Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Multiple Personalities

I was listening to the radio this morning and the psychologist was talking in line on the topic dealing on personality and the masks we put on. It's interesting to note that we often mistook the definations of these terms. Masks are supposedly just facades we put on, pretending to be someone else. But how about when it comes to personality disorder? Ah.....A good book to read is Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Apparently this lady `Sybil' has 16 personalities! I already found it difficult to understand myself and knowing that a person could have 16 different personalities is really mind boggling.

To know more about it; check this link out :http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSybil_(book)&h=33b96e75b7bccecfbad616c0f79b4707

Monday, March 16, 2009

Copy and Draw

I am not an artist. But what I found intriguing is having your child copy what he sees. First start with a simple picture with a step by step procedure eg. how to draw a sun, book. jug.

You would be amazed to see the result. It may not be perfect, but give a big pat on the back to the child by saying `A job well done, that's a nice picture'. I found that the child feels deeply encouraged with our positive words which makes him want to try to draw better.

It improves through time as well, lots of patience and most of all both parties participate and have fun!

Copy and Draw

I am not an artist. But what I found intriguing is having your child copy what he sees. First start with a simple picture with a step by step procedure eg. how to draw a sun, book. jug.



You would be amazed to see the result. It may not be perfect, but give a big pat on the back to the child by saying `A job well done, that's a nice picture'. I found that the child feels deeply encouraged with our positive words which makes him want to try to draw better.



It improves through time as well, lots of patience and most of all both parties participate and have fun!

Auditory Processing

What I found most critical about speech impaired children is the auditory processing retention. They are unable to reproduce what they they heard and have difficulty in processing. As a result, they appear `deaf', inattentive and sometimes labeled as stupid.

How can you help to stimulate this?
I found through my journey the following helped my son:

1. Sequence story telling
2. Reciting a story from picture story books
3. Reading

A child may be able to read but still faced difficulty in comprehension. He is unable to understand a sequence of story and this is commonly reflected also in speech reproduction. It inter-links.

It's vital to stimulate this processing of the brain in order for the child to progress academically. What good it is if he can read but unable to understand the content of the text. It would be almost like having the same difficulty in understanding what is being said/instructed to him. Maybe that's why some of these children develop bad tantrums as they fail to deliver their wants/needs to us appropriately. And very often our instructions to them are in vain.

Life In The Real World

It isn't easy for a LD child to cope in the real world environment. At least I can observe being a third party, I noticed the following with my White Horse.

This year he entered formal schooling in the public school. I am glad I have the opportunity to enlist him with the regular children and mind me, he is solo alone by himself most of the time without a shadow aide.

Initially he stuck out like a sore thumb among his peers. Not so much as being a nuisance but rather he behaved inconsistently with his peers. He was among them, they tried to play with him but he ignored them.

It took a while for him to assimilate (still trying) with his peers. I constantly got reports from his classmates of his bad behaviour in classroom e.g running out of the classroom, rolling behind the room and also moving like a fan which they imitated in a cute manner. Fortunatley theya re still young age around 7, so this is still acceptable among his peers.

By in by they accepted his perculiarity and some even got attracted to him, by hanging around him during recess time and also reporting to me about him. Yes I was involved in a way going to the school during recess and also hanging around before and after school. I believe it helps in giving comfort for the children too to have an adult and what more a friendly one too.

Now he has a group of at least 4-5 children with him during recess. I have proceeded further to bring in some short activities e.g making origamis and later some educational play cards, hopeful to attract some children to him. Assimilation.

Teach your child a trade - e.g playing cards, ball. Make him an expert in it so that when others play with him, he will fair well and not be disheartened because of his disability. This helps in making him part of the community/his peers.