Parents Education Network (PEN) arrives in Phoenix

We here at PEDI Center keep our eyes and ears open for any new resources we can provide for families. A brand-new program has come to the Valley of the Sun. Here’s a message sent out to service providers from the founders of PEN (Parents Education Network) that tells us about their mission.

 A message and invitation from Jen Kasten and Heather Nassar
Co-founders, PEN Phoenix

Many of us go about our daily lives without noticing the relative isolation in which we live — until we find ourselves facing questions about our children’s education.  Even those of us who have lived in the Valley for years often don’t know where to start to find answers. For parents of children with learning or attention differences, it can be an especially lonely journey.

That is why we are bringing the Parents Education Network (“PEN”) to Phoenix. PEN started as a grassroots organization in 2003 in San Francisco, California. The founders were a group of parents who individually struggled to find the information, services, and expertise to help their children succeed academically. Over the past ten years, this small group of parents evolved into a thriving nonprofit organization with national impact, galvanizing an entire community of parents, educators, students, and related professionals. We are fortunate that Phoenix is one of a handful of cities in which PEN has chosen to launch a pilot “affiliate” chapter.

Our first organizational meeting earlier this month (November 2013) was a resounding success, bringing together thoughtful people from all around the Valley who share a passion and commitment to creating a collaborative education community.  We’ve already begun planning an exciting speakers series and are ready to begin discussing the development of additional programs and events.

Whether you are a parent, educator, professional, or simply an interested community member, we would like to invite you to our next organizational meeting to learn how you can become involved. Please join us:

2-3:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2013 at theChildren’s Museum of Phoenix (Marley Room on second floor)

 REGISTER HERE

Come join the movement that is dedicated to helping you implement the new “science of the individual” in your home and classroom.  Our vision is to spread the word through community awareness; parents, educators and students can discover together that each of us has a learning profile that is all our own.

Related articles

• PEN holding parent education workshops (altadenablog.com)
• Milledgeville professor publishes report on why, how parents choose private school (milledgeville.13wmaz.com)
• If You Can Read This, You May Advance to Fourth Grade (zocalopublicsquare.org)
• Five ways to help your child – from a headteacher! (tutorhub.com)

Fall into these therapeutic crafts

Fall is a perfect time to work on fine-motor skills and sensory input using crafts. Pasting requires dexterity, often a challenge in young children, as well as introducing textures from papers, paints, glues and other materials.  Here are a couple of ideas we like:

Mosaic pumpkins

Materials: Orange construction or tissue paper, green construction paper, glue (preferably squeeze kind to improve muscle tone and control in the hands), blunt-nosed children’s scissors, card stock paper (orange or white) and adult supervision.

  Directions: First, cut the card stock paper into a pumpkin shape. Next, have the child tear the orange paper into small pieces. Using the squeeze glue, paste the orange pieces onto the pumpkin shape. Encourage child to pick up one piece at a time to improve grasp and control using forefinger and thumb. When finished, an adult can cut a stem from the green paper and apply at the top of the pumpkin.

Variations: Use pumpkin seeds or other orange materials for covering the pumpkin shape; cut the paper yourself into various shapes (Squares, circles, triangles, etc.,) and have the child identify the shapes while pasting.

Therapeutic benefits: Improves muscle control in hand by squeezing glue (too hard gives them too much glue, not hard enough won’t force out any glue), improves pincer grasp, introduce textures including glue and paper. Introduces scissors skills for older children.

Fall wreath or table centerpiece

Materials: Paper plate, loose silk leaves (or foam leaf stickers), glue, blunt-nosed scissors, adult supervision.

Take a paper plate and cut out the center to form a wreath shape. Glue the fall leaves or stick the foam leaf stickers around the edge of the plate to form a fall wreath. Hang the wreath or place around a candle to form a table centerpiece.  

Therapeutic benefits: Improves muscle control in hand by squeezing glue, improves pincer grasp, introduce textures including glue and paper. Introduce scissors skills for older children.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles:

• Fun Fall Crafts for Kids (frogprincepaperie.com)
• Thankful Fall Leaf Hand (alittleplayfullness.wordpress.com)
• Thanksgiving Turkey Crafts for Kids: Popular Parenting Pinterest Pin Picks (socialnewsdaily.com)

Physical therapy month fun check list

In honor of Physical Therapy Month in October, we’re sharing a blog post from Natalie Lopez, a clinical pediatric specialist and doctor of physical therapist at Every Child Achieves therapeutic clinic.

By Natalie Lopez on October 2, 2013

10 Signs You’re a Pediatric Physical Therapist

10 

You are used to answering the question, “What?? Why do kids need physical therapy?” after someone asks what you do.

9

You get excited to wear fun socks to work because let’s face it, you barely wear your shoes at work anyway.

8

No matter how your hair is styled for the day, by the end of the day, your hair will be tied back in a pony tail.

7

You have your standard five nursery rhyme songs you know by heart and can sing all day long.

6

You have at least one toy rolling around in your car.

5

You’re a pro at walking in a squatting position and walking backwards down stairs.

4

You are able to use one toy for a minimum of five different activities.

3 

You know how to sign for “more” and “all done.” (you probably just read this again and did the sign with your hands )

2

You’ve developed cat-like reflexes to dodge flying toys and to catch falling children.
andddd last but not least!

1

You still get excited every time one of your patients reaches a new milestone

Feel free to add to this list if you are a pediatric physical therapist!

Related articles

• Happy National Physical Therapy Month! (healthcallsathome.wordpress.com)
• Physical Therapy Month – Aptanj Member Benefits Announcement (aptanj.wordpress.com)
• The Life of a Physical Therapist (kerridownes.wordpress.com)

School’s in session: Writing an IEP

School is back in session in Arizona and elsewhere summer holidays also are drawing to a close. That means parents whose children receive extra services at school are reviewing IEP goals and assessing where their child needs support.

IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan. IEPs were established as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA), a federal program created to insure children receive services they need to succeed in school. Services may include speech therapy, assistive technology, tutoring or any number of other supports that will help a child with a learning disability or developmental delay achieve to the level of his or her peers.

An IEP typically contains several goals established by a team that could include the child’s teacher, a school psychologist, a speech therapist, physical therapist or occupational therapist. The team always includes the parents or other primary caregivers, and anyone else the family might want there such as a the child’s soccer coach,  a grandparent or a previous teacher. All meet to develop a plan for the child that will set goals and put in place services to  meet those goals.

If it sounds like a lot acronyms and government speak, it is. But we at PEDI Center have worked with many children who have IEPs through their school districts. Our job is to support the needs that parents and teachers have identified on an IEP while continuing to priortize therapy goals for each of our families.

Here are some of our tips on developing an education plan for your child:

Establish realistic goals. An IEP is written with goals being set for a year out. A lot can change for a child in 12 months. For example, saying you want your kindergartener to be able to print well sounds quite reasonable in September. But by December he or she may already have accomplished that goal. A more refined goal might be “Jimmy will be able to write a short sentence and keep letters appropriately on the baseline and midline.”

 Understand your rights as parents.  Stephanie Romero, our bilingual speech pathologist, has a dual role working at the Laveen Elementary School District. She has helped many families with creating speech goals. She says a common mistake for parents is not understanding their rights when it comes to managing an IEP.

“Parents see the rights handbook and all the pages, but they often don’t read through it, ” Ms. Romero said. “For example, an IEP meeting must take place at least once every year. But parents can call and a request a meeting at any time. If they have concerns we can meet at other times. ”

Parental involvement. Ms. Romero also said the most significant and influential input for an IEP comes from the parents. “It is a team effort. We don’t see how they are at home. We have to work together.” No one knows your child better than you do. You know if he  needs extra help with handwriting because of fine-motor skills, or a sensory diet because she can’t focus without frequent breaks. Bring that knowledge to the table and share with the team.

Keep in touch: Talk with your child’s teachers and therapists regularly whether it’s through meetings, phone calls or emails. If your child’s needs have changed, you will have an established relationship with the team to make the necessary changes.

These are only a few of the most important components of developing an IEP with your team. Feel free to share your own tips in the comment sections below.

Here  are some other useful links for IEPs:

Kids Health: What is an IEP

Federal government IEP information for parents

National Center for Learning Disabilities

Related articles

• Review Your Child’s IEP (advocacyforkids.net)
• Iep (formyeducation.wordpress.com)
• Shouldnt a Sub Have Access to IEPs? (pattidudek.typepad.com)
• Educators encouraged to attend Common Core and IEP goal-writing training (mainedoenews.net)

Surf’s up! Kick boards help kids gain core strength

Riding a kick board on your tummy helps develop head and visual control as well as lateral trunk control for better core stability. Children gain in their gross motor skills, stimulate their sensory input and improve overall physical development.

• Place your child on his or her belly with the kick board supporting the trunk from armpit to pelvis. Put one hand on the lower back and one under the kick board if your child needs support. Shift the board side to side and do circles around you.

Sitting on the board can help develop balance and oblique muscles.

•  Place children in sitting facing you as you hold both sides of the board under their bottom. If they do not have enough trunk control to maintain sitting in this position turn them to face away from you. Then bring their trunk and the board against your body and reach around to hold the board between their thighs. Move through the water and tilt the board in all directions to stimulate balance reactions.

Standing on the board is difficult but fun for all and a great way to develop balance and pelvic control.

• Push the board down to a step that your child can stand comfortably on and hold it to the surface with your foot. Holding your child’s hand have them step onto the board on either side of your foot and slowly allow the board to rise or slide off the step. Watch out for the flying board when it pops out from underneath.

KEY words: Core strength, pediatric physical therapy, aquatic therapy, special needs, childhood development, gross motor skills.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles

• Aquatic therapy improves coordination, sensory integration (pedicenterfortherapy.wordpress.com)

Why developmental screening is a priority

Developmental Screening

The importance of developmental screening for your child:

•  Schools assess your child’s learning regularly.

•  Pediatricians assess your child’s health regularly.

•  Shouldn’t developmental specialists in movement, play and language assess your child as well?

The answer, of course, is yes.

The PEDI Center’s mission is to bring understanding and information to all parents on their children’s development including their strengths, their weaknesses and the best approach through play to optimize a child’s potential.

Through yearly screening PEDI Center helps parents with ‘development focus points’ within each discipline – movement, play and language – for the year. Assessments help illuminate problem areas and provide parents with the opportunity to get more comprehensive testing and early intervention if needed. Parents will have a better understanding of early childhood development and in their children specifically.

Parents are provided with a list of activities in each area specifically development for their child.

Yearly screenings help parents understand their child’s level of development.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles

• Toys and activites to improve sensory integration (pedicenterfortherapy.wordpress.com)
• Continuity and Discontinuity in Developmental Psychology (psych.answers.com)
• 8 Signs It’s Not A Discipline Problem – Is it just tantrums or a developmental disorder? (babble.com)
• Finally, A Child Development Guidebook for Parents (atlantablackstar.com)
• Early Recognition Of Childhood Motor Delay Problems Imperative (medicalnewstoday.com)

Study Shows Early Sound Recognition Contributes to Good Spelling Abilities in Children

The PEDI Center team keeps tabs on other bloggers who talk about issues near and dear to us. This blog from The Sensory Spectrum talks about how sounds and spelling ability are related.

The Sensory Spectrum

Learning to spell is not just about knowing how to read the words but also knowing how to recognize each word as it is heard. eReflect, makers of Ultimate Spelling, found a British study that pursues this theory by determining the relationship of early sound recognition with a child’s spelling ability. So for those of us with SPD kiddos, how does their sensory challenges affect their ability to hear words properly?

View original post 333 more words

PEDI Center offering sensory-based feeding groups

Sensory Based Feeding Groups

Do you have a picky eater at home? “I only eat the brown ones!” “I can’t eat those, they’re touching!”

Your child’s pickyness may be related to sensory-processing problems. Problems with sensory processing can produce aversions or obsessions with specific smells, textures, and tastes  affecting your child’s relationship with food.

Need Help?

Pedi-Center for Therapy is offering Sensory Feeding Groups to foster positive relationships with mealtimes through play and sensory-based approaches. In addition to clinic-based feeding groups, a personalized home program will be developed for your child and family enabling mealtime success to travel from the clinic back to your dinner table.

What to expect during group

• A safe and fun environment to experience foods through imaginative play • Small groups (2-4) of like-aged children

• Progress tracked through gathered data

• Social skills/participation

Objectives: To experience food as non-threatening

Sharing food with loved ones is a long-held tradition in all cultures providing the opportunity for shared nutritional needs but also social and emotional needs. The dinner table is an arena for shared ideas, thoughts, good/bad days, and of course relishing in our favorite tastes.

Once your child is able to encounter food as friend, not foe, he/she can then begin to experience food and mealtimes as they ought to be: nutrition for both the body and soul.

Credits: Susan Roberts, MDiv, OTR/L

For more information about our summer sensory feeding groups, contact PEDI Center for Therapy at

PEDI Center
15414 N. 7th Street, Suite 3
Phoenix, AZ 85022
Tel: (602) 476-7519
Fax: (602) 445-4971
Email: lisa@ pedi-center.com

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles

• Wrong feeding methods lead to disorders (vietnamnews.vn)
• Best Tips for Picky Eaters (foxnews.com)
• Picky Eaters…but what about #SpecialNeeds eaters? (imamomtoo.wordpress.com)

Toys and activites to improve sensory integration

Working with children delivers many rewards to their therapists and care givers, and one of those is seeing a child achieve developmental goals. For special needs children or young children with developmental delays, achieving milestones means overcoming numerous obstacles that typical kids do with little effort. One of those obstacles can be sensory integration.

Finger painting is a creative way of adding a tactile experience for your child.

Sensory integration means being able to process information that the body is sending to the brain in a way that helps children make sense of their environments. A child with sensory integration disorder receives input from what they see, hear, touch and smell. But when the sensory data arrives in their brain, the information is often disjointed, rather like talking on a cell phone with bad reception. You get a word or two of the conversation, but many words are missing.

There are a variety of tools to help children improve their sensory processing.

Tactile play is a fancy way of saying touchy-feely play. Sensory-integration-disorder.com says this about tactile stimulation:

“Children need to touch a variety of textures and play with them to develop normal tactile processing. If your child will not play with messy items, it is even more important that you continue to find fun and creative ways to introduce these to them.”

Such activities might include finger paints, PlayDough, shaving cream, glue or digging through a tub of dried pasta to find a specific a small toy. Touching different textures improves a child’s sensory processing by giving the brain a variety of stimulation.

One activity parents can do with their children is to create a tactile book. Using card stock or other heavier paper, punch holes and use twine or other textured string for binding. On each page, paste a small item that will invite  touch. Some examples: a snippet of corduroy fabric, corrugated cardboard, sand paper, aluminum foil, a swatch of velvet, satin or other fabric or mesh tape. Look around the house to find odds and ends that will work.    Customize the book to your child’s needs.

Touching different textures helps children improve sensory processing.

Families that I have worked with take the books along for outings to provide their child with necessary stimulation that help make shopping trips and other errands less stressful for parents and children.

PEDI Center for Therapy also offers a variety of therapeutic toys such as tactile balls and squishy toys. PEDI Center also can help families create a custom-designed box of tactile items for their children.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles

• Sensory Conference: Sensory Integration Fun with Paula Aquilla (jenniferajanes.com)
• Sensory Integration and Learning Frequencies (hastac.org)
• Sensory processing and sensory circuits for children (jfwrightspeechtherapy.wordpress.com)
• Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism (thesensoryspectrumblog.com)
• How sensory-based therapy can help picky eaters (pedicenterfortherapy.wordpress.com)

Favorite educational toys for children 0-5

One reason I write this blog for PEDI Center is that in addition to social media, I also am a developmental special instructor for Arizona’s Early Intervention Program. As a DSI, I work with children  in their homes providing resources and ideas for tools and activities to improve a child’s development. The areas of development include fine-motor skills, physical movement, speech, cognitive and social development. Parents and caregivers frequently ask about what toys will help their child in the family’s area of concern.

Here are some ideas for activities and examples of toys that will encourage a child’s cognitive development and problem-solving skills. This doesn’t mean we endorse one particular brand or product over another one. These are  examples of toys so parents and caregivers have a better idea about what is appropriate for their child at any given stage of development.

Cognitive skills  learned and developed during early childhood have life-long benefits and are the first steps in successful problem solving in adulthood. Some activities that encourage this are:

• sorting by colors or shapes
• sequencing (For example, if the beads are red, blue, yellow, red, blue  then have the child determine which color bead goes next)
• counting
• memory games (such as matching hidden cards so the child can remember where the match is) and
• puzzles

  These are the first steps in learning that will prepare children with the skills they will need to succeed in   school and eventually in solving problems in life. For example, and adult might ask this question: “Now where I can store this ladder in my garage and still have room for the car?” An adult who played with shape sorters and building blocks as a toddler likely will have a better understanding of spatial relationships and likely quickly decide the right place for the ladder.

Focusing on these types of activities and toys similar to those listed below will help your child begin on a path to success.

Cognitive development

The following toys will help with concepts such as colors, sizes, shapes, basic counting/number skills, matching, sequencing and problem solving: 

Stacking rings, nesting cups, shape sorters, puzzles, building blocks, construction toys, flashcards and cause/effect toys.

Next week: toys and activities for sensory integration.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

Related articles

• Learning Toys And Stuffs by Fisher Price (toystorefisherprice.wordpress.com)
• Who Knows Toys Better Than Kids? (melissaanddoug.com)
• Is My Child Normal – Cognitive, Motor & Socio-Emotional Development (everydayfamily.com)