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Welcome to “On the Horizon”
Issue 103: The Journey through Childhood Development – You’re Almost Two
On
the Horizon is an award winning
weekly ezine for parents of children with developmental disabilities
who want simple, effective strategies to reduce stress, support their
child’s development, and improve quality of life for the whole family.
To
keep receiving On the Horizon,
please add the email address “nicolebeurkens@horizonsdrc.com” to your
safe address list.
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Fun Ideas!
 A Note from Nicole: Spring Cleaning
Idea of the Week: Backyard Bird Feeder
Feature Article: The Journey Through Childhood Development – You’re Almost Two
The Horizons Team Recommends: Parent Success Cards
Upcoming Events: Summer CAMPS
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Hi Everyone,
It’s a fabulously sunny and warm week here in West Michigan and we’re making the most of it. What a great opportunity to open the windows and let the fresh air in! Last week the office was quieter than usual, so we did some serious Spring-cleaning. It feels so good to declutter and reorganize! Anyone else out there doing the same thing this time of year?
In this week’s feature article, Michelle continues her son’s journey of development. For those of you who have been long-time readers, you remember when he was born and she began chronicling his development month by month. Well, he’s now almost two years old and she’s giving everyone an update.
Have you thought about what it would be like to be a Horizons client family, but have never connected with us to find out what we could accomplish together? This week I’m opening up a few spaces in our schedule to conduct 30-minute “get-acquainted” consultations with families interested in finding out how we can serve them and meet their specific needs. We’d love to connect with some of you by phone (or in person if you’re in our area) to explore whether our team and your family are a good match. If you’d like to grab one of these “get acquainted” appointments contact Christine in our office at (616) 698-0306 or . We look forward to connecting with a few of you in this way!
Enjoy the week!
Looking
to the horizon,
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Backyard Bird Feeder
Materials:
Clean 2-liter soda bottle with wrapping taken off
Craft knife
2 wooden spoons
Small eye screw
Length of twine for hanging
Instructions:
1. Start by drawing a ½ inch asterisk (*) on the side of the soda bottle, about 8 inches from the bottom. Rotate bottle 90 degrees and drawn another asterisk 2 inches from the bottom. Draw a 1-inch-wide circle opposite each asterisk.
2. Use a craft knife to slit the asterisk lines and cut out the circles (a parent’s job). Insert a wood spoon handle first through each hole and then through the opposite asterisk.
3. Remove the bottle cap and twist a small eye screw into the top of it for hanging.
4. Finally, fill your feeder with birdseed, recap it, and use a length of twin to hang it from a tree.
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The Journey through Childhood Development – You’re Almost Two
By: Michelle Vanderheide, M.Ed.
My son is very rapidly approaching his second birthday, and has progressed so much developmentally. The rate of development obviously slowed since his first year of life, as there is so much that happens in the first year. You may wonder what development has to do with autism, and why this topic is so important. The bottom line is that it has everything to do with autism. All kids develop, but at different rates. It’s common to continue pushing kids to the next level regardless of the speed of development. Kids with autism (and many others as well) continue to develop whether or not all the foundations are in place, and therefore are missing many of the fundamental foundations necessary for appropriate development. That’s why we step back to look at each child individually to determine what foundations are missing: What developed out of place? Once we determine this, it becomes obvious why a child may be having a hard time reading, writing, socializing, emotionally regulating, and/or functioning in dynamic settings. If the foundations of development are not in place, these things become extremely difficult. Here is what I’ve seen in my son’s second year of development.
1. Motor skills have come a long way! You learned to stand, climb, walk, and run. You also see your sisters doing a lot of fun things like jumping and kicking. You love to kick balls (once you learned it was not ok to kick other people). When you jump, your feet don’t even leave the ground – but you think that you are flying! When you go down the stairs, you still go down backwards on your stomach; but if there is something to hold on to like a railing or a hand, you prefer to move forward just as everybody else does. You are starting to use markers and crayons (not on the wall yet, but I anticipate that will happen). You accidentally made an oval in your scribbles the other day, and were so excited that you made a “fuba” (aka a football). Not everything motorically is natural yet, so there is still a lot of processing that needs to take place for some movements. The other day, for instance, you were asked to close your eyes. This of course happens several times a day without thinking about it; but once you had to think about it and try it, you could not do it. You were rolling your eyes in the back of your head, but could not think about how to close the lids. Eventually you just covered your eyes with your hands.
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Parent Success Cards
For RDI® Program families, these cards provide reminders of the main principles of RDI® such as the importance of experience sharing, guiding, slowing down, staying focused on the marathon, finding small moments for remediation, and much more. You will find them an invaluable source of inspiration and guidance as you focus on remediation.
Set of 50 heavyweight full-color cards in a sturdy box with lid – $24.95
Purchase the set or view more samples here
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Please join us!
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On
the Horizon
is a weekly ezine for parents of children with developmental
disabilities who want simple, effective strategies to reduce stress,
support their child¹s development, and improve quality of life
for the whole family.
Our mailing address is:
Horizons Developmental Remediation Center
3120 68th Street SE
Caledonia, MI 49316
Our telephone:
(616) 698-0306
Our email address:
Copyright (C) 2010 Horizons DRC All rights reserved.
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