Tag Archives: Visuals

Mothers Day verses Birthday

After Mothers Day I posted on FB that it hadn’t been the best day.

It hadn’t been great because my little one hadn’t been prepped at all about a different day and not only was it different, it was about me and not him!

So I challenged myself to have a better birthday and I can say it really was a great day. But to get to that point I had to put in some work. But it really was worth it!

1. Prepping for the day
This started the day after Mother’s Day. I was determined for it to be different. And it just started with conversations. Conversations about my birthday coming up and how birthdays are important days for some people and on those days we should treat them well and treat the nicely.

My husband also took him out on a special trip to buy me some presents. My husband used the opportunity to say that Mummy probably wouldn’t want a rocket for her birthday, can we think of some things Mummy might want!

We talked about it quite a lot, and expressed regularly how he needs to behave.

Because my birthday was during the holidays, we made a holiday picture time table and my birthday was part of that.

2. Taking it personally
This is such a hard one. It goes against everything in you. If any adult or Neuro-typical child behaved in the way my little one did, you definitely would take it personally and you probably wouldn’t speak to them for a while, because you thought they were quite mean, and unthinking.

But as our ADHD nurse put it, you have to reframe it. It’s not him being mean and horrid (even though it is), but he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t know how to do this right, because socially speaking those skills are not honed yet. In some ways the whole day would have been far better if I hadn’t taken it personally. If I’d have realised all of this in the morning and not at my bedtime! If I’d taken it in my stride, then we would have had a better day. For my birthday I was half expecting it to go very wrong, so in some ways it was a complete shock and surprise when it didn’t. I altered my behaviour and tried to help him alter his.

Now I’m not saying his behaviour on Mother’s Day was acceptable. And at some points in the day there were some consequences for his behaviour. But like with all behaviour, we have to ask why? When I reframed the situation, I wasn’t as insulted and put out. Try it next time you’re in a similar situation. I hope it helps.

3. He struggles with these types of days.
We recently met with an ADHD nurse and she said something that hit me like a ton of bricks!!

“Children with ADHD don’t like CHANGE!!”

Now yes I should know this, but it’s never been said in such a clear way. Now Mother’s Day is definitely a change. It’s not part of the norm and it’s very different. This is the same for children with ASD and other neurological conditions.

So you can either give into this and say well we won’t celebrate it let’s just keep everything the same and then you as the mum miss out (again!) or you can allow it to happen and either face the consequences or prep. I personally as the mum don’t want to miss out. I work so hard at being a Mum, I want to celebrate this fact!!

4. See it as a brilliant opportunity to teach social skills.
This is not going to be the only time in his life where he will have to put someone else first. As a child his friends will have birthdays, his family will have celebrations and when he’s older and gets married and has children, that’s a whole lot of putting others first. So this has got to be taught.

We’ve always had to break social skills down into small basic chunks to support our little one. And this should have been no different.

* Putting others first
* Respect others and their feelings
* Understanding how celebrating someone else might make them feel loved and special.
* Why we have special days
* These types of days are a regular thing

Now of course you don’t teach all this in one go. But you drip feed little nuggets. The very act of prepping shows that this is important. It takes time, it might take a few years of it not being great. But have hope!!

Top tips about Speech and Language

A friend of mine, Faye is a speech and language therapist. We trained together to become Makaton Tutors and are starting to collaborate on training sessions. So I asked her to answer some of the most frequent questions I get asked about speech and Language. Keep reading for top tips and speech and language explained.

1. Can you tell me a bit about yourself? And why did you become a speech and language therapist?

Hello, my name is Faye, and I am a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist. I work with children and young adults with complex needs. I decided to become a Speech and Language Therapist after volunteering with a Speech and Language Therapist during Sixth Form. I really enjoyed the therapy sessions; I would visit every week with a young adult with Cerebral Palsy who used a device to communicate. We would go on trips to the local library and art shops as well as working on functional skills such as making a cup of tea. From this my passion grew for Speech and Language Therapy and found that Makaton was something that would be highly beneficial for the clients I support. This then lead to be becoming a Makaton Tutor and here I am today!

2. What are some easy ways to support speech at home?

First of all, it is helpful to clarify that Speech and Language Therapists work and support clients with a a range of communication skills (Not just speech!)

Communication difficulties include:
– Attention and Listening
– Understanding Difficulties
– Expressive Language (talking) difficulties
– Social communication needs
– Word finding difficulties
– Play skills
– Speech and sound difficulties
– Dysfluency (Stammering)
And lots more!

The advice would recommend varies dependent on the child’s age and of course each child is different! For young children I would highly recommend Tiny Happy People for activities and ideas.

3. When would be a time to seek help for speech and when should you just give it some time?

Again, this varies dependent on the child’s needs. As a first port of call I would recommend contacting your GP and Health visitor. They will be able to guide you regarding your local Speech and Language Therapy service and provision.

It may be beneficial to get an up-to-date hearing test for your child to ensure that their hearing is within the expected range. I’d recommend looking at the ICAN Talking Point Progress Checker for more specific advice if you have concerns https://ican.org.uk/i-cans-talking-point/progress-checker-home/

4. If English is a 2nd (3rd or 4th) language being used at home, what are the best ways to support learning English at the same time as the native language?

Continue to speak each language as you naturally would at home. Being multi-lingual is a huge benefit and has been shown to help improve academic success. It is beneficial to use visuals including the real item, photographs, pictures, drawings and signing when talking about vocabulary and talk about the word in English and other languages you use at home. This helps the child to link the object/item to the word in English and other languages.

5. Are books and singing songs great ways of supporting language?

Yes! Books are a fantastic way to support language development, children love to read and re-read (!) stories with parents/carers. As we re-read stories, they become more familiar. Stories for young children usually have lots of pictures which really helps to build their understanding of the vocabulary and story. Books help to also develop a child’s sequencing skills, the idea of a beginning, middle and an end, which is an important skill as they get older in being able to sequence their own thoughts and stories.

Nursery rhymes and songs are also highly beneficial, they are fun, which is the best way to learn! They are familiar and we all sing the same tune (or try to!) for Wheels on the Bus or Twinkle Twinkle and this will be the same when your child is at nursery/school and with you at home. Songs can also have actions, or the song can be Makaton signed which further helps to develop understanding of the word or action.

6. What are some other ways to support language even if my child doesn’t have additional needs? Is signing helpful for children without speech conditions?

Signing is helpful for all people; children, adults and everyone in between. For children, we know that adding movement when learning helps build connections in the brain to help learn and remember the word.

Using Makaton Symbols is also highly beneficial as this provides visual information to an instruction or activity. The Makaton Charity is aiming for more people to learn Makaton within schools and in the community so those that use Makaton as their communication tool are able to interact with everyone and aren’t just limited to communicating with those who know Makaton. Makaton is for everyone, all children can benefit from learning and using Makaton to develop their speech and language skills even if they do not have any additional needs.

ADHD and Covid

I know I am a bit late to the party, but I didn’t confidently feel I could write about this until really having to deal with it.

Covid has rocked all of our worlds in one way or another. For some it’s been the push they need to make big decisions and for some its completely put a stop to things.

For us covid has had a number of impacts some not great and some great! When it all first happened, we realised that our support networks for our active bean (my son) were things like swimming, gymnastics, the indoor skate park, the trampoline park. These were the things we used to survive on a daily basis. And these were all taken away as soon as Covid arrived. This was a disaster for us. Plus we lived in a second floor flat, so getting outside and getting exercise or at least the amount of exercise needed was tricky. So for a while it was bad! What was good is we were able to ask for help from the school and it finally gave us the push we needed to move to a house with a garden and a trampoline. Which has made a significant difference.

We’ve been able to get back some normality as the time has gone on, we’ve gone back to the trampoline parks and the skate parks and weekly gymnastics.

But then my active bean got covid recently and had to self isolate for 10 days. All my fears were realised, I have dreaded being in for that amount of time. We’ve never done it. But although it wasn’t as bad as I thought, it did get me thinking. Especially as when track and trace call and ask if you need any support and the women got a diatribe about how we need to do more about support adults and children with ADHD whilst self isolating (I’m not sure she knew what to make of it).

I then read a research article about covid and ADHD (I’m so sorry but I can’t find it again) but the conclusion was this…

So what are some of the challenges? and what can be done?

1. No exercise – during lockdown at least we could get out for at least an hour a day (no way near enough, but it was something). But when self isolating there was no way we could leave the house. Annoyingly it also rained a lot so the garden was off limits too.
Answer – One day we did a lot of running on the spot, another day we joined in a session of Apple fitness. Another day he just slid down the stairs a lot!

Another research article I read supports the absolute need for physical activity. They scanned peoples brains who have ADHD and after physical activity they were able to have the greatest amount of executive control.

The red represents the greatest amount of executive control and blue represents the lowest.

We find this so much in our every day life, after school we have to go out on some massive run or climb or something to allow him to unwind and then the evening is better. So if in self isolation make time for physical activity. Carve out the time, if you have a child with ADHD find a fun way to make room for at least 10 mins of physical activity, life will feel a bit better.

2. No structure – There was no structure for us, it was the Christmas holiday, so we didn’t have to do home learning. We also obviously couldn’t see family or do all the things we’d planned so that was difficult. It was our decision that we wouldn’t have restrictions on screen time, but we did try to plan in at least one activity a day. I must confess that this was tricky, but we did manage it. We used the joy of amazon to buy in new activities such as Polymer clay or games, and we enjoyed a lot of cake and watched films together.

3. Cabin Fever – This did get to us, especially my little one. By 5pm most days he would be having a melt down. So we began to plan things in for around this time. Fire pits (If it wasn’t raining) or a nice dinner. But mostly we were just with him in the melt down.

The reality is self isolating with someone with ADHD is tricky, self isolating with someone without ADHD is tricky.

Some things I wish I had done.
1. Forced garden time each day – this may have helped getting some fresh air.

2. Not done the day 6 & 7 test – he was so upset and disappointed when we tested on day 6 & 7 and found he was still positive. So in a way I wish I would have just stuck it out.

3. Transitioned for day 10 – He was really anxious about leaving the house when he actually could. I wish I had done a picture timetable to help that transition.

4. Support sensory needs – In some way I think I should have created a calm down sensory space.

But hopefully my wish list might give you ideas if you ate in the same situation.

Meal Times

I was asked this week by a family to support with meal times.
Meal times can be tricky for all families and all families do meal times differently, which is completely fine.

But however you do, do mealtimes there may be some common difficulties we all face. These difficulties arise for many, many different reasons but some of them can be:
1. Your child has ADHD or is just a fidget and getting them to sit at the table is hard.

2. Your child has ASD or sensory issues which makes eating certain foods tricky.

3. Your child is colourblind and basically a lot of food looks yucky

4. Your child is a child and meal times just become a battle ground.

As with all my posts, take some of the ideas and that you think might work for you and leave the rest. Or let my ideas spark new ideas that may work for your family. But know if you are struggling with meal times then you are not alone!

Trying new foods
I never wanted to broach this subject with my little one because to be honest I just couldn’t face it. But when it got so bad, I knew I had to try. And really its just forming new habits (If you say it like that it seems easier!)

The main way we worked on this was to serve up his normal food and on the table I would keep a reward chart. I would then put something new on a plate to the side of his dinner. Every time he tried a new food he got a sticker. He knew the rules and I would just put the new food on the table, but would not go on about it. We would talk about our day and try and have a normal dinner time, but we wouldn’t mention the new food. But as soon as he tried the new food he would get a sticker. As soon as the reward chart was full he got a reward. We did the chart a few times over and gradually food didn’t seem so scary. I’m not going to lie and say that he now eats everything far from it, but food isn’t so much of a battle and his repertoire has increased.

Buy Reward Chart Here

Meal Times are a battle
It’s so easy to get worried about what they are eating or not eating, that, that is what meal times become about.
I have such fond memories of meal times all sitting round the table chatting about our days and then my dad making teeth out of the orange peel!! But meal times in our house became about me being stressed out and meal times being horrid. So try different things to take the focus away from the food.

Games
Pass the story
We would play the story game. One person starts the story then passes it to another to carry it on and so forth. We had some fantastic stories come out of these times and no one really realised they were eating food.

Play would you rather
This game begins with ‘Would you rather…’ You then say two different things like – eat cold baked beans or sit in a bath of baked beans. And everyone around the table has to choose what they would rather.

Conversation starters
Have a jar on the table with a bunch of conversation starters in. If you feel like the meal time is becoming about the food then take out a conversation starter and see where it takes you. This can be also a great idea if you have a child you likes to bring the conversation back to his latest obsession. (There are only so many tea times you can talk about hand driers – believe me!)

Sitting at the table
We do not have expectations that our child sits at the table for a long time. But we do expect that whilst he is eating he has to sit down. This is a constant battle for us.
– Friends of ours have tried the wiggle cushions and says it works for them.

– We take the approach that if he gets up there’s no pudding, but this is tricky, because with children with ADHD the impulse to get up over rides the outcome. So I have started putting a visual on the table of a person standing up with a line through it as a constant concrete reminder.

– There are times like going to other people’s houses for dinner (Not something we do regularly) or going to a restaurant where sitting is a social convention. I make sure I take activities and fidget toys and I am really clear with our child and the people we are with about how long realistically the sitting can last.

But if all else fails. Just end the meal time and start again the next day. You want meal times to be a half lovely time for your family not a battle ground.

I hope there are some ideas that help.

Creating a bedroom that supports Executive Functioning.

I’ve been wanting to make my little ones bedroom work for him. Especially in the area of Executive Functioning (EF). So using the opportunity of self isolation I’ve been given the time.

Some of the different things I have already talked to you about in other posts, but here it is all in one place. I’ve used the context of the bedroom as a base for all of these different strategies, but they can be used in any room. You just need to decide what works best for you and your family.

Labels for clothing

Labels for clothing – These labels are for a dual purpose. Mainly as a reminder for what he needs to wear, linked with a routine chart (coming later). But also at the moment if you ask him to tidy up, he literally can’t remember where each item goes. Jumpers end up with the trousers and so forth. I don’t mind if they are not put on the shelves properly, but it would be good if they were on the right shelf.

Drawer labels

Drawer Labels – At the moment he struggles to know what to play with. It’s important for all of our sanity that toys are tidied away. He would love it if toys were stored all over the floor. But that is just not possible. But the problem with keeping things tidy is that everything is hidden and therefor he doesn’t bother. He won’t think I want to play with that or that. He just doesn’t go looking. He can’t remember what he has. So drawer labels help him to know what he has, but also to know where to put things after.

Everything is put into categories

Keep joint items together – Each item in this drawer if it has many bits are put together in a bag. Someone with ADHD won’t give something the time of day if they have to hunt for all the pieces. I’ve labelled each bag, but thats mainly for my benefit.

What’s happening this week

What’s happening this week board – In a previous blog I spoke about how children and Adults with ADHD see time. It’s not linear it’s just a jumbled series of events and how those events make them feel. This is updated weekly so he has quick access to what is happening during the week. He also gets time to process that certain activities that he doesn’t like as much are happening.

Calendar

Calendar – The calendar will again help him realise where in time we are and hopefully get him to realise the linear nature of time. I don’t want to wipe out the way he see’s time as I imagine it’s quite a wonderful way of looking at the world. But this will help him work in the way that most people do.

Clock and Timer

Clock and Timer – These are important things in our life. We bought a clock that tells him the time and day, but I also need him to realise what time it is. For example we start getting ready in the morning at 8am, this is so he can realise where we are in time. The timer is also a great tool, it keeps him focused. The other day I didn’t use any of the strategies (don’t ask me why!) and after about 10 times of asking him to get dressed I found him on the bed looking at something. When I asked him to get dressed again he said “O you wanted me to get dressed!” So out came the timer again!!

Morning Routine Chart

Morning Routine Chart – I’ve talked about this a lot, so won’t go into detail. But as you can see the labels in his wardrobe match the routine chart. So there is consistency.

I hope this helps you on your EF journey. I also hope it helps us on ours.

What does time look like?

This is something I have spent a lot of brain power on lately. How does my little one (who probably has ADHD) perceive time?
I’ve always found it so funny that someone who is quite clever and can work out maths sums in seconds cannot for the life of him work out what day it is, or what day is coming next. Then when it was my husbands birthday, my son asked when is your next birthday? It was in that moment that my suspicions of struggling with Executive Functioning were confirmed.

So I went on a search to find out what does time look like? Now I am very aware that there is a much deeper, philosophical answer to this than what I am about to give you.

Firstly what does time look like for people who don’t struggle with Executive Functioning. For me it’s a straight line, or like a time line the ones you see in history books. The past, the present and the future all spread out in a colourful line. It’s all clear, it’s all visible and its all colour coordinated (but then that is just me!).

But as Sandy Maynard M.S in this great article writes:
Some experts think that individuals with ADHD perceive time not as a sequence but as a diffuse collection of events that are viscerally connected to the people, activities, and emotions involved in them. That often means they’re always late. Children and Adults with ADHD don’t see events they feel them.

And this is what I have witnessed in my little one. It’s all about now, or what is coming up next, but he doesn’t understand quite where the next comes in. There might be things that need to come first, but that doesn’t take priority. Understanding that you have to get dressed before going out and making time for that. Or getting so lost in time that there is no awareness where he actually is in the current time.

I get it, he’s still young, but what I am realising is this is something I need to teach him. I need to put in place strategies that will help him. Some children just learn this intuitively and some children need to go back to basics. Which means we as the parents have to go back to basics and realise how do we do things. We need to break it down for them to help them make sense of it all.

A calendar to help realise how time is linear

Makaton

Exciting News!!!!

SEND Support is expanding and we will be offering Makaton courses before the end of the year.

Makaton has been a passion of mine for years, and then a few years ago I met a young child, who was very sad and struggling because they couldn’t communicate. After being part of their Makaton journey, I saw them come alive and the sadness disappear. It was from that moment that I knew I wanted to support others in their Makaton journey and encourage other children and adults to be able to communicate with this wonderful language programme.

Keep an eye out here for more updates and course dates. We are based in London and will be offering online courses and in person training too!

Speech and Play

Play is a fantastic medium for children to explore, learn and experience new things. Sometimes play and learning get separated into two categories and it is thought the two things can’t really meet. But this is simply not true.

Play and learning can intertwine perfectly and children can learn new skills (like pouring in water play) or how things move from one place to another (playing with cars) or even over coming fears through play (if a child is scared of a dog, then playing with soft toy dogs or playing dogs with friends, helps them to understand their fear and supports them to process their fear).

Water Play

So it stands to reason that speech can also be supported through play too. This is the same for children with additional needs and those without, all children can benefit in their speech through play.

When a child is playing they use this experience to use the language they have learnt in their everyday. For example playing with cars, they may use the sounds they have heard cars make – vroom vroom. Or they may use language used around cars e.g. come on, over there, faster etc. Playing with dinosaurs can help explore sounds such as Roar and stomp. So even children with minimal speech can explore sounds and language through play. And through play, children can feel safe to use the language they have and to try out new words.

You can use play to also help support children learning new words. Play is very visual, so by you showing children the objects they are playing with and using the correct words to name them you are giving them a visual representation of what the word is and what the word means. For example, you are playing together with a farm and there is a cat, if you were to say the word for the first time and they haven’t seen a cat the word wouldn’t mean anything, but as you play you show them the cat, you help them hear the sound a cat makes and they have a real grasp of what a cat is. And as you play you as the adult keep repeating the word, you keep repeating the sound and gradually the child builds the confidence to say cat or to make the sound. This is a very basic example, but it gives you the idea.

If there are words or concepts that you are trying to help your child learn such as ‘on’ or ‘off’, then why not use play. ‘O no the bird has fallen off the tree’. Set up play activities that support the word or concept, and that really encourage language. Even balls going through a tunnel – ‘where has it gone?’

These are some trays I have made for work, but you could also make them just as easily at home with items you have at home.

You could use this type of play to support language about family members, household objects or inside and outside. You as the adult don’t lead the play, but you are involved and you use lots of opportunities to speak about these different topics.

This tray is about cars, but also about the different surfaces they are travelling on – language such as rough, bumpy, smooth can be used. You can think about the car is it going fast or slow. Again so much language can be practiced and introduced with a very simple set up.

For some children learning to talk has to be more intentional and can take a bit longer, but it can also be fun for you and them.

Holiday Timetables

The holidays are I imagine a period of missed emotions. It’s wonderful that you can spend all this time with your children and do all the fun things you can’t do during term time. But at the same time there might be an element of dread or worry that things are going to more difficult than normal (and normal is generally difficult).

If you are feeling all those different feelings then imagine what your little one might be feeling:
– change in normal routine
– Different structure to the day
– More tired because of late nights
– Anxiety due to travelling and staying in different places
– Being unsettled because they don’t have their normal stuff around them.

I often find that the main frustrations come from my little one not knowing what is happening each day. With school they know what is happening each moment of the day, with some changes, but they know what is happening and how long roughly each thing is going to last. Then the holidays happen and all of a sudden there is anxiety about how each moment will be filled.

So to combat this we make a plan for everyday and write it out so it is accessible and seen by all. Even if your plan is to have a lazy day – write it down. Our days definitely go better when everyone knows the plan.

Your timetables can be as simple as write out or draw a picture for what is happening in the morning, afternoon and evening or you can go into more detail.

You can either just put one day up at a time using a white board or you can present the whole week. It just depends on what is best for your child. Also don’t be worried if the plan changes just simply cross it out, explain the change and rewrite the new plan on your chart.

Weekly Timetable PDF.pdfDownload

I have made a weekly timetable chart, which you can download above and print out. Print out as many as you need for your holiday or if you have multiple children doing different things and hopefully it will slightly help towards having a smooth holiday.