Blooming Speech

06/02/2025

Floortime Play Therapy for Children With Autism

Floortime is a well-established form of play therapy that helps children with autism build social, communication, and emotional skills.

With Floortime methods, it's important that the adult or sibling engages with the autistic child based on the child's interests and actions, even if those actions have no obvious content or purpose.

Examples

One example of Floortime play is a child who is opening and closing a door with no obvious purpose. Their guardian hides behind the door and, when it opens, says "Boo!" The autistic child laughs and does it again to get the same response.

Or, a child is lining up trucks on the floor. A guardian rolls one truck backward and forward, making vrooming noises. The child reaches for the truck, but a guardian playfully hides the truck under one of their hands. The child lifts the guardian's hand to get the truck and puts it back in the line.

24/01/2025

Multimodal communication is a method of communicating using a variety of methods, including verbal language, sign language, and different types of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)

19/01/2025

AAC & DISABILITY

17/01/2025

What is AAC?

12/01/2025

PICKY EATERS VERSUS PROBLEM FEEDERS🥗

🔹Picky eaters

- Decreased range or variety of foods; typically has 30 or more foods in their food range

- Foods lost due to “burn out” from Food Jagging are usually eaten again after a 2-week break

- Eats at least one food from most all nutrition or texture groups (e.g. purees, Meltable foods, proteins, fruits)

- Can tolerate new foods on their plate; usually able to touch or taste food (even if reluctantly)

- Frequently eats a different set of foods at a meal than other family members; typically eats at the same time and at the same table as other family members

🔹Problem feeders

- Restricted range or variety of foods; usually eats less than 20 foods

- Foods lost due to “burn out” from Food Jagging are not eaten again after a break, resulting in a further decrease in the # of foods eaten

- Refuses entire categories of food textures or nutrition groups (e.g. soft cubes, meats, vegetables, Hard Mechanicals)

- Cries, screams, tantrums, “falls apart” when new foods are presented; complete refusal

- Almost always eats a different set of foods than their family; often eats at a different time or at a different place than other family members

02/01/2025

25/12/2024

Sometimes, for autistic children , receiving gifts can be an overwhelming experience. There are lots of things going on. The element of surprise, the bright wrapping paper, and the people watching for your reaction. It can be a little daunting for autistic children. So, I have complied a list of tips to help you give gifts to autistic children!

Give one present at a time - sometimes seeing a lot of presents all at once can be too overwhelming for autistic children.

Have a chat about what to expect beforehand - have a chat with your child about what they can expect to open on Christmas Day. They might be expecting something that they’re not going to get, so if this could be a potential trigger for a breakdown, have a chat before the big day.

Don’t put the presents out before they can open them - it’s very tempting to take a sneak peek at your presents. For autistic children, this temptation can become too much, and it may be too overwhelming for them to deal with.

Don’t wrap the presents - if your child isn’t too big on surprises, maybe avoid the wrapping paper and give them one gift at a time. This way, they won’t get too overwhelmed by the level of surprise and the amount of presents they have.

24/12/2024

🎄🎄🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎄🎄

23/12/2024

Strategies you can use when teaching a student with echolalia.

22/12/2024

Does your child repeat language from movies, TV shows? Do they repeat what you say when you ask question? Have you heard this described as “echolalia” or “scripting”? Do they hum, sing or vocalize with rich intonation? Do they communicate with long strings of jargon like language?

Then your child might be a GESTALT LANGUAGE PROCESSOR!