Home Based Cognitive Stimulation For children with Special Needs – Webinar by NIPEMD

Hi All,

NIEPMD organized a webinar on the Topic “Home Based Cognitive Stimulation For children with Special Needs – Cost effective methods to enhance cognitive functions of children with special needs.” on 31st August 2020 at 6.00 pm, it was presented by Assistant Professor, C.K.Dhanapandian, Department of Clinical Psychology, NIEPMD

The session was in Tamil, I have attended a couple of sessions by him in the past, he has excellent command over Tamil language. He could easily articulate complex concepts in Tamil for the participants to get a clear understanding. But due to frequent interruption by the participants, he was forced to jump out of the flow / sequence of the presentation time and again. His sessions are always knowledgeable, simple to understand, easy to implement, he uses words of confidence in his speech which is very uplifting, you do not feel depressed after hearing him speak.

(He has a clear idea of what is an actual autism and what is considered as Autism now a days from his years of experience, i hope some day he takes time to write a book or make a video with those points, it will bring a new found hope for parents whose children are diagnosed with Mild to Moderate in the Autism Spectrum.)

I was unable to attend the Q & A part, hence sharing the below pointers from his session:

• There are lot many areas in which parents of special needs child can train their child. Professionals role are critical on complex stages but it’s the parent who has a major role to be played in the child’s development.

• All Rehabilitation professionals are mere supporters of parents, they are there to train the parents, ultimately it is the parent who executes all the learnings in upbringing the child.

• Cognitive Function is how people perceive, remember, speak, think, make decisions, and solve problems.

• தமிழ் இலக்கியங்களில் விரும்பி ஆடுதல் = விளையாடுதல்  என கூறப்பட்டுள்ளது

• He Listed down the following items along with participants responses that are found at every household at no or minimal cost:

Water, Wooden items, Paper, Sketch Pens, Vessels, Spoons, Cotton/Sponge, Old clothes, Leaves, Balloons, Color Pencils, Vegetables, Lentils Varieties, Old Buttons, Pulses varieties, Rice, Board Pins, Clothespins, Boiled Egg, Small stones, used Brush, Pencil Dust, Jute Ropes of various sizes, Match sticks, Rubber band, Turmeric, Beetroot, greens, Flour, Oil, Empty Bottles, Knife, Scissors, etc…

6 Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

• Stage 1 – Sensory motor stage: birth to 2 years
• Stage 2 – Pre-operational stage: ages 2 to 7
• Stage 3 – Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
• Stage 4 – Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

• For kids below 3 years, we should focus on the Sensory based Motor Stimulation activities. They should have the Primary (Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste and Touch) and Secondary senses (Vestibular and Proprioceptive) stimulated. The stimulation should always be Multi sensory. If the stimulation focus on single sense, only that sense will grow or outgrow other senses, which is a new issue we are creating.

Pre-requisites of playing with your kids at home:

• For children less than 3 years of age, do not play rule based games, only free play for them.
• You should create interest in the child first, this can be achieved in free play or letting the child choose what they wanted to play.
• Do not correct the child all the time, it will make the child loose interest in the activity. There is no harm if they do any wrong doings in fun activities, do not restrict them in free play like Do like this, do like that etc…
• Participate with the child, you take turns as another child or you play the game to show them
• Don’t discourage the child .. Like, saying “ don’t you even know that “
• Encourage outdoor play especially on different surfaces like Grass/lawn, etc.

The above are the primary reasons why a child will always love to play with another child over an adult.

Types of Activities

• Free Play / Meaningless Play
• Physical Activities
• Constructive Activities
• Story Telling
• Coding

Activities for children

• Play with water. Can use warm water, if the kid catches cold with normal water. After the initial exploration stage, provide two cups and make them transfer water from one cup to the other i.e. From left hand Cup the water is poured on to the right hand cup. This activity is focusing on the Touch sense and Transferring ability. In the same water, mix natural colors such as Turmeric or Beetroot to make the play interesting.
• Use Flour, for drawing shapes on them, you could draw shapes and make them rub it using legs. You could mix water and make balls, or you can press your palm in the flour and look at the impression of the lines from the palm.
• Roll the ball in the floor and also catch, this would develop the emotional bonding.
• Sticks, wooden items can be used for playing stacking activities
• Use glasses for stacking, like upside down, downside up, alternates using cup and a plate.
• Use old sarees, make zig zag lines ans ask the kid to walk between the lines. Do not force the child, you only help
• Give filters to child. Mix cooking items with water and filter it, these are interesting activities for the kids.
• Use Rice powder (Kola Maavu), you draw a pattern and ask the child to imitate, if the child has issues grabbing the flour/powder, you can put the powder in the bottle and put a hold in the bottle cap, and help the child to imitate the patterns.
• Balloons – When you give balloons to the child for playing for the first time, do not ask them to blow it, always ask them to burst it first. Initial fear will be exhibited on hearing the bursting sound, but slowly they would adapt to it.
• Use different color balloons… you can tap the balloon and play. etc..
• Bubbles – Bubbles catching can be played
• Leaves – You can take a bigger leaf and play with removal of its nerves. You can have more leaves and teach counting, you can have big and small leaves to teach what is big and small. you can take a single leaf and group of leaves, you can paint on the leaf and have impressions on the paper.
• Paper and Pencil – Do not focus on ABC and 123 at the very beginning. Play simple games like plotting dots in colored circles etc. Also do not give them an activity in a big A4 sheet, this will clearly make them frustrated when they see the full sheet. If you are doing walking/ jogging for the first time, and you wanted the initial distance to be 10 kms, it is not realistic, same way we should take simple to complex approach here. Give activity in 1/4 the size of the page.
• Coding – Instead of green, if you use alphabet G child should understand that G is for green and work accordingly.
• Riddles (Vidukathai) – Use riddles based on physical objects that you can carry on hand. For example, take matchstick box hide it under a cloth, give him the riddle like … Small box with many sticks in it … if the child cannot get it in first attempt, provide another clue, we use it for lighting lamps/candles. etc..Even if the kid does not answer it correctly, it is not an issue.
• For smell you can use Cardamom and Ginger
• When introducing the bitter taste, mix the bitter items in to normal items in lower proportions. i.e. in a normal meal add 5% of bitterness in to it, slowly week by week, increase the percentage of bitterness, which will groom the schema in the brain. Do not start directly with 50% of bitter taste.

Encourage physical activities such as:

• Jumping – When you clap ask the child to Jump or when the child claps you jump. Reciprocal play is important. Draw boxes in floor of different colors and call out the colors in which the child should jump in. Instead of colors one can use alphabets or numbers. Also while jumping make the child count, in case of non verbal child, the child can clap. Snap in order to stop the jumping.
• Outdoor Play – Throw ball, Kick the ball using alternate legs, Catch Ball using alternate hands
• Model play is important, you could stack buildings using sticks and the child will follow the same. Do not criticize the design made by the child and don’t make correction..

Story Telling

• It should be done with creativity and involvement
• It establishes Imagination, Emotional Bonding, Social skills etc.
• Most of the parents read stories for making the child sleep or do it as a multi tasking activity.
• Use photos which can easily connect with the child
• You can draw a single picture of yourself and kids, draw a road and say that we are travelling in this road, and draw a bench and say we are sitting here etc ….Narrate the story as you draw.
• Introduce new characters in the stories, like animals, birds, etc .. describe them. Child should travel with your imagination and blend with you during a story telling session.

Other topics:

• Kids shouting at home is essential and as a parent you have to make similar noises to communicate to them.
• Do not give gadgets to children below 3 years, i.e. unsupervised television, mobile, laptop, ipad etc. They are over stimulated in a single sense as a result it affects their other senses. These kids face issues in socialization. The resolution and the colors which you see in the electronic screens will not be seen in real life environments. The neurons respective to that gets stimulated beyond average levels, for which we need to bring them to an acceptable level. For Example a tree which you see in a Television is lot of more attractive and appealing than a real tree which you see. If you are exposing the kids to gadgets, ensure that you sit with the child and make it interactive.
• We have to frame activities that will boost the confidence of the child. The social stigma has clearly stereotyped these children as not fit for living a normal life. We have to break that, we give you give them confidence and support them in full to achieve their maximum potential. You should appreciate every single effort done by the child.
• Encourage playing with other children
• If you say Apple to a child, it resembles its shape, color, taste, where it is grown, etc … This is called Schema

Regards,

Saranya and Karthik

karthiksaranyaparents@gmail.com