Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury
In my day to day life, I spend a lot of time with the four to eight year old crowd. And I have to tell you, despite what you may think about gender differences, or good parenting, or what is proper dinner conversation – poop – and all things poop and fart related, are universally funny to this age bracket.
Joey, I recently learned, is no exception. [Read more…]
When I arrived at Joey’s house a few Fridays ago, I was thrilled to find his seven year old cousin there with him. She could only stay for about ten minutes of our session, but it was one of the best, most targeted ten minutes I’ve seen from Joey.
Typically, when I first begin to work with Joey each session, he fills me in on random parts of his week. Sometimes I introduce a topic and he changes the subject to a preferred topic, or if he is really bored with me, he might begin exploring his words. I live with a five year old at my house, so while these behaviors are frustrating, I’m also 100% sure they are age appropriate. I find myself giving Joey reminders to stay on topic like I would with any five year old, or reminders that we can talk more after we do our work first. [Read more…]
Over my 16 years as an educator I’ve learned one valuable lesson: Never underestimate the power of a cute baby animal. This has proved true for working with angry five year olds who have difficulty regulating their emotions (somehow looking at pictures of baby animals can sometimes immediately cause a child to relax).
So a few years ago when I saw a Ready to Read pack of Zoo Born books I immediately grabbed it because I figured at some point there would be a student who would want to read them, or just look at the pictures. [Read more…]
One of my favorite new children’s books is Not a Box. Throughout the book, a voice (one assumes it is an adult) asks a rabbit “Why are you in that box?” next to a picture of the rabbit on, in, next to, etc a box. When you turn the page the rabbit replies, “It’s not a box.” This time the picture shows the rabbit imagining the box is a race car, a mountain, an elephant, etc.
It sums up my own childhood perfectly – no cardboard box was ever just a box. It was whatever my imagination could make it become. [Read more…]
Joey loves numbers. He gives me big smiles when he sees that we are going to work with numbers, and loves to tell silly number jokes where he gives me the wrong number when we are putting our numbers in order. After giving me the wrong number he will crack up, and give me that large Joey grin that says “I think 1, 2, 6” is the funniest thing ever.
Yet recently in my work with Joey I realized that although he can give us the numbers in sequential order, and can match the numeric word with the numeral (which is something not all kindergarteners can do), he has difficulty counting a set of numbers. [Read more…]
