Happy spring!!  With this gorgeous weather outside, it can be difficult to unwind after a long day working or playing outside.  The sun stays out later and it’s easy to get involved in projects and homework with the kids.  Before you know it,  it’s bedtime…or even past bedtime!  It’s important to maintain a bedtime routine for typically developing children.  But it is even more crucial for a child with special needs.  Children with special needs benefit from routines during the day and in the evenings… Getting a good night’s sleep promotes increased awareness during daytime hours, which can help children achieve goals in school and in speech and language therapy.
Setting up a bedtime routine will be calming and ease your child into a restful sleep. In my experience, the helpful tips I repeat often are:

1. Establish and maintain the same bed time every night, 7 nights a week
2. Establish and maintain the same wake-up time every morning, 7 mornings a week
3. Creating a short bedtime routine that is expected and doesn’t vary
4. Incorporate calming activities (e.g. reading a short story, stretching, deep breathing)
5. Create a cozy sleep environment with a dark room with some dim lighting, if necessary

I’ve read quite a few tips on setting up bedtime routines.  One of my favorites is from Autism Speaks, check it out:  Autism Speaks Sleep Tool Kit

Happy and healthy new year!  It’s been a great holiday season for Clearly Speech.  We hope you had a great holiday and new year’s celebration!  We are starting 2012 with great expectations for the year ahead!  The first post of the new year is going to be dedicated to all the blogs and websites we love, to get inspired and get fresh ideas that make us better at what we do. Check out these sites for some good reads… Continue reading →

It’s official…the holiday season is in full swing!  As we steamroll into 2012, I think this is an opportune time to talk about “to do lists!”  Keeping track of all the items that need to be finished before the end of the year can be very difficult!  If you or your parents have memory difficulties, these tasks can be that much more stressful.  If your child demonstrates difficulty organizing and staying on task, these tips may be helpful!  Shopping and taking care of daily activities can become much easier as you incorporate new habits to improve memory.  Check out our ideas! Continue reading →

As the holiday season is in full swing, it is an important time to start talking about making memories and talking about future, current, and past events.  This post is relevant for people of all ages, as it’s always important and fun to talk about family gatherings, happy occasions, and holidays!  For your children, making memory books and looking at pictures is an excellent way to work on building vocabulary, sequencing skills, story-telling skills, and memory-building skills.  For you or your parents, making memory books is an important tool to use therapeutically.  It can be beneficial for you or your parents to work on language skills, word-retrieval, memory skills, narrative skills, etc…Memory books are basically photo albums.  They can have blurbs about the pictures.  You can make them online, or by just putting pictures from specific events in chronological order in a photo album. Continue reading →

This week’s topic is organization for babies/toddlers and for the school-aged child.  This topic comes up often with parents.  It requires a little planning, but it can be done very easily!  Here we go…

Organization for babies and toddlers:  Once your baby starts playing with toys, they can pile up everywhere and start taking over your home!  This isn’t ideal for anyone–especially baby!  Organizing toys might seem daunting, but here are some steps to take to make the process much easier!

Continue reading →

In our busy lives, it’s very easy to forget about doing the little extras that everyone asks us to remember!  After a busy day of getting the kids up and ready for school, picking up the kids, getting dinner on the table, and making sure the kids did their work; you realize you’ve forgotten to work on their speech and language activities.  How can speech and language goals be worked on while you are going through the daily routine?  The more realistic and functional the home activities are, the more likely you are to see progress and growth.  Also, it will be more likely that your child will happily engage in therapeutic activities when he/she doesn’t even know that it’s work!  Here are some ideas:

During the walk to school or at the bus stop:

• Discuss all the sights in your surroundings (e.g. how the trees are changing depending on the season, birds, children in the neighborhood or building)
• Talk about school events happening that day or in the upcoming week
• Talk about the friends on the school bus, using their names
• Discuss the clothes that your child is wearing that day and why

While making dinner:

• Before going shopping, have your child help you with your shopping list
• When at the store, have your child be responsible for finding some of the fruits and/or vegetables (just having them point out the familiar fruits and vegetables)
• Talk about your actions at the store (e.g. why are you putting all those apples in the bag, why do they have to weigh the food behind the counter)
• Talk about money, what costs more money and what costs less money

During bath-time or at bedtime:

• Go over the events of the day with your child
• Go over upcoming events for the next day
• Talk about happy thoughts and dreams as your child goes to bed
• You can talk about emotions at this time
• Music in the background as your child winds down from a long day can be soothing for your child

Following a traumatic brain injury (TBI), you or your parents may find it incredibly difficult to participate in all the activities you or they once loved before the TBI.  This is common.  But there are also some new things to do or even some ways to adapt previous passions as they evolve into new ones.

If you used to love reading books but you no longer have the patience to read or your comprehension has been affected, you can purchase some audio books.  Many books are now available as audio books.  As you are relaxing, you can press play on your iPod, iPad, or Kindle, and listen to a soothing voice read a favorite novel or even a new book.  Here are some websites that you can download audio books:

www.audiobooks.com
www.theaudiobookstore.com
www.audible.com
www.simplyaudiobooks.com
Maybe you used to be an opera lover, but now you don’t have the patience for the crowds, for the trip to the Opera House, or for other challenges you may encounter along the way.  There is a way for you to enjoy the opera experience without having to go all the way to Lincoln Center.  The Metropolitan Opera has started the MetOpera Live in HD series, which allows fans to watch operas in local movie theaters.  It is a great way to experience a beloved opera in a local, comfortable, and easy setting.  Also, if you check out the website, you will find that you can stream the operas through your computer.  You can also listen to your favorite operas on Sirius XM Channel 74.  The new season has kicked off!!  Tickets are still available for purchase to see the MetOpera Live in HD at the movies.  Check out the website!  We’ve also listed some movie theaters that participate in the Live in HD program.  Hopefully you and your parents can enjoy this together!

www.metoperafamily.org

(Manhattan) Clearview 1st & 62nd Street 400 East 62nd Street 10028
(Manhattan) Empire 25 with IMAX 234 W 42Nd St 10036
(Manhattan) Kips Bay 15 with IMAX 570 2Nd Ave 10016
(Manhattan) Union Square Stadium 14 850 Broadway 10003
(Manhattan) Village 7 66 3Rd Ave 10003
(Manhattan) Walter Reade 165 W 65th Street 10023
(Manhattan) Ziegfield Theatre 141 W. 54th Street 10019
(Bronx) Bay Plaza 13 2210 Bartow Ave Unit 12 10475
(Brooklyn) BAM Rose Cinemas 30 Lafayette Ave 11217
(Flushing) College Point Multiplex 2855 Ulmer St 11354

**For some other great activities, keep reading our blog, or call us!