stop using all the phonological processes and their speech sounds will be more like the adult’s speech.  Phonological processes compare a child’s articulatory production to normal adult production. There are different types of phonological processes and are Substitution in which one sound is substituted for another sound (eg: tar  for  car