How To Improve Your Child's Gross Motor Skills While At Home

Gross motor activities are whole body movements using the large muscles in the torso, arms, and legs such as running, catching a ball, jumping, and sitting upright at tables. 

Benefits Of Improved Motor Skills
Kids rely on gross motor skills for everyday activities at home and school. Working on gross motor skills helps a child gain strength and confidence! It also helps them get physical activity, which is important for a healthy lifestyle. 

How To Optimize Gross Motor Movement
With the majority of time being spent learning indoors these days, parents may wonder how to optimize their child’s learning success at home while also providing them with opportunities to engage in physical activity. Gross motor movement breaks sprinkled throughout the day may help kids calm down, focus and learn. Most children benefit from movement breaks to help them engage and attend to tabletop tasks. Here are some examples of great indoor gross motor exercises to help students of all ages improve their learning outcomes!  

Don’t Touch the Lava

Lay pillows or pieces of paper on the floor and have your child jump from object to object without touching the floor

Bean Bag Toss

Have your child throw bean bags (or rolled up socks) into laundry baskets. See how many they can get in a row!

Find and Tag It

Have your kiddo engage in a fun scavenger hunt around the house and locate specific items to tag 

Move Like an Animal

You can get creative with this activity but here are a few examples! Move like a snake by wiggling tummy on floor. Move like an elephant with heavy stomping or move like a penguin with arms pinned to side and waddle with legs together 

Hopscotch

You can use painters tap to make the outline on the floor and have them push cars or trucks through the road 

Tape Road

Make a tape road and have them push a car or truck through it 

Balloon Fun

Blow up balloons and see if your child can keep the balloon from hitting the floor 

Obstacle Course

Use furniture, pillows, blankets, etc. to crawl over, climb over or crawl underneath 

Allison Boyan OTR/L

Sources: https://teachpreschool.org/2013/12/11/winter-time-large-motor-play-for-the-preschool-classroom/

Why Is The “R” Sound So Hard For Some Kids?

It is normal for young children to display speech-sound errors that they will outgrow as they get older. A hallmark feature of many young children’s speech is substituting “W” for “R”. This error may make it sound like a child is saying “Little Wed Widing Hood” for “Little Red Riding Hood.” While this pattern is common for toddlers and preschoolers, children are expected to produce /r/ correctly by the early elementary years. Since /r/ is one of the most common sounds in the English language, it is no surprise that children who display difficulty with this sound will be difficult to understand. Most of us can speak clearly and precisely without thinking twice, so we may take for granted the intricacy and complexity involved in accurately producing speech. When speaking, a child must coordinate precise movements of the lips, tongue, and jaw along with their breath and voicing. All of this allows them to arrive at specific sound targets, seamlessly flowing from one sound to another to create meaningful words and sentences. If any part of the specific pattern required to produce a sound is just the tiniest bit off, it will result in an articulation error. Speech-language pathologists use many methods to teach children to coordinate the various aspects of the speech system to incorporate new sounds into their speech. Once the child is able to produce a sound in isolation, the speech-language pathologist supports him or her to use the sound in words, sentences, and finally in conversation. It is not an easy task to learn a new sound when you have never produced it before! /r/ in particular is a hard sound to teach even in isolation for many reasons. Below are the three top reasons why so many kids have trouble producing the /r/ sound.

1. Abstract motor movements

Unlike many other speech-sounds, the motor patterns involved in /r/ are not easy to see. Take for instance, bilabial sounds (in other words, sounds that require the lips to come together). A child can easily see that the lips must be closed to produce the /b/, /p/, and /m/ sounds, making those sounds easier to teach and learn. Additionally, for sounds like /t/, /d/, and /n/, a child can see that the tongue should be placed on the ridge just behind the top front teeth (alveolar ridge) to produce this sound. While most kids (and adults!) will not be able to tell you where they are placing their tongue to produce a given sound, being able to visualize the position of the articulators (lips, tongue, and jaw) is helpful for learning. It is very difficult to see where the tongue should be held inside the mouth to create a good “R” sound.

2. Different ways to make the /r/ sound

So how should the lips, tongue, and jaw be positioned to create a good /r/ sound? There are a few different configurations that can be used, and different people may interchange the positions in different contexts (Westbury, Hashi & Lindstrom, 1998). A few criteria, however, must be met for the /r/ sound to be produced: The tongue is held in the middle of the mouth, the tongue creates a ridge or hump to constrict airflow through the oral cavity, and the sides of the tongue make contact or approximate contact with the inside portion of the back molars. Below are the two major configurations that are produced when making the /r/ sound: , Bunched “R”: In this configuration, the tongue is “scrunched” tightly towards the middle/back of the oral cavity with the tongue tip down. The central portion of the tongue makes a hump that gently touches the hard palate. Retroflexed “R”: The configuration is produced with the tongue tip facing upwards, almost touching the palate.

3. Not just one “R” sound

The letter “R” is actually associated with many different speech sounds! “R” sometimes acts like a consonant. “R” usually acts like a consonant when it comes before a vowel, such as in “red,” “around,” and “green.” “R” can also act like a vowel. R acts like a vowel in words such as “feather,” “learn,” and “fur.” Children may be able to produce “R” in some contexts, but not others. To make matters more complicated, there are many variations of the vocalic “R” that all require slightly different transitions from the preceding sound to the /r/ sound. These vocalic variations include “AR,” “EAR,” “ER” “IRE” and “OR.” These vowels all require slightly different transitions from one articulatory gesture to another, and just because a child is able to produce one variation does not mean they can automatically produce the rest. For example, a child may be able to accurately produce words with “AR,” such as “star” or “army,” but struggle to use words with “OR” such as “more” or “boring.” The good news is, targeted practice with one variation of “R” often results in generalization to at least some untrained versions (Hoffman, 1983). Still, children with “R” difficulties typically need practice with several different variations of the sound in different word positions before mastering “R” in all contexts. 

As you can imagine, the “R” sound takes time and patience to learn, as it is very complex. If your child is not consistently producing the “R” sound by the time they are in first or second grade, it may be time to consult with a certified speech-language pathologist.

References:
Hoffman, P. R. (1983). Interallophonic Generalization of /r/ Training. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 48(2), 215–221. doi: 10.1044/jshd.4802.215

Westbury, J. R., Hashi, M., & Lindstrom, M. J. (1998). Differences among speakers in lingual articulation for American English /ɹ/. Speech Communication, 26(3), 203–226. doi: 10.1016/s0167-6393(98)00058-2

Social Skills Groups - Creating Connections: Building and Enhancing Social Skills

As we shuffle about, typically these days with our heads down and eyes locked into the glow of our digital device, something is amiss. You may have found yourself being one of these folks or on the receiving end of a trip, a bump, or a full blown crash as you move about your day. Ouch! Watch it! We are not just encountering this with adults, but also with children young enough to walk, or the gaggle of teens taking over sidewalks. The digital age is sculpting the way we interact, connect, and socialize with one another. Our youth have always needed us to model and teach them social skills, now more than ever.

Some youngsters learn how to engage with peers by watching adults model behaviors. However, some with learning and thinking differences sometimes struggle with relationships. If your child struggles with social connections with same age peers, a social skill group can help. Social skills, otherwise known as “soft skills” are crucial for making friends, succeeding in school, and later on getting and maintaining a job. Below describes the what's and how’s to social skill groups.

What?

Social skills groups are small and typically between 3-8 children or teens. They can help your children learn how to navigate conversations, friendships, and how to solve problems. Additionally, they can help teach emotional regulation and how to understand others perspectives.

How?

Perhaps your child has difficulty striking up and/or maintaining a conversation. Or possibly, they don’t quite understand facial expressions or know how to read body language. These groups have an educational element embedded into the curriculum and also involve “role plays” and other games to help individuals practice skills learned.

Benefits?

There are numerous ways your child can benefit from these groups and they include:

• Starting a conversation and staying on topic

• How to respond to someone

• How to share and take turns Learning to read body language and facial cues

• How to ask for help and guidance

All children and teens can benefit from social skill groups, especially those with learning difficulties including ADHD, adjustment disorders, developmental delays, and non-verbal learning disabilities. When searching for a group, please keep in mind that groups facilitated by licensed social workers, counselors, and other behavioral therapists will have the skills and training to effectively lead these groups. It’s also important to work with an organization who believes in collaborating and partnering with schools, parents, and caregivers.

By Jean Hausmann, LCSW

What is Central Auditory Processing Disorder?

Central Auditory Processing refers to the process of our brains recognizing and interpreting sound.  Children who have Central Auditory Processing Disorders, tend to have difficulty recognizing subtle differences between sounds in words, or may have difficulty understanding longer strands of auditory information.

Common Signs and Symptoms of Central Auditory Processing Disorders

Some common signs and symptoms of CAPD revolve around difficulty paying attention to material presented orally. This could translate into difficulty following multi-step directions (ex: “Before you put on your shoes, grab your water bottle and backpack from the shelf!”), needing extended time to process information, behavior problems, and difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary.

Consider Speech Pathology

If you suspect your child might have difficulty with processing verbal information, seeking out a speech and language evaluation is a great first step!  A speech and language pathologist will take an in-depth look at your child’s language processing and help determine if they should visit an audiologist for an official Central Auditory Processing diagnosis!

Source:

https://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/130%20CAPD.pdf

Author:

Katherine Reynolds M.A. CCC-SLP/L
Speech-Language Pathologist
Early Intervention Specialist