Talking Points

Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit

Young girl having difficulty painting displaying symptoms of Visual Perception/Visual Motor Deficit disorder.Affects the understanding of information that a person sees, or the ability to draw or copy.
A characteristic seen in people with learning disabilities such as Dysgraphia or Non-verbal LD, it can result in missing subtle differences in shapes or printed letters, losing place frequently, struggles with cutting, holding pencil too tightly, or poor eye/hand coordination.

Signs and Symptoms

May have reversals: b for d, p for q or inversions: u for n, w for m
Has difficulty negotiating around campus
Complains eyes hurt and itch, rubs eyes, complains print blurs while reading
Turns head when reading across page or holds paper at odd angles
Closes one eye while working, may yawn while reading
Cannot copy accurately
Loses place frequently
Does not recognize an object/word if only part of it is shown
Holds pencil too tightly; often breaks pencil point/crayons
Struggles to cut or paste
Misaligns letters; may have messy papers, which can include letters colliding, irregular spacing, letters not on line
---ldaamerica.org----

VISUAL PERCEPTION
Visual perception is the ability to see and interpret (analyze and give meaning to) the visual information that surrounds us.
The process of "taking in" one's environment is referred to as perception. If perception is inaccurate, incorrect or altered in any way - problems with reading, spelling, handwriting, math and comprehension occur. Visual perceptual skills involve the ability to organize and interpret the information that is seen and give it meaning. The importance of visual perceptual skills in academic success is agreed upon by many, acknowledging reading would not be possible without adequate visual perception.

Visual perceptual processing impacts the ability to learn.
Without accurate visual perceptual processing, a student would have difficulty learning to read, give or follow directions, copy from the whiteboard, visualize objects or past experiences, have good eye-hand coordination, integrate visual information with other senses to do things like ride a bike, play catch, shoot baskets when playing basketball, or hear a sound and visualize where it is coming from (like the siren on a police car).

Visual perceptual skills include several key component areas:
Visual Discrimination: The ability to notice detail differences such as shape, size, color, or other dimensional aspects.
Form Constancy (Form Discrimination): The ability to perceive positional aspect differences and recognize objects when they are in a different orientation or format.
Figure Ground (Foreground-Background Differentiation): The ability to focus on a selected target and screen out or ignore irrelevant images.
Spatial Relations: The ability to recognize the positioning of objects in space.
Visual Closure: The ability to recognize an object, letter or number without seeing all of the object.
Visual Sequencing: The ability to see objects in a particular sequential order.
Visual Memory: The ability to remember forms (letters) and sequences of forms (words) and recognize them quickly when seen again.
When visual information is perceived or processed incorrectly, it cannot be matched or integrated with our other senses. Instead of reinforcing learning experiences, it distracts and interferes. If what is seen cannot be "trusted", it hinders the ability to learn. Poor visual perceptual processing is not something a student "outgrows". If undiagnosed or left untreated, the student with poor visual perceptual processing will continue to fall behind in class even though it may appear they are working harder than other students in the same class.

Perceptual skills can be tested and deficits treated.
----advancedvisiontherapycenter.com----

Some of the materials used for speech-language therapy

New materials for speech-language therapy.

Activities to develop Speech and Language Skills
www.icommunicatetherapy.com


Top ten activities for developing and improving your child’s speech and language skills
There are many simple activities that you can do with your child to develop their speech and language skills.
1. Be a good model – speak clearly and slowly and face your child when speaking. If your child says a word or sentence incorrectly, rather than correct them or ask them to repeat it, just say the word / sentence back to them correctly to show you have understood. This way your child always hears the correct version. This is how children learn language.
2. Remember your language level – don’t use words or sentences that your child will not understand. Speak to them using language they can understand, and explain any new words.
3. Make time to sit down with your child – even if it is just for a few minutes a day (although the more one-to-one time the better), spend some quiet time with your child, away from distractions. Look at a book together and talk about the pictures.
4. Turn off the TV and take out the pacifier/dummy – children do not learn language and social skills by watching TV, and new evidence shows that too much TV watching prior to starting school can affect listening and attention skills, which will impact on their learning once they start school.
5. Observe and comment – when you are playing with your child, take a step back, do not feel that you have to fill the silences, just comment on the things your child is doing so they can here (and learn) the new vocabulary.
6. Let your child lead – let your child lead the play, let them be the boss of play. This can build self-confidence and does not put pressure on them to talk and respond to the adult all the time.
7. Books, books, books – books can be used in many ways to develop language and early literacy skills. Evidence shows that children that have more exposure to books prior to schooling often find it develop early literacy skills earlier.
8. Sing songs and nursery rhymes – songs and rhymes contain rhythm and rhyme, skills that help with speech and literacy development.
9. Feed language in, don’t force it out – comment and expand on your child’s words and sentences, rather than asking them to repeat words. If your child says “car”, respond with “big car” or “yellow car” or “fast car”. This is how children learn words, by hearing new vocabulary and linking it to the items or events they are focussing on.
10. Make every opportunity a language learning activity – if it’s a trip to the shops, or bath-time, you can make every activity a language learning activity. Point to things, name them, sing a nursery rhyme, or ask a question. You don’t have to set aside a specific time of day to learn language, every activity is a language learning activity.
Speech and Language
The first few years of a child’s life are key to the development of speech, language and cognitive skills. For this reason it is important to create an environment that helps to develop speech and language skills that give them all the stimulation, positive role modelling and human contact that they need. For a normally developing child, learning is easy and creating opportunities for learning is also not difficult. Through play, simple daily interactions and experiences, we can help the child acquire new language and skills.
Adults do not need special training to be able to provide a child with a positive start in life. There are a few simple building blocks that you can put in place to help your child grow, and as a parent, you just need to provide the time to interact with your children. By playing and allowing your child time and space to explore and interact in their own way, you allow your child to develop and learn in a fun and safe environment.
Speech and language skills do not just evolve on their own. They are part of a bigger picture involving social interaction, play, observation, manipulating objects, listening and attending. All these factors are working together and often, without one, it is difficult to develop another. Below, we have listed a few simple ideas that are fun and easy to do at home, remember, always praise your child for making any attempts at communication.

How children learn speech and how to encourage speech
If you want to encourage speech development, or your child is a little late with producing their first words, there are lots of activities that you can do to develop your child’s speech and help them produce more words.
First of all – TAKE THE DUMMY OR PACIFIER OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS!!!

Good modelling
An important aspect of learning speech is listening. A child learns new sounds and words by listening to those around him. This is why it is important to provide good speech for your child to listen to. Say words clearly and slowly and use plenty of intonation. If your child attempts a word and it is not pronounced correctly, praise him/her for trying. Do not try and get your child to repeat the word or correct it. Repeat the word back yourself to show you have understood and to give your child a good version of the word.
To find out more about good modelling and other activities to develop speech and language development go to the Resources Section

Symbolic sounds
These are easy words and sounds to introduce to your young child when they are just starting to attempt some words, or when recognisable words seem a bit late in their development. Symbolic sounds often sound like, or refer to a sound that is related to the word e.g. “moo” for a cow, or “beep beep” for a car. These are fun sounds that you can incorporate when playing games or looking at books. Symbolic sounds are usually short one syllable sounds and words that are easy for the child to produce. They encourage vocalization, imitation, and early vocabulary building.

Motivating sound games
Sometimes, using games can motivate your child to make sounds. For instance play the game – ready… steady…. GO!! Blow up a balloon, hold it, then say “ready….steady….GO”, and let the balloon go. Do this a few times and then pause after you say “ready…steady….” and see if your child steps in and says “GO”.

Communication temptations
Often by tempting your child with something motivating you can elicit some speech or a vocalization. For instance, holding onto the biscuit tin, but not opening it until he vocalizes a request, or only blowing bubbles when you get a vocalization from the child. In the early stages the child does not have to use the correct words or sentences, but just vocalize or make an approximation of the word. We want the child to learn that he can use his voice as a tool to initiate and request.

Listening, attention and observation
Listening and attention skills are the building blocks of speech and language development. The acquisition of these skills is vital in the early years if you want your child to be successful at school. The development of these skills is facilitated by interaction with others, with having a shared focus, and playing in an environment that is free of distractions. Listening, is not the same as hearing. A child can have perfect hearing, but be a very poor listener. Children with Autism, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder or Auditory Processing Disorders will have difficulties with listening, remembering, and following verbal instructions. Children that have had a lack of social interaction or poor role modelling in the early years of their lives may present with listening and attention difficulties. Studies are also showing that over exposure to television from a young age can have detrimental long term effects on listening and attention skills.
Some children find these skills more difficult to master than others. There are lots of ways to enhance your children’s listening and attention skills, not least by turning off the television and spending some quality time with them. Try to find activities that share your attention that you can both enjoy and focus on together. Also, don’t forget to praise good listening and good looking.

Observation skills
These skills require the child to stop and focus on a particular task. Having a shared focus helps this process. A shared focus means looking at things together and talking about what you are looking at. The activities mentioned below require your child to focus on a something for a few minutes and really use their observation skills. These tasks can be done at a table-top as a shared focus activity, or during an everyday activity.
If you think your child has a speech delay or disorder, see our Milestones sections to give you an idea of the normal rate of speech development. If you continue to be concerned about your child’s speech and language development visit your local speech and language therapist / pathologist.

To find out more about activities that you can do with your child to develop their skills – go to the Resources Section
Language – how to develop language skills
There are lots of activities you can use throughout the day to develop your child’s language skills.
Remember your language level
One of the biggest things to be aware of when using language around your young child is the level of language you use. This means using words and sentences that your child can understand and avoiding complicated words, long sentences and difficult instructions. Remember, with young children just use key words, and if you use a small sentence emphasize the important words. Talk slowly and point to what you are talking about.

Watching, waiting and listening
You can enhance your child’s development of language by sometimes taking a step back during play and letting them take the lead. This gives the child control of their environment and builds their confidence. Although you are still involved in the play you are not dictating what is happening. However, you can still be feeding language into the play as it is happening, by commenting on what they are doing. So the takeaway here is not to feel you have to fill in any gaps of silence, just watch and listen and add language.

Adding language
Adding language is an easy thing to do and can be done in all types of different situations, not just play. You comment on what the child sees, commentate on what your child is doing, or expand on what they have said e.g.
The child puts a marble under a hat
Adult: “you’re putting it under the hat”
Child: “car”
Adult: “fast car” or “red car”

The environment
The environment in which your child learns also has an impact on how they learn. Try and reduce distractions and background noise – TURN OFF THE TV!!
A busy household with lots of children will be noisy, but allows lots of play opportunities for the young child. However, sometimes you cannot beat some adult time, and if you get half an hour to have some one-to-one quality time with your young child then make the most of it.

To find out more about ways to encourage speech and language skills during play and everyday activities go to the Child Development Section of the Resource Centre.

Games & Play
Games and playtime activities are great opportunities to develop your child’s speech and language skills.

Simple Games
There are lots of simple games you can play and indirectly work on speech and language. Games can played while driving in the car from Kindergarten, or when you are at the park or in the supermarket. Learning language does not have to be done in a structured environment. Don’t forget when you are playing games to focus on speech and language, you will also be working on social skills, turn-taking, observing, listening and attention, so it’s a win win situation.

Toys
Toys are fun and great for involving your child. Even with the simplest toys you can create fun activities and provide lots of situations for learning and developing speech and language. Imagine building a tower with wooden blocks – a simple game, but with loads of opportunities:
Building a tower
Speech and Language opportunities: adjectives (higher, up), verbs (fall down, build), preposition (on-top), nouns (colours, numbers)
Communication and Social skills: turntaking, joint focus, sharing, listening, attending, observing
Here we can see even a simple game with wooden blocks involves all sorts of language and play skills.

Look at books
Books are great for having a shared focus and for learning new words. Books can also play a key part in developing early speech and literacy skills. There are many ways to use books and the pictures to focus on language. You can focus on books with symbolic sounds for early speech or storybooks to focus on language. Books are a great way to work on lots of skills and children love them. Look at the books together, name the pictures, ask questions, and talk about the story.

Role play
Dressing up is great fun and playing different roles will expand your child’s imagination. In fact you do not even have to dress up to do role play. Games involving different characters will allow you to introduce lots of new related language and stretch your child’s creative play skills. For instance, if you pretended to be firemen putting out a fire, think how many related words you could use” fire, fireman, fire engine, ladder, water, hose, burning, building, driving, climbing, up, down, smoke, hat, boots, jackets, save, sq**rt, bucket, fire out, hero, etc etc etc. Role play is great for expanding your child’s imagination and introducing new vocabulary.
Most types of interaction through play will have a positive effect on speech and language acquisition. The child’s social skills will also benefit because they will be using eye contact, turn-taking and listening skills. By letting your child take the lead in a game, they will gain confidence in communicating and feel that they are in control, so be relaxed in the communication environment.
Depending on your child’s language competence you may want to set a goal for each game, although it is important not to make it too structured because we want the game to be led by the child. Any goal should be simple and flexible. Language needs to be fed into the game, rather than trying to encourage the child to say particular words. This means we don’t want to be continually saying to the child “what is he doing?” or “what are you doing?” or “say running, say running”. Children do not learn language this way, children learn language by hearing it first and making associations between the word and the action. As adults we want to just feed the language in at the appropriate times.
Example of a language role play game:
Bus Driver game: Let your child be a bus driver and you can be the passenger. Set up some chairs for a bus and act the roles. As an example, just look at all the verbs you might use in this game: steer the bus, press the horn, ring the bell, sit down, pay the driver, drive the bus, find the change, walk down the aisle. If your child finds a game complicated, you could be the bus driver first and model it for your child, then your child can take a turn and you add language to the situation.

Music
Music is also a great way to involve your child and can be used in many ways to enhance speech and language. Music is good for getting your child to listen, and experiencing a shared focus. You can read books and follow music singing the songs as you point to the pictures. Songs also focus on intonation and stress and have a beat to them which helps with aspects of speech development. These are skills we all use when talking and syllable awareness is important when learning to talk. Music can be used to enhance language and some songs can be sung involving actions and thus creating the link between words and actions.
Using everyday activities as a language learning opportunity
Using everyday activities can be a great way to practice and develop speech, language and literacy skills. These activities can also change a mundane event into a pleasurable one. The child may also not realise that you are practicing speech and language skills because the activity will be fun.
Using everyday tasks to promote speech and language is relatively easy, you just have to use your imagination:
Bathtime – Use lots of vocabulary during bath-time, talk to your children, and model the words for them. Introduce vocabulary: Verbs: wash, scrub, rinse, clean, brush, dry, splash, sink, float. Nouns: soup, towel, water, tap, flannel, bath, sink, body parts. Sing songs in the bath.
Cleaning the bedroom – Play “I-spy” to practice initial sound awareness (good for speech and language development).
Talk about what the people on the street are doing (e.g. walking, working, riding etc) to focus on verbs, or name as many different occupations that you can see (driver, policeman, road-worker, shopkeeper etc). These are just simple ways to use everyday opportunities to find entertaining and simple ways to focus on speech and language.
Remember, if you make speech and language sessions into games your child enjoys it more, is more motivated and may not even see it as speech and language practice, but as a game. Children like games and are motivated when it becomes competitive. This means you can create ideal situations away from the table-top activities to work on speech and language. Just use your imagination because almost any daily event can be turned into an educational game.

speech-language therapy information and activities icommunicate provides speech-language therapy information and activities, services, and resources for a range of communication difficulties and disorders.

Toys for pretend play

Early Intervention Speech Therapy: Why Does It Look Like Just Playing?
DAY2DAYPARENTING AUGUST 21, 2014 RESOURCES, THERAPY OPTIONS 10 COMMENTS
Many parents are surprised when their child begins early intervention speech therapy, and the therapist comes to their home and starts playing with their child instead of sitting down at a table and practicing flash cards of new words. Parents may be concerned because their child is not talking, but what may be of more concern to an EI Speech therapist is that their child is not imitating. The ability to imitate is key to communication development because it involves the idea that “I see you do something and then I can do it too,” including imitating sounds and words. For a child to be able to imitate, they need to be socially connected and pay attention to the other person involved in the activity as well as having the motor and cognitive abilities to imitate the action. Many young children that we work with are not developmentally ready to start working on single words because they have not mastered the skill of imitation, and therefore we need to back up and work on the beginning levels of imitation.

Early Intervention Activities To Promote Language Development

By: Alicia Fox, M.A. CCC-SLP

On the floor: early intervention activities to promote language development

Much of what we do in early intervention is parent education. Direct education, instructing parents to "do this," as well as indirect education when activities are demonstrated and parents can imitate. Early on, motor development is the obvious focus as parents can see improvement from the activities they perform. Since babies aren't yet talking, language is not as prominent a therapeutic focus. Yet easy activities can facilitate parents' interaction with young children, helping the child acquire language. Here are five activities to incorporate into home visits, as parent friendly ways to promote a child's language development. I always want to help parents connect with their child and feel successful.

Research has proven repeatedly that interacting with others is the key for young children developing effective communication skills. Active, face to face interaction with caregivers is what boosts a child's language skills. By embedding these strategies into every home visit, I have the chance to demonstrate ways to interact with a young child and show that the interaction is language therapy.

Offering Choices to help a child make a request
When a child is not yet efficiently communicating his wants and needs, often the only communication tool he knows is to cry or scream. The caregiver’s role at this point is to predict and guess what the child wants or needs. If a caregiver can instead engineer a situation for the child to purposely indicate his wants, then the child is doing the communicative work. For early communicators, learning this power of intentional communication is an important step.

It can be easy to know when a child desires a specific toy - the child gazes at it, reaches for it, but it if it's out of reach he can't get it himself. Rather than giving the child the toy, but before the situation turns into a tantrum, we can offer a choice involving this desired toy. Even if we know the child wants the ball, we can play dumb and present a choice "want truck or ball?" Now the child can do something intentional to indicate which offered toy he wants. Early on this intentional behavior may be an eye-gaze to the ball. It may be reaching toward the ball or it may be an attempt to imitate the word “ball.” Instead of the adult initially interpreting the child's desire and giving him the ball, the adult sets up an opportunity for the child to actively communicate his desire in some way. This can be repeated to shape the child's response, i.e. shaping "ah" while reaching toward the ball into putting his lips together for "ba." Using a choice-making strategy, the child experiences the confidence of a successful communication interaction.

This approach works to build language skills as well. For a child communicating at the one word stage, the choice offered might be “want truck or want ball” to model two word utterances for him to imitate "want ball." We can incorporate descriptions “blue truck or red ball?” and further expand phrases “I want truck or I want ball please.”

When offering choices to encourage imitation, it's helpful to name the target toy last, so it is easier for the child to imitate what he just heard, i.e. "want water or milk?" Typically the child wants the item being offered, so his motivation is high. When the child is motivated to obtain something he wants, the language lessons are more powerful than when a child is asked to parrot "say juice." Offering a choice continues the flow of an interaction and feels more natural than dictating "say ___" to the child. As noted above, that social interaction is the core of communication and language development.

Early Gestures/Baby Signs
"Babysign" has gained popularity over the past few years. There are a plethora of resources, websites, fan pages and many of people using signs and gestures with babies. Research has shown exposure to signs at an early age help a child build his verbal language skills. Often, for preverbal young children it can be easier to imitate simple signs or gestures than imitate words. The signs then give children the power of communicating their wants and needs, while they figure out how to make their mouth say the words they want to say. For children experiencing oral motor difficulties or other developmental delays, gestures and signs can be an early way for parents to connect with their child.

Some frequently used early signs include: more, help, eat, drink, please, want, up, mine, all done, go. Many early signs make sense, so they're easy to remember. For example the sign for “want” is to put both hands out in front of you, palms up, curling fingers up as if to pull something towards you. I’ll describe a few more signs but it is easy to go to the ASL online video dictionary (click on “ASL for Babies” so the word list won’t be overwhelming) http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi to see video examples of signs.
"more": both hands come together in front of you touching fingertips, as if one hand is giving "more" to the other
"eat": put fingertips to mouth as if feeding yourself
"drink": shape your hand into a "C" as if holding a cup, hold up to your mouth
"help": make a fist with your right hand, left palm below your right fist and raise it up, as if your left palm is "helping" your right fist up.
“mine" or "my turn": bring an open hand to your chest
“please”: open hand to your chest moving in a circle
"Thank you": fingers of an open hand to your mouth and then move it away.

For very young children or kids with motor limitations, these signs are modified and approximated as needed. The signs for ‘more’ and ‘help’ sometimes look quite similar since they involve both hands together. Obviously the listener/caregiver is interpreting and giving voice to the child’s message, but the child is actively communicating, rather than waiting for the caregiver to figure out what he wants. We make sure to say the words while signing so the child hears the verbal words while learning the signs.

Therapy play activities are an idea opportunity to model and physically practice a new sign. Once familiar with the sign, parents can then continue to teach the sign in different situations. To start, if the child is working on a puzzle or building with blocks, set the materials out of reach, or in a container with a lid so the child cannot independently get them. Model the 'more' sign stating "want more" when the child is looking for more blocks/puzzle pieces. If a child is not yet imitating signs, provide hand over hand assistance to produce the sign. When establishing any new skills, the child needs to repeat that skill a number of times in order to learn it. So, we can work with a toy that has multiple parts in order to practice multiple requests. Encourage parents to work on the gesture during a snack, giving the child only a few crackers or small piece of string cheese at a time, with more of the snack visible, so the child can request "more." In this same way we can teach the sign for "help," "open" or "my turn."

As the sign/request is established and the child is requesting 'more', language development is further promoted by verbally modeling a two-word utterance, "more crackers" and then "want more crackers” so the child can receptively learn early phrase structure. Use of early signs can empower a toddler as a communicator, allowing him successful communicative interactions.

Often parents are concerned that using signs will delay the development of words. Multiple studies have confirmed that use of signs, as well as other alternative or augmentative communication methods, help to develop verbal language. One such study is "Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development," Susan W. Goodwyn, Linda P. Acredolo and Cathering A. Brown, (2000), Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 24, 81-103.