Tag: Neurodivergent

Categories
bloggersaathi Junior

My Mumbai Travel Blog (Part 2) by Lavanya Iyer Bloggersaathi junior

Part 2 : “And the Fun in Mumbai continues.. “

Welcome to my Mumbai travel blog part 2. My travels continued for the second week in Mumbai!



Day 1 : Chitti’s (aunt’s) house to Mani Mamu’s (uncle’s) house : “I love birds! A cockatiel sat on my shoulders”

I love birds! I got excited as we went to Mani mamu’s (uncle’s) house. There were two cockatiels and many budgies in their house. One cockatiel sat on my shoulders. I was so excited and happy. It was fun to meet their daughter Naira. We played with clay there and came back home in Chittappa’s (uncle’s)car.

Day 2 : Chitti’s (aunt’s) house to VVMC park : “Meeting other homeschoolers”

Next day we went to VVMC park. I saw a lot of birds in the park. I love birds, I love to see them flying and chirping. There were a lot of children in the park too and we had a lot of fun. There were slides and swings and wonderful rides. It was a park for kids and we also met other homeschoolers like me there.


Day 3 : Chitti’s (aunt’s) house to tailor shop : “Searching on the streets for a tailor shop”

One day we went to find a tailor shop to stitch a lehenga choli for me to wear in Anu akka’s (sister’s) marriage. We saw several shops but we did not find any tailor shop to stitch my lehenga choli. At last we found one lady who agreed to stitch it. It was a relief to finally find her.


Day 4 : Chitti’s (aunt’s) house to Aaji Aajoba park and Calisthenics training centre : “Kesar Lassi was so yummy”

Next day we went by train to Malad and took an auto from the station to Aaji Aajoba park. There was a drawing day for homeschoolers there. There were also rides in the park. They were fun. Next we went to the Calisthenics training centre as the park got closed. There I did a lot of fun activities like hanging on the bars. When we came back, I ate Pani puri and Kesar lassi in the shop near the station. It was so yummy.

Day 5 : Chitti’s (aunt’s) house to a book exhibition : “My favourite Hanuman story book”

Next day we went to a book exhibition. There we saw many books. There I found a Hanuman story book. I started reading it. It was fun to read the book standing there. We bought some other books and came back home in Chittappa’s (uncle’s) car with my cousin, Anshu.

Thank you for reading my blog! Hope you enjoyed!

Author Lavanya Iyer

Lavanya Iyer is 9 years old Neurodivergent. She loves to read, draw, paint, and do traditional dance. She is a newly incorporated CreativeSaathi junior and a bloggersaathi junior with our team now.

Artwork by Dhairya pal

Creative representation of Lavanya’s blog is done by our extremely talented CreativeSaathi associate Dhairya Kumar Pal.

Categories
BloggerSaathi CreativeSaathi

Finger and Fine motor and hand

Finger and Fine motor and hand

Hi , in this blog , I will talk about some fabulous fine motor skills to work with individuals on the spectrum

What are fine motor movements –

These are skills are intricate finger and hand movements ,These skills are important for feeding , dressing , writing , playing with different toys , manipulating phone and tablets , switching on and off devices

Basically we use the small muscles in our hand to do all the activities mentioned

It is important to know and understand that for effective fine motor functioning , one needs good core stability and shoulder strength.

These big muscles provide stable base for hands .

Please note that when we reach our hand forward to hold and pick up a glass to bring it to our mouth , the force is also brought by good shoulder girdle strength and core musculature

That is why you must wonder why a physiotherapist of your child is doing lot of heavy work activities for core and upper limbs , he /she is also aiming to build good fine motor control and tone in your child by this muscle synergy

Also it is important to encourage good posture (head, neck, thorax and lumbar area ) for good fine motor work like writing , painting , playing with toys.

Here I ll suggest some fine motor activities /games to try with your child to work on fingers , hands and fine motor manipulation

  1. Sorting games with tweezers and tongs
  2. Piggy bank games
  3. Joiningg links and c links toys
  4. Legos and duplo blocks
  5. Drawing with different drawing tools like crayons , markers , brush pens
  6. Playing different musical instruments –keyboards and drums
  7. Peelings and pasting stickers , finger painting , ear bud painting
  8. Posting games – rolling balls to a target , marble runs ,shape sorters
  9. Threading and lacing kits
  10. Peg boards
  11. Building blocks
  12. Playdough , potter ‘s clay
  13. Making paper clip chains
  14. Cloth pegs to weaned off the paper or clothes
  15. Putting lids on containers of different kinds
  16. Cap on and off from different writing tools
  17. Origami and paper folding
  18. Lock and key set
  19. Kitchen set with encouragement for pouring , stirring , tossing and mixing, gardening set
  20. Weaving and knittting paper strip crafts 

All these activities will indirectly help in making your child independent with different self help skills

Every activity will help to develop a new engram in the brain of your child , more and regular practice will strengthen that engram for that fine motor skills

What the child gains

  1. Good fine motor strength and tone
  2. Finger dissociation
  3. Development of instrumental life skills
  4. Inhand rotations
  5. Pincer , palmar , cylindrical , lumbrical and hook grip
  6. Dynamic tripod and scissor grip
  7. Creative epressive and better finger based motor planning
  8. Executive functions and problem solving

Hence fine motor skills should not be ignored hence proved

Thankyou!!

Creative efforts and finger painting enthusiast – Heena Sahi

Artwork by Morpheus Nag

Thank you Morpheus Nag for the artwork !!

Categories
BloggerSaathi Resources

Let’s learn Turn taking: Play Time By Manju K Iyer

Video tutorials by Manju K Iyer

Easy Hand Games

This video shows a play way method to teach our kids turn taking and waiting skills. It also enhances cognitive development, memory skills, answering when asked something. It increases vocabulary and helps in language building, bond development etc.

Author Manju K Iyer

Manju K Iyer is a Psychologist, Counselor,  Parent coach, Play Therapist, Homeschooler and Founder of PlayTime ( A coaching program for parents of children with special needs).

Categories
specialsaathi Story

Muskaan the Drama queen

A blog on Muskaan’s first drama performance in school on annual day.

मन – day की बात SpecialSaathi के साथ

Dear Shilpi ma’am,

It’s a pleasure to be a part of SpecialSaathi group. This kind of platform is giving immense opportunity to our kids to showcase their talent whether it’s dance, art or drama or writing a blog.

Muskaan is a happy and a cheerful girl. Very caring, emotional but a little introvert by nature. She is 16 years now. She is very intelligent and observant. She is strong but little stubborn too. Can face any problem with a smile. That’s her biggest strength.

She speaks through her eyes and always has smile on her face as her name suggests… 😊. She was born with delayed milestones, so in the initial years of growing up she was diagnosed as a hyper active child and speech was very less in one word conversation or two or three phrases. But with various Speech & OT therapies she started improving. But later we got to know that she has “Selective Mutism “. And she would interact or socialise only in her comfort zone etc.
But as time grew she started learning with various techniques of social stories, play dates and exposure to new & known places.
Convincing her to take part in various activities was a challenge though but I kept on encouraging her to take part in dance show, sports events for three years and she won medals, & trophy 🏆 as well. Which motivated her to keep learning and performing.

With online classes and during pandemic as she didn’t have a choice she started speaking through a “Mike” first & then after a month or so she started to converse with her teachers and peer group verbally. This is how a Selective Mutism child can speak with her own will & confidence, that’s what I understood that day.



So every year participation in school annual day was also delightful to see her performing in dance etc. But this time it was Middle school participation in Dec’22.

So I am happy and proud to share that as Muskaan first time took part in drama performance at her school Annual day function. The drama named ” Safarnama” where she played a role of a guard to a king who was very possessive for his silver treasure. And the part which everyone ( her teachers & spectators) appreciated was that the dialogues were in bhojpuri .

The way muskaan learned them, understanding the co-ordination sequence with other kids ( main stream kids who she didn’t know) to go up & down the stage left & right on stage. Saying the dialogues as the drame performance. Imitation, synchronisation.


Patience level to cope up with anxiety to perform, as to who all will come, what will people & teachers say. How will the costume be. Apprehension towards wearing sun glasses as everything seemed to be blurred. Intelligence of putting them on nose to see the audience.



Initially I was not comfortable with the idea of her taking part in drama I thought dance is what she liked more but her teacher made me understand that this kind of exposure will be good for her.

And she was right, so many things she learned in last couple of weeks. And one of the areas which can be explored in future for her social interaction building and overcoming her fear of performing on the stage infront of the audience.

Muskaan was lucky to get this kind of role and she performed so well.

With applaud from their seniors , principal , teachers, family and friends made her very happy and excited.



Staying in a school for 10 hrs was not easy in last week at a stretch of 3 days. But I am glad she did it.

The hard work always pays and clear “Victory over fear”.


Stupendous performance. I wish she gets many such opportunities in future too.

Sharing few pics & video of her performance in this blog.

Hope you ll enjoy watching the same.

Regards Divya Surie

Author Divya Surie

I am a house wife and I run my own garments work from home. I love drawing and painting as it’s is my passion. I learned various forms of painting glass, canvas, water and oil colour etc…at the age of 40yrs. And few of my beautiful creations are now my house decoratives.😀So age is just a number.
I also help my daughter in designing of tote bags, wedding envelopes, pouches and gift tags. Basically she is now a part of “Sitaara Crafts” a platform where all kids with special needs can showcase and sell their talent. With making of beautiful and amazing products from best out of waste. We sell through Instagram too 😀.

ToteBag designed by Muskaan Surie
Categories
BloggerSaathi Resources

Magic of Visuals in Autism spectrum

Importance of Visual support for the special needs Children.


Visual schedule and supports help a special need person to improve their skills, in processing information, to understand language and interact meaningfuly with their environment through a better communication with predictiblity.

Author- Monika Misra

Monika Misra
Founder of Deific Skill Portal, Lucknow
Special Educator at sunrise learning, Noida.
Parent counsellor at Kant Brain Center, Lucknow.