Unless your child or student is doing something dangerous to himself or others it ... Read More »]]> If you have a child or student prone to behavior outbursts, you may feel desperate to find ways to stop the behavior or at least reduce the intensity.  Here are a few strategies that might work for you in the heat of the moment:

1. Ignore the behavior

Unless your child or student is doing something dangerous to himself or others it is a good idea to try to ignore the behavior first.  Most times a child acts out to get attention.  Remember, even negative attention is attention!  By talking about what your child is doing you may actually be reinforcing his or her behavior.  Try ignoring the behavior first.  If that doesn’t work consider one of the strategies below.

2. Redirect Attention

If your child or student is acting our physically or verbally, it is important to try redirecting him or her to something more appropriate.  Instead of focusing on the poor behavior, try to focus on what you want him or her to do next.

3. Decrease Demands

It may be that your child or student doesn’t know how to ask for help or express feelings of frustration appropriately so instead the child acts out.  Try lowering the demand you are placing on him or her and see if that helps.  If a task is too difficult it may need to be done in smaller steps in order for the child to feel successful.  It’s important to praise and celebrate each success along the way to build confidence.

4. Decrease Stimulation

Imagine yourself in a foreign country for a moment.  You don’t know the people or the language, how would you feel?  For many children, especially those with sensory processing disorders, the environment itself can cause your child to meltdown.  If the setting is too loud, too bright, too noisy, has too many people, or too much activity, it may simply be too over-stimulating for him or her.  Consider using an itouch or iphone with headphones to distract the child, take a walk outside or move your child to a quieter location.  This may help get you and your child successfully through a birthday party, family function, trip to the grocery store or restaurant.

5. Try a Calm Down Approach

It is extremely important for a child to learn to self regulate and calm down before behaviors escalate.  Try to teach him or her how to take deep breaths, fold his or her hands to avoid hitting someone, count to 10, go for a walk, etc.  You may need to try a variety of approaches until you find the one that works for your child.  One strategy I have seen used successfully is a “Calm Count”.  In the moment, when your child is distressed, be sure to firmly but calmly state your expectation, “I am going to count to ten and I want you to calm down”.  Start counting very slowly, “One, Two …” only count ahead if your child is showing signs of calming.  You should see the child calm down as your numbers increase.  Count faster as your child is calming down.  Once you get to “ten” your child should be able to take a few deep breaths and talk to you.  If the crying begins again, start your calm count again.

6. Prime, Prime, Prime.

Priming has been documented as an effective classroom intervention for children with behavior problems.  Priming consists of previewing information or activities in advance that you think your child is likely to have difficulties with.  For example, if your child has difficulties with sensory processing and you are planning on going to the movies with friends you may want to explain to your child well in advance that it will be dark inside the theater and the movie will be louder than the television at home.  If you are heading to a birthday party where there will a lot of children.  It may be helpful to talk to your child in advance about what he or she might see or hear there.  Explain that it will likely be very noisy and the kids may be running around.  If your child is a visual learner, youtube.com is a great resource for showing examples of what can happen at different social functions such as weddings, birthday parties, school assemblies, airports, restaurants, etc.  If your child feels prepared he or she is less likely to act up in an unfamiliar situation.

When first teaching labels, the best thing to do is start with actual everyday objects around your home.  Things your child encounters on a daily basis, spoon, apple, ... Read More »]]> If your child has a language delay or is nonverbal, you are probably looking for ways encourage him or her to talk.   You will likely want to start with labels of common objects.

When first teaching labels, the best thing to do is start with actual everyday objects around your home.  Things your child encounters on a daily basis, spoon, apple, bear, cookie, socks, shoes, bed, toothbrush, etc.  Teach the label by itself so there is no room for error.  Eventually you’ll want to move to flash cards or photos of more abstract images.  However, before moving on to flash cards you should consider setting up a matching program so that your child understands that the flash card is a representation of the object.

You’ll also want to make sure your child can generalize known objects.  For example, when teaching a ball, you’ll want to have a few different kinds around the house as well as in photographs, cartoons, magazine clippings, etc.  This way your child will not learn that a ball must not always be red, for example.  It might be small and yellow or have blue and white stripes.  They will all still have the basic label “ball” but they should all look slightly different.

To teach a label, you should always teach each object separately then eventually add in a few distractors so your child can learn to receptively identify the object amongst an array of other objects.  Don’t start with a book full of photos this may overwhelm your child.
Remember, once your child has learned to label an object, you should move on to another object but make sure you always review the objects your child has already learned.  You can do this by building a maintenance program.  Maintenance is important to two reasons; it prevents regression and ensures your child does not lose any skills previously taught.  You want to always move forward, not back!  It also allows your child to feel successful.  Reviewing those objects already learned will help build great confidence in your child.

Kindergarten.com is proud to offer our first ever Talking Flash Cards. Used by educators and ... Read More »]]> Kindergarten.com’s Animal Flash Card set offers 100 beautiful animal photos. With early learners in mind, we’ve included a fun audio description of each animal. Our hope is that by offering descriptive language, beyond the label, your child will begin to develop and comprehend further language concepts.

Kindergarten.com is proud to offer our first ever Talking Flash Cards. Used by educators and speech language pathologists worldwide, our apps are an indispensable part of any speech or language program.

Flash cards are vital in helping children develop expressive and receptive language skills, master new vocabulary and strengthening comprehension.

Many children with emerging language skills do not think of things as having parts, attributes or fitting into categories however, it is necessary for developing appropriate, functional conversation skills. ... Read More »]]> This Receptive Identification app is designed to teach foundational language concepts to early learners. Used by educators and speech language pathologists worldwide it’s an indispensable part of any speech or language program.

Many children with emerging language skills do not think of things as having parts, attributes or fitting into categories however, it is necessary for developing appropriate, functional conversation skills. Once a child can ask for, label and receptively identify a number of items, it’s a great time to start teaching features, functions and class (or FFC’s) of items, peoples and places.

Kindergarten.com is proud to offer our new and improved Alphabet Flash Cards. Used ... Read More »]]> Kindergarten.com’s Alphabet Flash Card set offers 26 clear, concrete photos presented against a non-distracting white background. With early learners in mind, we’ve included a simple question at the bottom of the page to encourage children to think of other words that begin with each letter in the alphabet.

Kindergarten.com is proud to offer our new and improved Alphabet Flash Cards. Used by educators and speech language pathologists worldwide, our apps are an indispensable part of any speech or language program.

Flash cards are vital in helping children develop expressive and receptive language skills, master new vocabulary and strengthening comprehension.

This Receptive Identification app offers over 300 beautiful, concrete photos presented against a non-distracting white background. Every image has been carefully selected for its familiarity, appeal to children and ... Read More »]]> This Receptive Identification app is designed to teach foundational language concepts to early learners. Used by educators and speech language pathologists worldwide it’s an indispensable part of any speech or language program.

This Receptive Identification app offers over 300 beautiful, concrete photos presented against a non-distracting white background. Every image has been carefully selected for its familiarity, appeal to children and developmental value. We’ve added many new features and customizable settings that we hope will be helpful to teachers, parents and therapists.

Our “Healthy Habits” application was seamlessly created using 120 superb, concrete, colorful images that are of common everyday.

A national report in the Journal of ... Read More »]]> Children who learn healthy habits at a young age will reap the benefits for a lifetime. While most healthy habits are learned through experience and watching, some children need to learn to identify these actual skills first.

Our “Healthy Habits” application was seamlessly created using 120 superb, concrete, colorful images that are of common everyday.

A national report in the Journal of Pediatrics reveals that 1 percent of US children ages 3 – 17 have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, an estimated prevalence of one in every 91 children. This is a dramatic increase from the 1 in 150 prevalences previously reported.

By adding clearly pronounced audio we are able to offer verbal praise to reward and reinforce your child’s appropriate responses as well as encourage vocal imitation.

Classical music is randomly played along with visual reinforcement to maintain your child’s interested while introducing them to the world’s most popular composers such as Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.