Types of Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia (“Dys” meaning “difficulty” and “graphia” meaning “writing”) is a neurological disorder seen in many children with fine motor or sensory-motor challenges making their handwriting unintelligible.

Dysgraphia can result from any neurological trauma or along with physical impairments, ADHD, learning disabilities, autism etc. If the child shows symptoms of dysgraphia when introduced to writing, parents must consult the best occupational therapist for treatment.

Here are the types of dysgraphia:

Dyslexic Dysgraphia – When the child’s readily written works are illegible and copied works are fine with minor spelling mistakes, the condition is said to be dyslexic dysgraphia. It is not necessary that a child with dysgraphia must have dyslexia; they often occur together, but not certainly. 

Motor Dysgraphia – If the handwriting issues are caused by the deficiency of fine motor skills, poor dexterity, poor muscle tone etc. it becomes motor dysgraphia. Written works are illegible, even if copied from another document. For these children, letter formation requires extreme effort and considerable time, at the same time, cannot be sustained for a longer period of time.

Spatial Dysgraphia – When children find difficulty in understanding the space such as spacing between words, letters and lines on a sheet of paper, it is called spatial dysgraphia. These children write on top of the lines with no spatial concerns making the written works extremely hard to understand. They might not have any spelling errors or writing speed related issues but are unable to comprehend the concept of spacing. 

Phonological Dysgraphia – Phonological dysgraphia can be defined as the writing and spelling perplexities occurring with the spelling of unfamiliar words, non-words, and phonetically irregular words. Children with phonological dysgraphia have difficulty in memorizing phonemes to produce the right words. 

Lexical Dysgraphia – Lexical Dysgraphia is very rare, yet defined as a condition in which the child is able to spell words but hugely relay on standard sound-to-letter patterns which leads to the misspelling of words.

Dysgraphia can be diagnosed and corrected in the best occupational therapy center in Dubai. Although dysgraphia is of varying types, it is not necessary to know the correct type to begin the treatment. Most of the types require the same techniques and practices to cure the disorder.

Why does your child need Audio-Verbal Therapy?

Children with hearing impairment gain listening ability through hearing aids or cochlear implantation. Once their hearing loss is rectified with hearing aids, it is necessary that children must undergo audio-verbal therapy in any of the best speech therapy centers in UAE. Why is it a necessity? There are reasons to say so. 

• With the help of hearing aids, children can hear and detect most of the speech words addressed directly to them and the other sounds heard in the background. 

• It is not essential that a hearing-impaired child must become a visual learner, using sign language forever. With proper exposure and regular practice with speech therapists, one can become an auditory learner.

• With the improvement in auditory skills and verbal language, reading skills get enhancement alongside. 

• Parents of the children in AVT therapy need not worry about learning sign language, as the therapists aim to facilitate an audio-verbal conversation with the children without pushing into sign language. 

• Speech therapists create a supportive environment around the children, persuading them to listen carefully in constant interactions with fellow mates and therapists. 

• AVT sessions are highly effective in helping children to become independent in life so that their educational and social life goes smoothly, without much pressure and stress of being isolated by others. 

A child with hearing loss must never be pushed into the edge of sign language. Try the best speech therapist in UAE to help them learn conversational skills. If not, they will remain expressing their thoughts in actions, attend special schools and be stuck with the sign language forever. Let their life become more lively with dynamic words. 

Understanding Lisp in Speech Therapy

 What is Lisp?

A lisp can be explained as a speech impediment that usually involves the substitution of “s” and “z” sounds in common speech. Due to which lots of words go wrong ineffective communication. 

There are various types of lisp depending on the mouth organs that are involved in the production of the sounds. It can be modified with good speech therapy sessions. 

One cannot determine the actual time needed to overcome the issue, but studies have proven that almost 1/3rd of children show significant improvement within one year of regular speech therapy. 

Types of Lisp

There are four common types of lisps and they are:

• Interdental lisps

This kind of lisp occurs when the tongue goes between your front teeth and makes

the “th”- sound instead of the /s/ and /z/ sounds.

• Dentalized lisps

Dentalized lisps occur when the tongue hits the front teeth while making the /s/ and /z/ sounds,

making it unclear. 

• Lateral lisp

When /s/ and /z/ sounds are produced, the air escapes out through the sides of the tongue.

• Palatal lisp

In here, the child is trying to make the “s” sounds when the middle of the tongue is in contact

with the soft palate making it a palatal lisp.

The best speech therapy centers in Dubai, conduct a detailed assessment to identify the speech disorder of the child along with the kind of lisp category. 

Therapists also give a thorough check into the oral structure and mobility of the organs and cavity muscles.

After this customized, personal therapy methods are made to address the problem of each individual child. 

Never avoid consulting a pediatric speech therapist with the mentality that these speech errors with “grow out of it” over time.

It may not, it will only lead to further communication difficulties in the future.   

Fun Emotional Exercises for Children

Identifying emotions and feelings at the right moment and the ability to express them is very much important in the overall cognitive development of children.

Just like how the other subjects are taught in classes, social emotions can also be learned for a smooth social life. Emotional regulations indeed help in right decision making skills and much more.

In certain group therapy sessions emotional exercises, activities and games are introduced so that children can realize the difference between each and other emotions and when to express them in real life situations. 

Here are some of the fun emotional games that can be incorporated into group therapies.

• Plastic Egg Faces: You can purchase plastic Easter eggs and draw faces in each with eyes on the top part and mouth in the bottom. The mouth can be drawn in different ways like open mouth, frown mouth, flat mouth etc. that represent different emotions. Take each egg and explain the emotion to kids and make them identify it by themselves. 

• Robot Flashcards: You could bring cute flashcards to the class and show various emotions displayed out for them to understand and speak out. This is surely a fun and captivating activity that certainly ensures learning. 

• Mood Meter: This encourages students in expressing their moods at each particular moment. It might be difficult for them to put it into words, yet rather easy with a meter dial.

• Calm Down Yoga: This activity does not deal with identifying emotions, it's rather about how to deal with overwhelming emotions like anger and frustration. Yoga is one of the best emotion regulation activities to be done by children and adults.

• Teach more feeling words: The most common practice is teaching emotions like happiness, madness, sadness etc. There are a wide range of social emotions that have to be implemented in different real life situations. A proper understanding of variants can result in the proper expression of these feelings.

• Books about feelings: Therapists could read books about feelings so that children can understand better. A sad book might make them cry, a funny book makes them laugh and have a good feeling at the end etc. Learning through experiencing is a very effective form of understanding.

These are some of the great ways that can be used to teach emotions to the children. A proper understanding of emotions is extremely important for a social life and regulation of excess emotions. 

Best group therapy centers in Ajman and others give proper sessions and classes regarding emotions and feelings. 

How do Children Benefit from Group Therapy ?

Group Therapies are excellent ways of helping children who face negative peer pressure and bullying at schools. 

These tormenting experiences at school can affect their social interaction skills and lead them to anxiety, stress and depression.

Parents often find it difficult to understand the challenges faced by children at school, but best group therapy centers can be really beneficial to manage their negative emotions and help them walk past the stress and anxieties. 

Here are some of the benefits children gain through group therapy sessions:

• Gain Social Confidence:
  In group therapy sessions, children mingle with other kids of more or less the same age group with similar experiences. 

Through the activities and exercises done as a group, children learn to find their voice in a safe and comfortable environment. 

• Reduces Stress: Children often get overwhelmed with their emotional traumas. But within a group therapy session, they find an ideal place to vent their emotions, connect with other kids and sympathize with them. This will in turn reduce the stress level of the child.

• Being heard and supported: Children with emotional anxieties, depression and mental health issues often feel themselves to be isolated because of their feeling that others won’t understand them.

 In most cases even parents fail to understand the problems faced by their children.

Groups provide an excellent space to be heard and known.

It is a safe environment where children openly express their feelings, get supported and learn from their peer members. 

• Fosters Friendships: Most of the children suffering mental health issues are alone with not many friends to outlet their emotions.

Being bullied by classmates will also lead to isolating themselves from others.

Group therapy sessions foster excellent friendships among children who feel and experience the same, who can empathize and actually care for each other. 

• Attain Communication Skills: Children who are filled with negative emotions often find it difficult to express themselves, they always end up communicating in anger or not communicating at all. 

If it is not cured at the growing age, it kind of sticks around making social life further exhausting due to the lack of proper communication skills.

Whereas the group sessions help children to verbalize and explore their emotions with other peers. 

A lot of issues relating to anxiety, depression, negativity etc. can be treated using best group therapies.

Almost all children find it hard to mingle in the beginning stages of treatment, as talking in front of others can be pretty horror some. But subsequent sessions in alternative days or weekly reduces the fear and they merge into the group for better results. 

There are top group therapy centers in UAE, Sharjah, Oman or anywhere in proximity for your better convenience and comfort. Be there for your child, when he or she is in need of your help.

Recovering Fine Motor Skills After Stroke

Stroke usually causes weakness or paralysis of body parts, making it difficult for the child to perform daily activities like dressing up, eating food, bathing etc. 

Getting the help of another individual, being dependent on others, is a really frustrating and horrifying experience that all want to overcome. 

With the help of good occupational therapy in rehabilitation centers one can regain the abilities of the body parts. They will have to undergo certain exercises and practices for the betterment. 

Common ways of recovering the fine motor skills are:

• Repetitive Exercises: It is the brain that gets affected by the stroke that further causes in-activeness in certain parts of the body. If the brain rewires itself, the body parts will get alright. This rewiring has to be achieved with repetitive exercises on the weak areas, for the brain to build new pathways.

• Fine Motor Control Exercises (AROM): Studies show that the stroke patients often suffer from fine motor difficulties due to the overabundance of muscle mass or the lack of muscle mass. So the best way to activate the inactive limbs would be repetitive exercises with the weaker body parts. Focus, target and deliberately try to use them in day to day activities.

• Bi-manual Therapy: Here motivation and exercises are done focusing on using both the hands equally in performing daily activities. This will help in perfect coordination of hands in proper manner for pouring milk or playing cards and so on.

• Sensory Processing: After a stroke, children will be more sensitive or less sensitive to touch, therefore therapists try to retain the child's sense of touch using different methods.

• Aquatic Therapy: Certain highly qualified occupational therapists use aquatic environments for movements and skills that cannot be done in land. This will undoubtedly help children in learning coordination and body awareness in a comfortable and fun environment.

These are some of the common ways through which the weaker limbs of the pediatric stroke patients are treated for attaining full length strength and stability. 

The best rehabilitation center in Ajman and other parts of the world provide premium treatment for children and adults suffering from fine motor difficulties due to stroke. With the help of right treatment at the right time, it can be rectified. 

Importance of Dollhouse in Speech Therapy

Boys and girls playing with their dollhouses is a very common practice in Western countries. They get a small house with almost all amenities in a normal house in miniature forms to play with. 

A doll house will include all kinds of household pieces like chairs, tables, beds, a television, a sink, a toilet, shelves, a stove, a fridge including human beings, who are the house members like the father, mother, brother, sister, grandparents etc. 

Playing with a dollhouse is extremely important in best speech therapy as it is versatile, functional and engaging for the children playing with it. It enhances the language and social skills of children in many ways beyond your imagination.

 Let us see how Dollhouses can be beneficial in the overall language development of a child in various ways.

Receptive language Skills

• Vocabulary: Almost all the items within the dollhouse would be familiar to the child. You can ask the kid “where is the table?” or “Show me the sink”.

The question along with a display of 4 or 5 items will help the child to imbibe the vocabulary related to each and every item in the house. 

• Identifying items with attributes: Ask the child to point or name the household item that can be sat upon or slept on or wash mouth. The kid will do a thorough check within the dollhouse and identify the item as you described it. 

• Give the level 1 instructions: You can give level one small instructions to the child like, “put mom in the bed” or “put dad in the bathroom” or “open the front door”.

• Give level 2 instructions: Once the child becomes master of small instructions, increase the challenge with multiple directions like, “put the girl on the dining table and make her eat the dinner”.

Expressive Language Skills

• Expressing Vocabulary: Once the child has absorbed the names of different household items, you will have to point and ask “what is this?” or “what do we call this?”, the child will speak out the names confidently. 

• Using Action Verbs: Try to teach the action verbs by describing it along the play, like “brother is walking/bathing/running/watching” etc. This will help the child in associating the actions with the verbs.

• Practice with Position words: You will have to ask the child about the position of different items by describing it.For example take the mother in hand and ask the child ”Do we have to keep the mother under the table or behind the shelf or on the chair” etc.

Emphasizing the position words like in, on, under, behind, in front, beside etc. along with your actions help children in drawing connections.

• Promote Narratives: With the daily activities of the dolls in the dollhouse, you can encourage your child to develop the best narrative. “What do you think the mom is doing?” or “What happens next?” or “Where is he going?” etc. 

From the above mentioned points it is quite clear that dollhouses are an excellent fun activity that must be promoted for speech therapy sessions. 

Almost all the best speech therapy centers in Sharjah or any place for that matter, encourages the parents of children to build or buy a doll house for the child to play with. 

After all, it is the mini version of a house that you dream about with the perfect family and the perfect outlook. Children would be direly excited to play with the dream-house.

Whole Process of Occupational Therapy for Cerebral Palsy

All children with Cerebral Palsy have considerable issues relating to their body controlling, balance, motor skills etc. 

An excellent occupational therapy session can be effective in many ways beyond imagination.

The injuries on different parts of the brain can cause variant muscle tones and difficulty in movements of body parts.

The best occupational therapists take a careful look at the medical history of the child and will conduct a detailed analysis on the type of Cerebral Palsy and how it affects the particular child.

Accordingly they begin their treatment methods and techniques using various tools like games, toys, braces, household objects etc.

With the help of these techniques and regular practices they can bring appreciable difference in these children. 

The occupational therapy process of Cerebral Palsy includes:

• Auditory (Sensory): Here the activities and exercises are concentrated on improving the senses of children like their feelings such as touch, bodily sensations etc. 

   Two of the major agendas are:

• Physical and mental awareness of the things happening around
• Initiating accurate responses when met with touches and with movements

• Optical (Visual): In this, all the techniques focus on developing skills of learning like the ability to read, write and draw with the help of pencils or childhood tools like crayons.

    This is done to enhance:

• Clarity in things
• Perception of all things in depth
• Perception in different dimensions 

• Environmental (Physical): This involves different games and activities for the proper physical movements of the body for a better life. 

     Here they tend to learn things like:

• Developmental Improvements along their growth
• Understanding the range of motions
• Flexibility of body parts
• Elasticity in performing daily activities

• Social (Interaction): Here children are taught how to interact with others in a social life and the way of communicating with proper language. This session also includes speech therapy and group therapy elements for better results.

      This enables them to:

• Have a smooth integration with the society
• Develop social skills
• Ignite their reasoning skills

All the above mentioned phases come as various steps of occupational therapy for Cerebral Palsy, yet the best occupational therapy centers in Dubai and other parts of the world start with a detailed evaluation of the child and then come up with an individualized plan to achieve personal goals that includes these phases. 

Spark Cards: For Better Speech Development

We have often noticed that storytelling is something children are always fond of. Sequencing one event after the another, with enough connections and links that makes sense, is one of the greatest exercises for speech and language development.

 Because it enables a child to glue together the broken pieces into a framework. Spark cards are 8 sequence sets of stories with 6 beautifully illustrated scene cards each.

 The best speech therapists in the world suggest Spark Cards during their therapy sessions and for parents to practice at home. 

Here are the 8 sequence sets of the whole package:

• Going to the library

• Preparing for a hurricane

• Setting up a lemonade stand

• Going to the vet

• Playing football

• Setting the table

• Going to the beach

• Planting flowers

All these 8 scenarios or situations have 6 cards each to be arranged by the child in proper order. There are also instructions, questions and problems given at the back of the cards.

 Here is the full form of SPARK, with each letter aiming to achieve one or the other skills for children playing the cards. 

• Sequencing and Sentence Formation: All the 6 cards available at each sequence set have to be properly arranged in order to complete the story that makes sense.

You can also complete the story with 3 or 4 cards for the simpler version of the story and add the others to make it complicated. 

After the sequencing, children are asked by the parents or therapists to explain the story formation in sentences, helping them to build the story in their own language. 

• Predicting and Problem Solving: Each sequence set has at least one or two problems to be solved by the child. The problems will be based on the characters in the story, “What would happen, if ? “ kind of hypothetical issues and children must identify, describe and solve with accuracy.

 The solution can be said as a conversation between the characters or as a written exercise. Whatever the case, it is sure to increase the vocabulary and sentence formation of the child.

• Analyzing situations and Answering Questions: The cards are presented with many questions in the back of the guide cards.

 Children must address each and every one of the questions, after analysing the situation and come up with brilliant answers. 

• Retelling skills and Reasoning: After the child completes the story once in the simpler base structure, he/she is asked to retell the story with complicated plot giving rise to more developments in story, as well as the sentence structure of the child.

• Knowledge of Basic Concepts: Each of the sequence stories are of different regular life scenarios and provides a great deal of understanding and terminology relating to that situation. 

“Going to the vet” sequence has words relating to guide dogs, different breeds of dog, Veterinary doctor etc “Playing Football” would provide basic knowledge about the game and so on. 

These SPARK cards are extremely useful in enhancing your child’s speech and language skills.

 Many top speech therapy centers in Dubai and other countries make use of them for their therapy sessions and would certainly recommend it to the parents for practice and fun at home.