Friday, January 14, 2011

Back to basics in the New Year

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Gordon Neufeld

Resolutions in the New Year tend to bring us back to basics. Undoubtedly this is why health is our overwhelming preoccupation as judged by the fact that exercise and diet top most New Year’s resolution lists. Upon reflection, health clearly becomes the ultimate priority, as we need our health to prolong our time and preserve our ability to make use of it.

Is there a parallel priority in parenting, something equally basic and like health, in need of renewed resolve? I believe so. Most simply put, it would be to convey to our children the invitation to exist in our presence. It is hard to imagine anything more important, and at the same time, more difficult to remember in the day-to-day busyness that is parenting. I am convinced, after a life-time of putting the pieces together as a developmental scientist, after 40 years of practicing as a clinical psychologist, after 170 cumulative years of parenting and grandparenting, that this simple invitation contains the essence of what is required for healthy development to unfold....

read more...http://gordonneufeld.com/blog/?p=369

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

“ADVENTURES IN SOCIAL EMOTIONAL REGULATION TRAINING” A ‘Funtastic’ Social Learning Group

WHO: For children ages 7 – 11 years old with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, or social skills deficits. This group is eligible for Autism Funding.

WHERE: OT Clinic at 3836 Eton Street, North Burnaby, B.C.
This group will be facilitated by a Registered Clinical Counsellor and an Occupational Therapist, both with extensive experience working with children with Autism Spectrum disorders.

WHEN: Starting Friday’s January 14th – March 4th (8 weeks), 3 30 – 5 pm

WHAT: This group is in part based on Super Flex Social Thinking Curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner (www.socialthinking.com). It was designed specifically for children that tend to be rigid in their thinking and have trouble shifting their thoughts or plans around the plans of others to adapt to the social world around them. The goals of the group are to help children develop skills to enable them to be socially flexible and able to adapt to changes around them. Also to help students increase their awareness of social behaviors, staying on topic and to identify how their unexpected behaviors make other people feel. Strategies that are used in group ensure a highly structured and predictable environment. Parents are provided with the curriculum, homework to practice at home and taught how to practice social skills outside of group to ensure the children generalize the skills to other settings. Students in the Social Learning group will have difficulty regulating their own behaviors in the moment, and this curriculum provides a FUN forum in which they can explore their own challenges and demonstrate ways to modify their thoughts and related behaviors. This course has been running for 4 years and is highly successful in teaching social skills to those who struggle to develop them naturally. Kids love this group!
Total cost of the programme is $700 per child.

CONTACT: Courtney Nichols M.A – Painted Lighthouse Counselling & Consulting Inc.
www.paintedlighthouse.com
courtney@paintedlighthouse.com 604.833.2562

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

“ADVENTURES IN SOCIAL EMOTIONAL REGULATION TRAINING” A ‘Funtastic’ Social Learning Group

WHO: For children ages 4 – 6 years old with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, or social skills deficits. This group is eligible for Autism Funding.

WHERE: OT clinic at 3836 Eton Street, North Burnaby, B.C.
This group will be facilitated by a Registered Clinical Counsellor and an Occupational Therapist, both with extensive experience working with children special needs including Autism Spectrum disorders.

WHEN: Starting Friday January 28th – March 18th (8 weeks), 9:30 – 11:00 AM.

....start date has been moved to January 14!....

WHAT: This group is in part based on Super Flex Social Thinking Curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner (www.socialthinking.com). It was designed specifically for children that tend to be rigid in their thinking and have trouble shifting their thoughts or plans around the plans of others to adapt to the social world around them. The goals of the group are to help children develop skills to enable them to be socially flexible and able to adapt to changes around them. Also to help students increase their awareness of social behaviors, staying on topic and to identify how their unexpected behaviors make other people feel. Strategies that are used in group ensure a highly structured and predictable environment. Parents are provided with the curriculum, homework to practice at home and taught how to practice social skills outside of group to ensure the children generalize the skills to other settings. Students in the Social Learning group will have difficulty regulating their own behaviors in the moment, and this curriculum provides a FUN forum in which they can explore their own challenges and demonstrate ways to modify their thoughts and related behaviors. This course has been running for 4 years and is highly successful in teaching social skills to those who struggle to develop them naturally. Kids love this group!
Total cost of the programme is $700 per child, including a parent education session.

CONTACT: Courtney Nichols M.A – Painted Lighthouse Counselling & Consulting Inc.
www.paintedlighthouse.com, courtney@paintedlighthouse.com 604.833.2562

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects at least one in twenty children. Children with SPD don't process or experience sensory information the way other typical children do; therfore, they don't behave the way other children do. They struggle to perform tasks that come easier for other children. Consequently they suffer a loss of quality in their social, personal, emotional and academic life.

The Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation is dedicated to continue their research into the knowledge and treatment of SPD, so that, as Lucy Jane Miller writes in her book "Sensations Kids", "the millions of sensational children currently "muddling through" daily life will enjoy the same hope and help that research and recognition already have bestowed on coutless other conditions that once baffled science and disrupted lives."