•
Parents are always looking for things they can do to help their children suffering from ADHD and/or learning disabilities. Among the risk factors, there are some we can control and some that we can not. We can not control whether or not we have a family history of ADHD, whether our child was born premature or whether our child is a boy or a girl. It may be too late to change the fact that we smoked during pregnancy, drank alcohol during pregnancy or were exposed to toxins such as lead. But, we can look forward and help our child by not exposing him or her to second hand smoke. This is completely within our control.
And now a new study out of the Sleep Disorders Center at the JFK Medical Center finds that electronic media such as texting and video games at bed time can also influence our children’s risk for ADHD and learning issues. Girls seem to text more and boys play video games. Most parents were unaware of these behaviors. These activities can disrupt sleep cycles which can lead to learning difficulties as well as anxiety and depression. Parents must be aware of their children’s activities. And yes, you may need to take their phone away or at lest confiscate it at bed time.
Also, remember that you can help your child by keeping a regular routine and helping him with organization, getting regular sleep and planning for circumstances that you anticipate will be difficult such as those that will require prolonged waiting.
•
I received this email and think it is worth everyone checking out. I think this would be helpful for many of you out there. The link is www.senassist.com
I have been working with children with autism for over 10 years starting with ABA before qualifying to teach. Our software is based closely on TEACCH. It’s aimed at primary children, but secondary students also really love it. First the child chooses their motivational character from a choice of 48. Next they work through 6 independent tasks based on 6 speech therapy exercises – prepositions, pronouns, spelling, sequencing, comprehension and matching. On each task they have to get between 3 and 6 ticks to move on to the next activity. Once they have completed all six they get a personal certificate to print. There are four skill levels and also a related story with animated writing with symbols.
The aim of our software is to eventually get more children with special needs, particularly those with autism into the workplace in the future doing computer related jobs where they can learn routines and have fulfilling jobs working with computers.
Having seen that children in mainstream schools do not always have access to teachers with special needs training I wanted to create something that parents and teachers can switch on, see work and then find out a bit about all the theory.
It also allows students with a wide range of abilities to be taught together as the software allows a teacher to easily differentiate and assess abilities.
Please take a look at our site senassist.com and let me know if you would like further information to post on your site. There is a lot!
I look forward to hearing from you…
Kind regards,
Adele Devine
•
Just a reminder that our conference is tomorrow at the Hillsborough County Children’s Board. The Conference is free as everyone including the speakers are volunteering their time. In addition to myself, Dr. Sutton,Suzi Azizi and June Paulsen CLTC. Attorney Mary Greenwood who specializes in special needs planning will also be participating. We have a full house if all the reservations show up but you can call the office , ask for Marilyn and see what the latest head count is. It will be good information for those newly diagnosed as well as more experienced parents.
•
Monica Wharton of Disability Radio was recently kind enough to interviewed me regarding Hemispheric Integration Therapy and our upcoming free ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder and learning disability conference coming up this Saturday on May 8th at the Hillsborough County Children’s Board. She also asked me about our support group for parents which is sponsoring the seminar. The support group provides monthly meetings for the parents, families(the kids) as well as the outings and informational conferences like the one this Saturday. Here is the link to the interview http://www.disabilitynewsradio.com/
