I admit that I approached Fast ForWord with some trepidation. I have been told by professionals and parents alike that it can be incredibly challenging and frustrating for children with processing problems. Knowing that LuLu’s frustration level is very low and that triggering it leads to huge meltdowns…well, I just wasn’t looking forward to it. Consulting with her occupational therapist and speech therapist, it was recommended that we start with Interactive Metronome, proceed to The Listening Program and... more

We’re off and running and in our second week of Fast ForWord. Billed as a “neuroscience approach to reading intervention” this little piece of software (with a hefty price tag) is based on brain plasticity. You know about brain plasticity…the discovery that the brain grows and changes throughout our whole lifetime, instead of reaching it’s full growth in early childhood, which was thought to be true until just about a decade ago.

Well about a decade ago, Scientific... more

I don’t know what about the parenting classes I blogged about earlier today sparked this thought process, but it’s time I talk about…gasp… Holding Therapy. (Strike the ominous musical chord.)

Holding a child with “attachment disturbances” is definitely “out of vogue” (that’s the PC way of saying that opponents think it is evil, abusive and only for those who are in the cult!) Yet…there are many parents of adopted children who have found the basics of holding therapy to be beneficial to their children. Here’s my personal experience even though... more

…and the vast majority of us therapeutically parenting know this!

This week on one of the attachment disorder lists I frequent, a mom posted some serious concerns she had about a parenting class being offered by her church. Among other things, she was very concerned that the teachings of this class advocated swatting babies as young as 6 months for things like crawling off of a blanket or touching items. The methodology also promoted “crying it out” as the appropriate way to handle bedtime for all ages.

The list lit up... more

LuLu’s storms from last week appear to be subsiding. When I dissect what we see before, during and after her present-day rages, I can see the improvements. She’s able to verbalize prior that she’s starting to feel overwhelmed. And with the right support she is, sometimes, able to pull it together and avert the storm. The rages are of shorter duration, and afterward she is able to calmly discuss, quickly make restitution, and go on with her day. It is so much clearer to me now than when she was little and before I understood all of the incredible... more

Since we’ve been weathering these “storms” from LuLu lately, I started looking for more information. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember reading about “rage storms” in connection to Tourette’s. So I logged on to the Tourette’s Plus website. While Dr. Packer is quick to point out there is no research that indicates children with Tourettes are prone to rage attacks, there is growing anecdotal evidence that children with co-morbid conditions do seem to be the ones exhibiting the rage attacks.... more

LuLu has been exhibiting some “interesting” behavioral changes over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been reading about “storms” or “rage attacks” that can apparently be a part of Tourette’s Plus (the co-morbidity of Tourettes/OCD/ADHD). And because of the nature of what I’m seeing in LuLu – I tend to believe we’re seeing such storms.

What I’m observing is a Jekyl & Hyde sort of scenario. Take, for example, her math lesson earlier in the week: We are subtracting multi-digit numbers with regrouping (that’s borrowing for us old folks). She... more

I read three different articles about brain development/health and nutrition over the weekend. The first was in the New York Times detailing a study done at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center. Researchers had determined that eating your vegetables was good for maintaining mental “sharpness”. No surprise to our mothers, huh?

The study was conducted on nearly 2000 people over the age of 65. Those who ate two or more servings of vegetables a day showed less mental decline than those who didn’t. The researchers said the consumption... more

Funny that this should be the book review on this week’s About Parenting Special Needs e-newsletter by Terri Mauro. Especially since I was chatting about this program with a mom friend of mine just last night.

Self-regulation is highly important for any child who has sensory processing dysfunction (SPD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ODD, OCD or any disorders where the child can become easily dysregulated and negative behaviors are the result.

This... more

Last week I blogged about a wonderful clinic in Canada that combines sensory, neurofeedback and neurodevelopmental interventions for children with learning disabilities, ADHD and processing disorders.

Well today, I’m pleased to share with you about a mental health nurse providing attachment therapy in Sydney Australia. Debbie Jeffrey is an adoptive parent who found the lack of attachment therapy... more