Jack – attention span

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Vivien Lim

Jan 3-6, 2012. It will be a challenge to further develop Jack this year after the 2011 year end review by the developmental pediatric on Dec 31, 2011.

Today I work on a method to increase the attention span of Jack. After a while he is able to sit for 30min to source or find out the thing I want along the process of word reading. One by one he did it … upon completing the 30min, he is able to recall the word I taught him.

Jack was not able to understand the concept of number and quantity. I use Rebound Therapy to work with him and now he begins to grasp the concept of math counting with understanding.

Jack is steadily improving his attention span. Today I present to him a jigsaw puzzle. Amazingly he recalled what the doctor (developmental pediatric) told him on Dec 31, 2011 when he went back for follow-up. Jack told me “Dr said I must look for the picture and slowly find another piece to join it up”.

I also work on numeracy and reading skil. I noticed his ability to recall the word has improved. There are times he will pretend he doesn’t know, but when continuing further he will read the words aloud.

Many people think water pouring is easy, but it really is an acquired skill. I have observed how Jack managed to pour water from a cup to a bottle without a funnel to help. I saw Jack filling the cup with water and holding it for a while. Then he begins to observe how the other children pour the water. Other children are able to control and have good coordination but not so for Jack. He tries to pour the water into the bottle; however all the water spills from bottle. So the bottle is still empty … then Jack takes another cup of water, he tries to coordinate to pour the water into the bottle. This time he is able to pour a little bit into the bottle. To me as a therapist, I will view this little improvement with great interest, as Jack begins to learn coordination and gets a feeling for space and manages to pour the water. Upon finishing the fun of pouring water, I invite Jack to water the plants in the pot. He waters the plants in excitement.

As an adult, many time we rush to finish a task, however a child will repeat the same process again and again till they master that skill. If children can be so dedicated and willing to learn, should we not give them all the opportunity to do so and not rush them and be impatient if they take their time?

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A view from the bridge between 2011 and 2012

Posted on January 2, 2012 by vivien-lim

The year 2011 has been a challenging year for me to operate the Active Mind Child Development Centre. I have developed the skills to discover children’s learning disorders when they are in pre-school with me. I now can provide timely early intervention therapies to minimise the learning disorders.

I have noticed the comments of a primary school headmaster that even children that have been send to pre-school still happen to fail to integrate in their first year of school, lacking the ability to read and write with proper stroke or understand the concept of mathematics. What has gone wrong with these children when they attended pre-school?

I have a very child centred focus, I will observe the child’s physical, emotional and cognitive development. I sincerely believe these three will make up the basis for the child to integrate into society as they grow up. For each learning disorder I observe in the child I will provide early intervention.

Many children will look normal at first glance, but when it comes to learning proccessing, one will notice some of them have a learning proccessing disorder like data proccessing, language proccessing or sensory processing.

Some parent will begin to run and rush for therapists to help their child. Some send their child to a stand alone therapist for many years and yet the child does not show much improvement. Some parent even resort to private schools and hire a shadow aids teacher for their child. My point is: “What is more effective: a stand alone therapy or a holistic therapy development”?

Children are very complex beings, their brain is still in full development (they have actually a more complex brain than adults) and a therapy that focusses on one or a few symptoms only will not enrich the child’s experience. Rather the child is to be seen as a whole and all its mental and physical properties need to be taken into account at the same time. If the therapist fails to do this, the therapy cannot be effective and the child is likely to end up poorer and more challenged than ever before.

The above is a summary of my experiences of 2011. Nobody knows what 2012 will bring us, but standing on the bridge between 2011 and 2012 I can only promise to continue my best efforts in helping these learning disorder children based upon my past experience and training.

Best Wishes to All for 2012!

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Testimonial of Khairiza, mother of 6-year old Irfan Dani

Posted on January 1, 2012 by vivien-lim

After sending my 2 daughters to Pusat Jagaan Didik Minda Aktif in 2006 and 2007 respectively and very satisfied with their results during primary school, I have decided to send my youngest son, Irfan Dani to the same school in 2010. Again, Pusat Jagaan Didik Minda Aktif did not let me down!

Pusat Jagaan Didik Minda Aktif did not fail to educate my son. Within 6 months, Dani knew how to read fluently in Bahasa Malaysia and English. I was really impressed because the same results were achieved by my 2 daughters in previous years. Bear in mind that before I registered him to this school, Dani did not know how to read at all!

Being in Pusat Jagaan Didik Minda Aktif was indeed a great learning experience for my son. The school definitely has ways to keep my son’s interests for learning and taught my son how to socialize. I’m happy that by the end of his pre-school days, he has shown great interests in reading – all types of reading materials from newspapers, story books, comics and journals.
By the way he reads and understands the contents; some people just did not believe that he is just a 6-year old boy!

With the good learning foundation provided by Pusat Jagaan Didik Minda Aktif, I hope Dani will also excel like both of his sisters in primary school. I have great belief that the school can go further to develop more kids to be good in whatever they want to do.

Thank you for all that you have done to all my kids!

Regards,
Khairiza.

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Jack – surprise 2011

Posted on December 30, 2011 by vivien-lim

Dec 26 to 30 is Christmas season, we had only two days lesson for Dec 29 and 30, 2011.

Jack comes back to the centre as usual, Rebound Therapy is a must to him and the first thing to do in the morning hours. He truly appreciates the skills he learned up in Rebound Therapy. Each time he succeeds to perform the movement, Jack will ask: “Teacher, am I a good boy?”. It strikes me that Jack has a low self esteem. He needs affirmation to tell him he is a good boy because for the past year adults or children laughed at him and said he is not a good boy as he can’t read even though he has been two years in a proper kindergarten.

Not all the children’s history of development I will get to know. Anyhow I told myself I have to work on for Jack’s future development. I affirm him that he is a good boy by saying “Look you can make it … hurray”. The little affirmations have really helped him to develop the interest to read. In learning I have a play role with Jack ….. I become his student and he becomes my teacher. The teacher must know how to read. This play role also builds his confidence and he will read for me. For a word that he can’t recall I will give him clues to recall.

Today’s evening Jack’s mother came to fetch him. He showed Rebound movement to his mother in confidence, him mother replied “Good”. Before they went home he took the football and he told his mother he will kick the ball. To his mother’s surprise Jack showed her how to kick the ball. His mother said surprise as before he attended my programme Jack did not know how to kick the ball. As a therapist cum special aid educator I have seen Jack take my football to learn kicking all by himself. I could only observe him. He has seen some of his friend play football in the centre’s garden. This really came as a year end surprise to his mother.

I did have a short talk with his mother on how he behaves at home. His mother told me he improved a lot. At least he no longer throws tantrums which go on for an hour. The most is few minutes. To me this is a great improvement of Jack after attending my programm. At a certain moment all the little improvements and the building of his self esteem and confidence will lead to effects far beyond these little steps. That is what a holistic approach is all about: the whole is bigger than the parts, everything is connected in subtle ways and body and mind are not separate.

I really look forward for next year 2012 with Jack.

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Ruth – from the Human potential

Posted on December 30, 2011 by vivien-lim

Due to the privacy of the child and parents. I named the kid “Ruth”. It is a real life story of the child. This is the child I mentioned in the “Discovery of human potential” post.

Dec 16,2011.
Ruth is 4 years old. A little girl who has improved her speech skills: she now speaks with understanding and not parrot talking. Jan, 2011 When she arrived in the centre she was without practical living skills like putting on her own shoes, or putting on clothing, she even throw tantrums due to her frustration. She still wore pampers and was without speech.

Our society will label certain parents as “bad” or “poor” parents, but in reality Ruth has learning difficulties. Sadly to say, many parents will think time will heal their child, some parents will think when the child grows up he/she will recover. I thank Ruth’s parent to recognize Ruth’s learning difficulties and send her for early intervention.

I have been doing intensive early intervention with Ruth since the first day she attended my programme. She is on 3 hours per day programme on daily basis in holistic approach development, where I develop her physical, emotional and cognitive skills.

Ruth’s memory power is like a camera, her recalling system work much faster than “normal” children. When I put Ruth together with normal children to learn words and phrases she is able to remember the words much faster than other children. Her reading ability is far beyond that of the “normal” children.

Ruth has been put unto my rebound therapy lesson daily.

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Milah and the miracle of speech

Posted on December 29, 2011 by vivien-lim

For privacy reasons, I have changed the child’s name into “Milah”.

Dec 21 to 23, 2011. Milah is age 5 this year. She has been attending a pre-school/kindergarten for a year and put in daycare with a neighbour. According to her parents, she has not been able to converse much. She is silent most of the time. During their visit to my centre, I have invited Milah and her father to take a free bounce on my trampoline. To my surprise, already after the little bounce she was able to talk to her father.

Dec 21, 2011, Milah comes to my centre. She does not talk much. Even if I talk to her, she will only look at me. She does not respond to my questions. I invite Milah for a rebound session. She accepts … so both of us and another kid went up to the bouncer for a free bounce. All of a sudden Milah has an explosive voice of “wow wow” and laughing. I proceed on with counting number and bouncing with Milah.

The first day I introduce the sound of alphabet to Milah. Though she still doesn’t have so much confidence, I invite her to have general conversation about her interests. She replies in short phrases only. She is able to socialise with other children but she has not much conversation with them.

Second and third day, as usual we will start the day with Rebound Therapy, this time I see Milah able to converse with her friends and laugh in excitement. She even invites me to bounce with them. We have fun and excitement, I deliver Rebound Therapy movement to her…. she grasps the movement, this has given her much confidence.

Many time our children attend a pre-school but they are not encouraged to talk, nor to develop confidence. It is usual for children to develop according to the “book” instead of natural development with intervention support. In Milah, I developed her confidence via rebound therapy.

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Jack – Adventure

Posted on December 27, 2011 by vivien-lim

Dec 20-23,2011. Another week passed by…. pre Christmas week day.

Working with Jack is like an adventure. From the first day of class I notices Jack is not able to respond when I call his name. He do not make eye contact. However through a series of therapy sessions, he developed a more alert response. During the Rebound Therapy session, off and on I will call his name. Once I call his name, he must respond with “yes teacher”. I told Jack I only call a person’s name one time. If he fails to answer that person’s Rebound lesson is over. It is like a conditioning rule to Jack. And wow this rule works well for Jack, he becomes very attentive when I conduct class.

Rebound Therapy lessons have been an adventure for Jack. Jack enjoys the bouncing very much. Originally I believe he was lacking vertical movement sensory, but Jack was able to learn the rebound movement fast.

As he bounces he becomes more confident, his speech also improved. He is able to interact more and asks more question. He always likes to ask “teacher am I a good boy”? My response is “yes Jack you are a good boy. You see now you are able to read”.

Affirmation and assurance has really motivated Jack to take further steps in his development. How many times as an adult have we failed to have this positive interaction with children?

In one of the learning times I have shown Jack a picture of a double decker bus. He told me “this is a bus”. I said “yes this is a bus” and “What can we put inside the bus”? Jack replies “People”. I told him “animals”? But he keeps firm: “People not animals. Animals live in the zoo”. That is how Jack now answers. His mnd is more clear now and he can take and hold a position.

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Jack – Decreasing in obsessiveness of smell

Posted on December 18, 2011 by vivien-lim

Dec 12-16, 2011: Smell.

I noticed from the first day that Jack has a routine pattern: he will smell most of the things I introduced to him. WOW, even food itself, he also will smell before eating. Can you imagine if you are having a meal with a person who always bring the food near to his nose to smell and then eat it?

I have done a lot of therapies with Jack for these past days. This week I made a yeast flour play-dough for the kids in the centre to play with. Before I passed the dough to the children to play with I have taken some of the dough to turn it into a ban to steam it for the kids to taste. Kids enjoy the steam ban.

To my surprise when I introduced the yeast play-dough to Jack, he did not take it to the nose to smell it. He was able to accept the smell of the yeast with the flour. He takes the dough and put it into a cup with a spoon. He imagines it to be ice cream. This is an imaginative play, Jack has. Jack feels proud, he insisted me to allow him to bring his “ice cream” back home to share with his father. Imagination needs creativity to express itself. I eventually help him to put the cup with the dough and spoon into a plastic bag for him to bring home. Jack was happy.

How many times we as an adult will appreciate the little sweet hard work the child has done and want to show to us? Many time we as adult have forgotten the importance to show appreciation for the child’s hard work and give them a little motivation. We are too academically oriented.

Last week I made a different texture of dough. Jack has also made an ice cream to show to his father. I overheard his conversation with his father, his father praised him with “clever boy”. Such little praise will go a long way of boosting up the confidence of your child.

Rebound therapy really does wonders to the brain of Jack. His tendency to smell things near to the nose also decreased. His ability to recall the words which were taught to him also improved. His speech and vocabulary improved as well.

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Jack – Decreasing his obsessive behaviour

Posted on December 14, 2011 by vivien-lim

December 5-9, 2011. Time passes very fast.

Is Jack an autistic child? Well, he does has all the autism characteristics. Anyhow I am focusing on decreasing the obsessiveness of Jack’s behaviours. It is unacceptable in the society in general and such behaviour will lead him into his own world.

Jack has a toy bus, he has put all the toy animals into the bus. According to his parent, he takes the bus to look at it every night always with one kind of specific pattern. I allowed him to bring the bus to the centre. I work with him as usual. After much conversations about the bus, I begin to understand what those animals mean to Jack. He takes the animals to represent people. “People sit in the bus”. I told the animal’s place is in the zoo. From there I told Jack to remove the animals from toy bus one at a time. Eventually he took them all out by himself with minimal support from me.

Well many time, we as adult fail to understand children and thus we create conflict and misunderstanding. It takes time and careful observation and sometimes the way forward is not so obvious and an indirect approach may yield more success than a direct confrontation. Jack is less obsessive now, he is able to share his toys with other friends. He learned some valuable social skills.

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Discovery & human potential

Posted on December 13, 2011 by vivien-lim

Jan, 2011. I had taken in a child with no speech, no eye contact, no reading ability and short attention span. This is a new journey in preschool education. I stay focused to develop her. As the days go by she develops speech, reading ability, eye contact and has a longer attention span. Apart from this she develop good manners … words such as “please give”, “may I have”, … She will use it when she needs something from friend or educator. This is an intensive journey to develop this child. Hard work but meaningful: I see the child’s quality of life improving as the days goes by.

I tailor make the programme to suit the specific development need of each of the children I am developing.

I begin to see that every child has its potential. It is for the adult to discover it and help them to develop it.

For me, pre-school is the time the teacher and care provider observe the child’s development to see wether the child has learning difficulties and to provide timely intervention.

Many children have the ability to read, write and count but they lack the ability to generalize or associate what they have learned. Some children have difficulties to express their feelings. How many of us as adult understand their feeling and motivate them to express it out.

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