Starry, Starry Night

Look what we’ve got!

I love this little egg-shaped object.  It’s actually a star projector and sound machine and I think it’s pretty cool.

Imagine lying in bed watching a galaxy of stars twinkling down at you.  It’s colourful to look at, too, but not so busy that your child won’t go to sleep.  In fact, the sounds that are inbuilt into the projector are soft and soothing.

Choose from 6 sounds of nature:

• Babbling brook
• Ocean surf
• Falling rain
• Birds singing by a creek
• Summer night
• Birds at dawn

If your child has a sound or music that he or she finds soothing you can plug in your MP3 using the cable that comes with it.  The projector serves as a speaker.

After half an hour the sound switches off but the stars keep twinkling.  What a peaceful way to go to sleep.

See it in action in the video below.

Food Glorious Food

Some days it seems our lives revolve around food.  If we are not cooking, we are planning the weekly menus or doing the meal prep.  For this reason we thought we would highlight a selection of our food related posts regarding diet and fussy eaters to help you out.

 

For those with kids, meal times can be hard.  For those with kids with autism it can be even more difficult to deal with their fussy diets and particular habits.  As parents we worry about whether or not our children are eating a healthy balanced diet and it can be stressful.  We need to learn to take some of the pressure off ourselves and know that on some days as long as they eat something - anything - then we are dong the best we can.

 

There have been numerous studies undertaken into whether a particular diet can cause autism and what foods to avoid once they have been diagnosed.  Studies have even demonstrated that children with autism on a gluten free diet have shown positive behavioural improvement.  These studies are relatively new and more information is being released every day so it does pay to do a bit of research and see what works for you and your child in particular.

The winter months can bring about other food related issues of its own but if you try to get your child involved in the food prep they may show willingness to try something new.  At least you hope so!

If you have any tips or recipes that your fussy eater particularly enjoys, we would love to hear about them.  Feel free to leave a comment on our blog or directly on our Facebook page.

Bon appétit!

Animal Transformers

These cute little Animal Transformers will occupy little ones (and adults) for hours! They have flexible arms, legs and head so you can get them to sit, stand, balance on one leg and many other positions.

I could tell you how good they are for improving finger manipulation skills or for learning about body parts. I could tell you they are great for modelling body positions. I could even tell you how good they are as a fidget toy. But what I really want to tell you is that they are fun.

They feel good in the hand. The surface is smooth and cool and the shapes are great to hold. The arms, legs and heads are jointed so they can be made to pose in many different ways. Just slide the limb into a different slot and it will point a different direction.

The figures are painted in bright non-toxic colours and each has a bright, happy smile.

There are four animals to choose from: lion, bear, frog or elephant. We also have a range of Robot Transformers, too.

I think my favourite is the elephant.  How could you not love the trunk and those big, droopy ears? Each little creature is around 11cm tall and suitable for children from the age of 3 and up.

How Sound Affects Your Child

Everywhere that we go, we are constantly bombarded by sound. As our lives have become faster-paced, and we each try to cram more into each day, the opportunities to find and enjoy simple silence are few and far between. Most of us have become so busy, and so used to the constant sound that we no longer notice it; it’s just faded into the backdrop of our lives. Just because we don’t notice the noise does not mean that we are unaffected by it.

According to Julian Treasure of The Sound Agency, there are numerous studies that indicate that excessive exposure to sound affects our ability to learn, to work, and even to live. He cites a 1998 study published in the British Journal of Psychology that states that exposure to sound while reading or writing causes a 66% drop in productivity. Treasure also cites a German study that shows that not only is a children’s ability to learn affected by noise, but that many children suffer from permanent hearing loss as most classrooms have a noise rating of 65 decibels, nearly twice the recommended level and just 10 decibels shy of levels proven to cause permanent damage to one’s hearing. The trend towards open classrooms and workspaces has only contributed to increases in the volume of ambient sound that we all now experience.

Other studies link the excessive exposure to noise in our everyday environment to additional developmental delays in our children, an increase in crime rates, damage to the human voice, and delays in healing and in some instances can contribute to an increase in death.

These revelations about sound are troubling indeed.

As many of us who have children that are along the autism spectrum know, many of our kids are more sensitive to a wide variety of stimulus in the environment, particularly sound. With this new understanding of the effect of sound on each of us, it should come as no surprise when our children experience difficulties both in the classroom and at home from receiving too much stimulation from sound.

Treasure offers parents and others ways to cope with this unending assault on our senses in this video, where he gives some tips on how we can each cope with the excessive sounds in our lives. Some of these tips include steps to take to cultivate silence and how to give our ears a break by changing the types of sound to which we are exposed, which can be helpful to all parents wherever their children may be along the autism spectrum.

Sensory Overload

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be so overloaded with sounds, movement and colour that it all becomes too much to cope with?

Watch this clip and find out exactly what it’s like.

This was created as part of Mark Jonathan Harris' and Marhsa Kinder's "Interacting with Autism" project which is working to build an interactive, video intensive website that will focus on the best available treatments for autism.

I won’t keep talking about the video.  Just watch it.  Make sure you tell me how it made you feel as I’d love to read your comments.

Sensory Overload (Interacting with Autism Project) from Miguel Jiron on Vimeo.

Is It Really ADHD – Or A Sleeping Disorder?

Most parents who have a child with ADHD are familiar with its common symptoms: easy distractibility and an inability to focus, putting things off until the last minute, being forgetful and even losing things. What many do not realise, even in the health care community, is that these same symptoms often accompany some sort of sleeping disorder in children and even in some adults.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, there is both anecdotal evidence as well as solid research that seem to suggest that part of the reason why more children and adults are being diagnosed with ADHD may be that they are being misdiagnosed and actually have a sleeping disorder.  It is also possible that there may be a connection between the two disorders.

Our lives are simply busier than they were just a few decades ago. All of us try to cram more activities into each day, and more is expected of us at work, school and home. Add to that the steady influx of technological advances that make it hard to “unplug” such as video games, smartphones and more and it’s easy to see why most people don’t get the amount of sleep that they wish or need.

 

All of this constant “busy-ness” can make it hard to turn off our minds and achieve a good night’s sleep. Physical issues such as breathing problems caused by sleep apnea and other conditions can also interfere with achieving the periods of deep, interrupted sleep that all of us need to function in top form. 

While lack of restful sleep often manifests itself with feeling lethargic and sleepy through the day, other individuals, particularly children, may display the same symptoms that are common among those with ADHD.

While more research is needed, information that is currently available suggests that helping children with ADHD to achieve a restful night’s sleep may be a tool that parents can use to help reduce the ADHD symptoms that their child may experience throughout the day. 

When Wrapping Helps

Whether or not your child has autism, there may be times that you need to comfort your child without words. Many times a child might become stressed from too much stimulation and may even act out when this occurs. Overstimulation can be very upsetting for both the child as well as others if the stress has pushed the child into a meltdown. When overstimulation occurs, it can help your child if they receive comfort and support while their nervous system recovers and has a chance to balance itself.

Wrapping is just one technique that can help to soothe your child and be a safe way to help your child receive comfort and support without the use of words.

What is wrapping? Wrapping is very similar to swaddling a baby. Wrapping is taking a piece of cloth, such as a blanket or sheet, and covering your child with it. As very young children, most of us drew security and comfort from wrapping up and getting to snuggle in a favorite blanket. As a child grows older, they may still find comfort from being swaddled.

To see if this technique might help to calm your child and soothe their worries and frustration you can start by helping them to sit down and then draping them with the material. As you arrange the clothing over their shoulders, draw them close to you, as you would in a big hug and gently begin to rock back and forth with them. Continue to do so for about 10 minutes or so. While you are rocking them, you can try alternating the pressure of your hugs, or you can even give your child their own pillow or blanket to hold as you hug and rock them in the covering.

Since the idea is to help comfort and soothe your child in a nonverbal manner, you will want to practice this method of helping them to feel safe and secure before they are acting out from having too much stimulation. Try this technique during a quiet time when they are not stressed and if they are not resistant to it, you can then use this technique to let them know that everything is going to be okay when they have simply been through too much. In this way you can help them to feel safe and know that they are loved, without using words.