• Know your expectations – Knowing your children’s stressors and needs will help structure your expectations during the holidays. If noise is a stressor, shopping will be difficult, but a hand fidget, mouth tool or movement activity may help your child be more successful.

Motor Skills And Academic and Social Success

The ability to plan movements, or motor planning, is a foundational skill children with many learning disabilities have problems with. Another word for motor planning is praxis, and children with learning disabilities in general often have dyspraxia, or problems with motor planning. Praxis is an interesting process. It looks so simple to reach out and pick up a glass of milk, but neurologically it's very difficult. The brain has three areas that must collaborate to make this simple action successful. One area of the brain has the idea. The clinical term for this is ideation. A second area develops the plan or says to itself, "That flower vase is in the way, so I'll have to reach around it, extend my fingers, flex my fingers, squeeze the glass of milk with this much pressure," and so on. Then a third area executes the action, that is, it physically performs it. These three pieces combine to form praxis, and when they don't work in a typical manner, it is referred to as dyspraxia.

Children with NLD and Asperger’s have difficulty with the execution phase of motor planning. They can make ideas, talk about their plan but somewhere between planning the action and executing it, they fail. Children with NLD/AS are often clumsy. They spill a lot. Why? They know they want the milk, but when they reach to get it, they forget to plan to navigate around the flower vase, or to negotiate the distance or weight of the glass, and they are unsuccessful. Helping children develop better skills in praxis is an intervention that transfers into many areas of the child's life. Overall, it helps prevent overload, defuses meltdowns, and gives these children the ability to execute their intentions with out the frustration of constant failure. Moving simple motor performance into an automatic, successful and reliable skill can help many children relax and focus on learning social skills and be more able to face novel situations.

"It is clear that play, or possessing the characteristic of playfulness, is a primary aspect of health and wellness. Concomitant to this, the role of occupational therapy practitioners, in part, is to restore the value and power of play in the lives of individuals and in society." -Charlotte Brasic Royeen, PhD, OTR

Play is the most important activity, the central focus, and the primary occupation of a child. Play promotes social interactions, provides opportunities for development of cognitive and motor skills, allows for movement between reality and fantasy and permits release of energy and emotion. Play supports the development of behaviors and abilities that make us uniquely human such as tool use, language, and culturally derived social skills. (Vandenberg & Kielhofner, 1982). Play develops language, motor skills, mental thought, ability to work out psychic challenges, master the environment and reflects the child’s culture. It allows us to practice important skills in a fun and forgiving context. Play has an organizing effect on human behavior and has a clear foundational role in creative thinking, socialization, sensorimotor skill development and role acquisition. (Royeen, 1997).

In Occupational Therapy (OT) we believe there is inherent value in being engaged in an activity that has meaning and brings joy to the participant. This knowledge in combination with our neurodevelopmental understandings (brain development), biological knowledge (how the body gains mastery) and psychosocial (how we engage in the social aspects of our environment) has led us to a leadership role today in the area of learning and prevention and maintenance of health.

However, today, academics are emphasized at earlier ages with the misguided mis-understanding that we thereby assure the lifetime success of our children. But play is how a child learns to learn. Play enables the child to understand and find meaning in their world, to develop resiliency, and to master certain skills. Play supports the development of self-confidence and self-competence and helps a child relate to herself, to others and to the world that which she feels and sees.

In the 60’s, kindergarten was a place to explore with your neighborhood friends. Now, kindergarten is the time in children’s lives during which they learn to sit for extended periods, to focus on an adult directed activity, to read and write and learn mathematical ideas. Developmentally, we are asking too much of young nervous systems, which are not yet ready to process information in that way. Recesses have been shortened or discontinued and are often "removed" as punishment when a child can’t sit still and listen. Is it any surprise that children are struggling to make friends, develop social skills, and have adequate motor skills?

Play is more than an unsophisticated use of unstructured time. During play, and as a result of play, changes occur in the nervous system that enhance growth, maturation, and organization of the nervous system which supports the individual to interact with their environment in more meaningful and complex ways. Play nourishes the nervous system, providing essential sensory stimuli that helps it grow additional neural connections, resulting in both functional and structural changes to the brain. The stimuli allows the individual to make more adaptive responses to novel situations in their environment. This enhanced capacity (resiliency) of the nervous system allows the child to interact with the environment in more complex ways and to develop more sophisticated strategies to deal with new challenges. the best of intentions, we have attempted to enrich their lives by enriching their minds. But the body and the mind and the spirit are inseparable. We can no longer afford to risk the balance of a life by over-emphasizing education, academics and rote learning.

Children with NLD and Asperger’s have deficits in social interaction, motor performance, visual-spatial-organizational skills and anticipation of consequences. With intervention, they have an excellent prognosis Without intervention, adults with NLD report feelings of loneliness, a need to withdraw, and lack of both confidence and competence. Play is a context in which or through which many of the skills children with NLD/AS are lacking can be gained, practiced and integrated. From childhood and then on into adulthood, play becomes an essential aspect of growth and development and is the arena in which successful occupational performance can occur.

By Carrie Geddes, OTR

My all time favorite activity is Clean Up your Back Yard. Start by setting up two "back yards" by placing a long strip of tape along the floor, equidistant between each player. Then, place an equal number of objects in each back yard (I often use wadded up paper or squeeze toys. The object of the game is for each player to get the contents in their backyard into the other player’s backyard. The fun part is that both players are trying to get objects into the other backyard so the game is a never ending process. I usually time the game for 1-2 minute intervals and then play about 3-4 rounds. This is a great game to work on social interaction and handwriting. It works on the foundational underpinnings that are necessary for handwriting tasks, encourages children to perform hand skills with increased speeds and works on the muscles of posture. Often, during the game, I have children vary their body position such as lying prone over a therapy ball, prone on their stomach, in a crawl position, in tall kneeling, etc. It’s a great motivator and your kids will never suspect they’re doing handwriting homework!

Watch for our exciting, new, monthly PARENTING PROGRAMS, starting this Winter! Learn how to develop an IEP, strategies for combating meltdowns, activities to aid gross and fine motor development & more!