Language speech Social interaction TablE{LAsSIE?}

a guide for parents and caregivers to steer kids into activities which

will help them grow into smarter kids.

We should treat our childrens' spare time like we treat their eating habits.

We should pay attention to the kinds of activities they engage in during free time.

Are they spending time with all kinds of activities that help them grow both physically and mentally? When we come home from work, we are tired and the TV or video games help us get a break from everyone (who's playing?)

But....

we need to be aware of what these types of activities do to our kids on a day-in /day-out basis. You want to be an informed parent?

Try plugging your children's activities into the table below to use as a guideline, then e-mail me any comments or questions you might have at mommaknowsdotcom@lycos.com

*For more information about normal developmental milestones in each area, you can click on to a number of websites.

Try Zerotothree, Child Development Website, or About.com.

X= present, O= absent, x= minimally present

COPYWRITE 2000 BY BETSY C. SCHREIBER M.M.S. SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST

What are these areas of sensory, perceptual, and cogative learning?

1. visual discrimination:

Discrimination is defined as the ability to sense the differences between small things in the environment. This ability is very important in order to interact with the environment appropriately. When there are difficulties in perception or discrimination, learning must occur through the other senses.

Can you see the difference between a large green ball and a small red ball? Can you tell whether something is moving fast or slow? Can you tell the difference between shapes? Or letters and numbers?

Visual discrimination (having difficulty?) is essential for reading skills to develop. If we have the ability to see, we develop these skills as we grow and experience the environment around us. Activities which encourage discrimination of shapes, and eye movements from left to right (for English) stimulate what we call "pre-reading" skills.

things to do:

1.Reading along with your child and pointing to key pictures or words

2.Picking out pictures in I Spy books or Where's Waldo?

3. Laying out blocks or cars left to right, and counting them in sequence left to right, easy? Yes!

2.tactile/kinesthetic:the ability to feel, tell the differences between textures, tell one's position in space, remember one's sensations, attach symbolic significance to these perceptions and link them to previous experience. There has been research to show that our species has developed on a planet with a certain amount of gravity, and that our brain organizes itself because of this force. We learn to develop coordination, left to right and right to left movements; crawling, walking and even talking because of the force of gravity on our developing bodies.

For more detailed information, there is a wonderful book on Sensory Motor Integration by Jean Ayres

things to do: for all these activities, make sure the child is secure in his or her seat and that he or she can start these activities on their own without adult assistance.

1. gently swinging on a swing, slowly spinning in a swing with the swing hanging down

2. rocking on a rocking horse

3. spinning on a "sit and spin"

4. rolling down a small hill or incline, rolling around on a rug

5. playing in the sand and water table, making mud pies, sand castles, playdough, experiencing different textures like oatmeal or whipped cream. Even children up to the age of 4 or 5 like to make baked goods or crafts and get gushy. Children under three years need alot of supervision so they do not put small objects in their mouths or choke.

3. Listening (attention, discrimination, memory): the ability to hear, tell the differences between sounds and remember the sounds or words in sequence.

4. Language comprehension- the ability to understand the meanings of what is said or read, and link this information to previous experience or ideas.

5.Speaking:the ability to communicate by way of oral communication. In this instance, I also mean complex expressive communication by any means available; computer communication devices, manual communication, or combinations of these. For this area to be stimulated and practiced, there has to be a reason, a desire, and an opportunity to practice with others.

6.Vocabulary: the development of new words at each age level that describe experiences and ideas of increasing complexity and abstraction. Example: at a young age children learn words for their basic needs and desires, later they begin to learn words to describe feelings, then as they enter school, their vocabulary begins to grow dramatically. Even adults learn new vocabulary when going on vacation or beginning a new job. New vocabulary is especially learned by adolescents and adults during reading and expository writing.

7.Social Interaction: Social interaction is especially important in development of language. The interchanges between the caregiver and the infant lay the ground work for communication. As the child develops, he/she expands his/her social sphere to include others and different kinds of communication and vocabulary are necessary in order to interact effectively. And so on....Some activities that increase vocabulary look anti-social, but when the child internalizes these ideas and uses them in class or an adult interacts in a group, the ideas chrystalize when they are recreated by the user, either verbally or in the written form.

So you can see that while I have broken up these areas for you so that you can plug in your child's activities, they overlap and are really related to one another. Also, no one activity is really superior to another. They each serve a valuable purpose, even if the only goal is relaxation.