Category Archives: parent education

Teach by Doing!

If you are concerned about the Delta variant and may be keeping a child home from school – or preschool know that there are options for your child to learn communication skills at home by infusing, or embedding teaching moments into your day – your daily routines.

To embed involves “learning by doing”. For example, here are some examples of ways that you can help your son or daughter to develop speech and language at home by DOING to give you food for thought so you can consider how aspects of your routines, when we are or are not socially distanced can become teachable ones. At the bottom of this post are some additional insights for how to teach language in the below stated areas of daily life.

Groceries:

Teach Vocabulary: food names and actions

Follow Directions by having them “give me the red pepper.” , have the child find and place the red pepper where it goes.

Answer questions by saying “what is this?” as you pick up i.e. a box of their favorite cereal. You could ask them to tell you “where does it go”

Sequencing the steps: You can teach this by modeling what you are doing in the process of unpacking groceries as you do it. For examplel: starting with saying “Thank you” to whomever has delivered your package. Discuss that you need to “pick up” the bag and “bring it to the kitchen” “unpack “(define that), “put the cereal …” etc.

Doing the Laundry:

Teach Vocabulary: clothing and action words

Sorting – all the dark colored clothes in one pile and the light ones in another Have your child help by putting “all the shirts go here. all the pants go in this pile.

Follow Directions: Ask your toddler or school ages child to “put a pod of soap into the machine” with your supervision.

Sequence: You can teach this by modeling or having your child hear/see the steps being performed: “open the door”-washing machine, “put clothes in” “put in the soap” “close the door”

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The idea of embedding activities into daily routines so that parents can help to facilitate development in language with their children in the 0-3 age range and actually beyond is widely used. It appears that in an age of a pandemic, social distancing and altered lifestyles that the need for inclusion of embedding activities into daily living has become even more important. You are your child’s first teacher and that job does not end – pandemic or not, 24/7. Hopefully, these suggestions can help.

Additional Resources:

https://selfsufficientkids.com/how-to-do-laundry-kids-teens/

Teaching Executive Function through daily routines

All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned at the Grocery Store

On youtube or in the library re books that you can read to your child about this and other daily activities. It’s worth taking a look and previewing reading about each activity even before you do it – or at a quiet time of the day.

Back to School?

What a challenging prospect in times of a pandemic.  It’s a tough decision in terms of how to educate your child whenever schools open up. Both kids and parents will have feelings. Nobody seems to be considering that, in my opinion.  There are novel CDC guidelines. In case you missed them, here is a link CDC Guidelines   Other thoughts are outlined by the  American Academy of Pediatrics. 

For starters:  How do you explain coronavirus?  In very simple terms

Your child is entitled to additional services in terms of having lost much therapy time if they have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)? Check with the school special education supervisor and/or the principal.

and finally, how do you deal with the emotions that kids may experience when potentially planning for the first day back if that is your decision?  There are some ideas below:

Resources:

Know Your Rights for a Special Needs Child https://www.familyequality.org/2020/03/30/special-education-rights-during-covid-19-pandemic/

Dealing With Anxiety-Helping Kids Cope:

For Toddlers: Worries Are Not Forever (Best Behavior®)
Give toddlers tools to ease anxieties and worries and feel better again. It’s normal for toddlers to worry and feel anxious—they have enough …
 
For older children
 
 

Explaining Coronavirus

These are scary times and a number of parents online are asking for guidance in terms of how to explain the reason why their children are not in school.  There are ways that you can do so and I saw an article online that will be helpful https://childmind.org/article/talking-to-kids-about-the-coronavirus/   

Some have voiced online concern about what will happen to their child when school is closed.  So that you can plan,  an option may be teletherapy.

 

Considerations With regards to Teletherapy  Message for Consumers:

If you are a New York State resident receiving speech-language pathology or audiology services in New York State, your Speech-Language Pathologist or Audiologist must be licensed in New York State.speech- pathology or audiology services in this State, as long as such services are performed for no more than thirty (30) days in any calendar year and provided that such services are performed in conjunction with and/or under the supervision of Speech-Language Pathologist or Audiologist licensed under Article 159 of the New York State Education Law.

According to the American Speech-Language Pathology Association https://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/ASHA/Practice_Portal/Professional_Issues/Telepractice/Telepractice-for-Speech-and-Hearing-Services-Brochure.pdf



(a) An insurer shall not exclude from coverage a service that is otherwise covered under a policy that provides comprehensive coverage for hospital, medical or surgical care because the service is delivered via telehealth, as that term is defined in subsection (b) of this section;  provided, however, that an insurer may exclude from coverage a service by a health care provider where the provider is not otherwise covered under the policy. An insurer may subject the coverage of a service delivered via telehealth to co-payments, coinsurance or deductibles provided that they are at least as favorable to the insured as those established for the same service when not delivered via telehealth.  An insurer may subject the coverage of a service delivered via telehealth to reasonable utilization management and quality assurance requirements that are consistent with those established for the same service when not delivered via telehealth. (b) For purposes of this section, “telehealth” means the use of electronic information and communication technologies by a health care provider to deliver health care services to an insured individual while such individual is located at a site that is different from the site where the health care provider is located.


Citation: N.Y. ISC Law § 3217-H