Jack – Recalling system

Posted on February 2, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 30 to Feb 3, 2012.

A week has passed by since the Chinese New Year celebration. I was amazed after a week off from the centre that Jack is still able to read the mini phrases book with ten phrases and other words which he has been taught before Chinese New Year. It is an eye opener to me, as those word lists and books are kept in the centre. It means basically that during the whole of the Chinese New Year period, Jack could not read those words and he is still able to recall them now. Wow, amazing. Bear in mind, Jack is a boy who has been attending a Montessori preschool and he could not read when he entered the centre.

In Chinese New Year, Jack received a large Ultraman (approx 2 feet high) toy from his aunt. He was proud to share this with me, but in my mind after this Chinese New Year Jack has grown up. Jack is no longer a little boy/small boy. He is a big boy and a Big boy doesn’t play Ultraman. Big boys play yo-yo,

English: Wooden yo-yo

A wooden yo-yo

London bus, remote helicopter. Well that is what I have told Jack … and I keep reminding him  not to play Ultraman if he wants to be a clever boy. I told him to pack his Ultraman and bring it to centre, then we throw it in the dump truck. Jack told me “ok”. In return he wants a yo-yo from me. On the next day of Jack confirmation with me to bring his Ultraman to centre, I went to purchase a yo-yo for him and another boy name Jeft (nickname) who will also bring his Ultraman, Power Ranger and all the vcd and dvd. The two boys happily handover the Ultraman, Power Ranger, … to me. In the evening they each have a yo-yo to take home.

Jack did make drama at home, but his parents was remained firm and said Jack has thrown it away in the centre. They direct Jack’s attention to his London Bus. I can see his obsession with Ultraman decreases as the day goes by. Jack also is more attentive in learning. Every day I affirm Jack that he is a good and clever boy. Clever boys have to learn to read and no longer play with baby toys.

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Accept the reality and help the child

Posted on January 28, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 23 to 26, 2012. Chinese New Year.

During Chinese New Year while visiting friends and relatives, I have been meeting up with teachers. Most of them are from primary schools. Some said “we teach the children but the children can’t absorb what we taught”. The worst is these teacher are then being blamed for not knowing how to teach the children. Some parent just can’t accept their child has a learning disorder. They fail to accept that fact and as a result the child has to suffer later in life the consequences of its development disorder.

Well, it is the sad reality of our country (and I guess many other countries) that there are few school teachers who have the skill to do early intervention training or even know how to recognize the learning disorders as a first step to help those children. If those children with learning disorders are not given the right therapies at an early age they will probably remain the same and later will fail to cope with the school academic.  In this context, who is to blame: the school, the teacher or perhaps the parents?

I guess every one who deals with children has to play a role to help them. In my blog I am thankful for the parents of Jack, Ruth and Milah. They accept the fact and send their child for early intervention. One can see the improvements they have made. e.g. Ruth was without speech, no self help skill, no eye contact, and she could not read when she first joined me in begining of January 2011, but now she can talk, has self help skills and is able to read well as the end of age 4; Jack was in the Montessori preschool for two year and still could not read, but now he is being transformed, he is able to read, write and follow instructions; Milah was without reading skill, had a low self esteem, communicated but little but now she is a joyful girl that can read, count and write.

Often I told Ruth’s father, he has to work hard to pay the therapy for his daughter, but  later  he will reap his sowing as Ruth will get better.

Dear reader of my blog, my piece of advice is to accept the fact that some children have learning disorders, but they can be overcome by therapy and it makes an improvement each day for your child. Later you will reap what you sow now. It is a long time investment in the future happiness of your child.

 

 

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Child’s Creative play.

Posted on January 26, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 16 to 20, 2012.
This week it is Chinese New Year weekend.

I have opened up a carton box and put it in the centre of the hall for Ruth to scribble on it. To my surprise a young boy age 3 (nickname Tom) has taken the box and fold it back to use it as a car. Tom sits in it, he begins to drive his “car”; there comes Ruth and she sits behind him. The two of them begin to communicate, I follow their conversation, Tom mentioned “check the tyres”. Both said “vroom, vroom”. They are truly immersed into their creative play.

I did not imagine any of the children will fold the flattened carton to use it as a car. I call them “little inventors” with creative play by using recycled carton. I guess we adults have lost touch with creative play. We are more focused on new technology play.

Jack lays on the floor and asks me to use the carton box to cover him. I fold it back to make it into a one side open box in rectangular shape to cover Jack. Jack seems to be in dark space. He feels calm in this position. I made little knocking sounds. Wow, that really involves sensory processing for him to be able to deal with darkness and sound. After Jack, all the kids  want to try to box games. In my mind I was thinking, we live in the technology age and we have forgotten about how nature will stimulate each of our senses. May be because of that we have many children who have sensory processing disorders. They lack activities that will stimulate their senses and the results are these little disorders. I just wonder in the modern world how many of the city children/urban children have the chance to climb up a tree?

Lion dance at Seattle's Chinatown-Internationa...

Lion Dance

Another day, an older boy age 6 (nickname Jeft) took the same cartoon box and folded it up to play as the lion dance for Chinese New Year. Jeft leads with the head, Jack in the middle and another boy (nickname Mike) carries the tail. My teacher creates the music, I invited Milah, and Tom to use pine sticks for drumming. Wow,  I truly see a group of talented creative children. They dance with joy and excitement. In my mind I said, since they have started this creative play, I will allow them to express themselves through the dance, I stand to observe their teamwork … and almost forget they are children with learning difficulties. Ruth and Tom are so excited and keep saying “my turn, my turn”, meaning their turn to lead the lion dance head.

It has been a joy to see that Ruth, Jack, Milah and their friends are able to join into a group to have fun.

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Ruth – Vision

Posted on January 20, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 16 to 20, 2012.

Improving Ruth’s skills is one of the greatest satisfactions I had. From a child with no communication skill to a child that communicates both verbally and in reading. My first year’s target was to recover her speech. Now we start the second year.

As I work with Ruth, I observe Ruth’s vision tracking. She seems to have a fast scan of what she sees. Hence, I believe this will affect her writing skill. Before she finishes her strokes of a word, she has already finished seeing it. Her brain is too fast for her hand. Hence this semester I am focusing on vision therapy for her. Much therapeutic work is to be done with Ruth. I have started the vision therapy and I can notice that her tracking and focus has improved though it is not yet what I expect it to be. I must remember she is a child that started from zero. Within a year she is able to talk and read, to me it was amazing. I also know many children that have been to a  speech therapist for years and yet their speech has not improved as much as Ruth’s.

Apart from attending my programme, Ruth’s parents did send her to a speech therapist once a week for an hour of learning. I am not sure  if the therapist noticed but there is a change in Ruth’s speech. Recently I noticed she speaks faster and faster until I cannot understand what she says. I further observed and I noticed her tongue rolling was weak. That result her pronunciation was not accurate. Bear in mind as the child grows all her muscle development will develop. It is a complex process: perhaps in her process of growth, she lack  tongue stimulation via the kind of food she consumes. A child at age of 4 may want a more solid texture food, however if her family has been feeding her mainly with soft food it may affect her development of the oral tract and speech organs. I have been working on the speech oral tract therapy. Of course I can see some results already but again I am expecting more.

Everything is connected, but the most important of all are proper foundations: without a proper development of the oral tract and muscle how will a child be able to talk?

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Jack – new discovery

Posted on January 20, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 15-20.

Generally, people will think that if a child is able to walk and talk, that child is called “normal”. But there is more than meets the eye.

I have been working with Jack for over a month. One of the therapy session is the game of the human wheelbarrow. Its purpose is to develop hand and arm strength and it made me realize Jack’s lack of hand gross motor skill. Jack will always want me to be a student so I pretend I am a student. Jack will have to lift my legs up so that I can use my hands to move. Jack tries to move my leg up however he could not make it. He said “teacher teacher, lift your leg up, lift your leg up”. But I remain unable to be lifted up. Via this game Jack begins to become aware of the concept of weight. What is weight? Heavy and light. Jack enjoys the therapy programme. I think it is because I go down to the level of a child to interact with them.

At one occasion, I invited him to stand on my play tunnel and to my surprise he dares not be up on the tunnel: I just realize he is afraid of heights. He doesn’t even dare to sit on the tunnel. However with a lot of encouragement and affirmation. Jack is now able to sit on the top of the tunnel. Wow, this is great. If Jack dares to sit on the tunnel it shows to me he doesn’t resist that much. One day he will have the confidence to stand on the top of tunnel. Many of us afraid of heights, e.g. to stand up on the ladder with 6 steps or more but we are unaware of our fear till we have to use the ladder. So it is with a child: how many of us will be aware of their developmental problems that will affect the later part of learning in life?

Along the way of working with Jack and observing him, I found out he is afraid of closing the toilet door each time he went into the toilet. I ask him why he doesn’t want to close the toilet door and he cannot answer this, he cannot not externalize his fears. It is my understanding that only when a child has gone through a traumatic experience, he/she will be afraid to close the toilet door. Maybe Jack has at one time gotten locked in the toilet? Jack has received intervention training daily since early December 2011 and as of today, Jack is able to have 90% of the toilet door closes each time he is in toilet. He also told me to close the toilet door for him … that is, almost closed but not till the knob is closed completely. It is important not to rush this process of unlearning traumatic induced behavior.

It may sound easy, but how many of us know totally the child? Many times we are too rigid, we rush the child into preschool with all the academic achievement instead of laying a proper foundation first. A child without a foundation, is like a house built on shifting sands. How will such a child survive in society?

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Jack – coordination and movement.

Posted on January 14, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 9 to 13, 2011.
As usual my morning programme with Jack is Rebound therapy and some outdoor games.

Time passed very fast. This week I carry-on the water pouring game with Jack. He seems to like this activity. As a therapist I will view it, as Jack is aware of his lacking in coordination.

Jack’s former pre-school is a Montessori based pre-school. He has been there for two years and I do not understand how it comes he has not developed eye and hand coordination? To my understanding water pouring is one of the exercises of practical life. It is something they should have looked into in his former pre-school. Obviously they missed that.

Jack is a choosy boy when it comes to food. However during the Monday morning tea break, Jack asks to eat bread with salad leaves. I told myself he must be joking. To my surprise Jack did finish the bread with salad leaves. Wow, another improvement Jack has made.

When teacher tells a story in class, Jack remains quite attentive. I also noticed that the more Jack is on Rebound Therapy, the better he can focus with an increasing attention span. For instance, I showed him a picture containing assorted items. There are 6 different items on the picture and Jack has to count each item’s quantity. He is now able to complete 5 items and only when he comes to the sixth item, i notice he looses attention. For a boy like Jack, I will say he improves each day and has made a nice progress compares to when he first came to the therapy programme

Today is Friday, I gave him a piece of paper to color: the picture has numbers in it and each number represents a color to use. It is a size of A4 paper. To my surprise he manages to finish coloring the whole page with only a small mistake. It is not a mean task: to finish the whole page the child needs to remain attentive, sit on his chair and color.

Jack's flowers

Jack's flowers

Well, when I give him this task, I explained that if he is able to finish, I will display his coloring on the wall board. I show him that his friend’s coloring was displayed on the wall board.

He asks how about his coloring? I told him, I will display it on the wall if he manages to finish the task. Eventually he manage to complete the task satisfactorily and I display his work on the wall board. He looks happy with a sense of achievement. It took him 30min to finish the piece of work with a ever better coordination and movement of his fingers.

A lot of intervention work has gone into getting Jack to keep his focus. Many techniques are used to achieve this. One of the techniques is massaging the nerve points that command eye focus. There is no simple and single therapy that can do all. Each child is a unique individual and it takes great efforts of observation and experience to find what works with one child but perhaps not with another. “One size fits all” therapy has seldom success. Each therapy must be adapted to each child. I will always adapt the therapy to the child and not the other way around.

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Milah – speech social skill

Posted on January 14, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 9 to 14, 2012.
Another week past, working with Milah really makes me to recall childhood memories. Milah used to be a girl who did not speak much. But now she speaks much. The tone of her voice is firm and clear. Every morning before cognitive development, Milah and the other children will receive a series of therapies to re-activate their neurons.

Our brain is just like our car engine. If we start our car engine but we don’t drive it, our car is unable to move. So it is with our brains. I have re-activate it for the children, I have to prepare the way for them to move it to the next level. This goes to Milah.

The “Story telling” session has been an interesting and interactive time. Milah truly enters into the story and points out questions. Compared to the first time I met her, now she became more confident. Her confidence has motivated her to speak out: e.g., I told the children if you forget to bring your water and you do not inform me, don’t expect me to read your mind and know you did not bring it. Of course I know who forgot to bring water but I am just opening a way for them to express their needs. On a few occasions Milah indeed told me that she did not bring water. Thus we allow children to make their own choices and decisions. Through this free will decision I can know more about the child’s emotional status and feedback to the environment.

The therapy sessions really improved Milah’s focus in learning, she also shows the eagerness to learn and is not passive. Bear in mind, the basic of all therapy is that we don’t “force feed” the children, we allow time for them to search and digest after we delivered the lesson to them. This may take a while, but the results are more deep and permanent: they become really an inner part of the child and not something which they just do because they have to do it.

In Rebound Therapy, Milah truly immerses herself in it. Her movement and rhythm is beautiful: to me it expresses that she has found an internal harmony.

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Ruth – human potential social skill

Posted on January 12, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 9-12, 2012.
Some background of Ruth based upon my observations of last year.

Ruth is without speech, no eye contact, can’t read. Her hand constantly fidgets when she is excited or sees a new thing, she moves around constantly, Ruth is always “on the go”, as if driven by a motor. Often leaves her seat in situations where sitting quietly is expected. She is hyperactive, inattentive, or impulsive.

With all the above symptoms, is Ruth an ADHD child? Well I don’t believe in labeling a child. Once you apply a “label” it will blind you to all that falls outside of the “label”. Reality is much more complex than a label can describe or contain.

This week I extend the time for Ruth to stay in the centre for further therapy. As happened before she refuses to eat the main meal. However to my surprise, when she is hungry she has less frustration today if compared to yesterday and last week. Today is Wednesday, I notice she will calmly try the variety of food on offer (banana chips, strawberry sandwich, apple). She also calmly engages with other kids to join in for a ball rolling exercise.

It is true, many parents tell me their child only eats a particular food. If they don’t give them what they want to eat, they won’t eat other food.

Walkway and entrance to the tunnel

Walkway and entrance to the tunnel

During outdoor play, I observe Ruth talking to a younger boy: “brother go to the tunnel”. In my centre I have designed and constructed a tunnel like a play house with three access entrances that link to a side window to see thru neighborhood houses. Along the walkway from the main entrance of the centre to the tunnel I have put in a pebble stone walkway with square steps. When walking on the pebble stones, I notice Ruth keeps looking behind her to ensure the little boy comes along to the tunnel. When reaching one of the entrances to the tunnel, she holds the little boy’s hand and they walk into the tunnel together. As a therapist, it shows me that Ruth is aware of what she is doing, has environmental awareness and can set herself a goal and take all steps necessary to reach it. With little caring acts like these, it tells me that Ruth is able to engage meaningfully with other kids: she is improving her social skills.

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Milah – Speech and focus

Posted on January 10, 2012 by vivien-lim

Jan 3 -6, 2011. Time passes by so fast. It was a great joy to see Milah is more confident after all the daily therapy sessions. Rebound Therapy has developed Milah to be more confident and eager to learn. Her speech is improving and she begins to recognize words. Her positive attitude has been a great encouragement to me.

The first day’s Milah and today’s Milah is totally different, the first day Milah is a Milah who doesn’t talk when I ask her a question. She did not verbally respond to me. But today’s Milah expresses herself in words. She responds with joy. She told me she loves the centre, “teacher’s school is the best”. How proud I am to receive such praise.

Instead of formal traditional pre-school programmes, I have designed this programme to include physical, emotional and cognitive developmental elements daily to flow with the need’s of the child.

Children like to play with water, so I play a simple game: transferring water from a cup into bottle. Wow, I just realized not all kids have the confidence to pour the water into the bottle since the rule of the game is no spillage of water. I could see the kids transfer the water with great attention. A lot of conversation among the kids, they feel so excited. Even Milah, she is able to converse with other children, her speech and vocabulary improve. She communicates more, also notice she loves Rebound Therapy. The movement in RT really develops Milah’s confidence, relaxation and fun.

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Ruth – Human Potential – strong will.

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Vivien Lim

Jan 3 to 6, 2012 … A new year and new challenges to Ruth’s development

This week, I have extended the hours of Ruth to be in the centre to facilitate learning of self help skills like eating and dressing. Ruth is a typical child and isn’t at all adventurous in food. I notices she had brought only two types of foods to the centre in 2011. She refused to try new food introduced to her.

At lunch Ruth refuses to eat and I allow her to do so. I am aware that she will get hungry if she doesn’t eat.I begin to give variety to food such as cake, bread, cheese, fruits eventually she did try.

During the late afternoon I offer her some cake. In 2011 she never even wanted to try the cake, but today she opens up and gives it a try. Amazingly she did eat it. It may seem like a little step, but for Ruth it is a step into a whole new world.

Ruth will focus on the book, she looks at it and when you approach her, she will begin to read with great attention. She understands what she reads, the number of the words she is able to read is amazing, to me it is well beyond what an average 5 years old kid can do. Remember, she was a child without speech when she first attend my program.

Compared to last year, I notice she begins to be able to control her finger movements and focus on the picture she wants to color. It is amazing that when I put on some soft baroque music Ruth is able to color very attentively. Perhaps the calm, repetitive and well structured baroque music “programs” her mind to be equally calm and focused on the task at hand.

Last year when I invite Ruth to join other children for tea break, she always refuses. However this year, when the children have morning tea break, Ruth came to join in. She is also able to interact and play with other children.This shows to me that Ruth begins to acquire the basics of social skills.

For sure, we still have a long way to go with Ruth, but the little improvements she shows in various fields give me hope that we may be getting closer to a breakthrough. That is the core of the holistic approach: the whole is more than the simple sum of the parts. Little improvements left and right may suddenly combine to much more.

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