Speech/ Language Disorders and Motor Delays

Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology published a study comparing the gross motor skills of 6-9 year old children with speech and language problems (n=105) with typical developing children (n=105). Using the Test of Gross Motor Proficiency Edition 2, the children were evaluated in 4 groups: those with speech disorders, those with language disorders, those with […]

Handwriting Contest

Zaner–Bloser is hosting a national handwriting contest where your school can win prizes totaling $100,000. The students who enter the contest must be Zaner–Bloser handwriting users only. This would be a great idea to promote legible handwriting in your school district. Go to their website to view all the details at Zaner–Bloser. If your students […]

Talking Books

There is a new free application called Create and Convert. It can take any editable document and make it accessible. For example, it can take a Word document and convert it to a talking book. For some documents you can enlarge the font, change the background color and even convert to Braille! Put it on […]

Letters of Medical Justification

Need to get some ideas to write letters of medical justification for adaptive equipment? Check out some of these websites to spark your letter writing: Rifton – How To Write Letters of Medical Necessity Easystand – Offers a checklist of what to include in your letters. LMN Builder – If you write many letters a […]

Teaching Children Daily Routines

Here is an informative hand out from Vanderbilt University entitled “Teaching Your Child to Become Independent with Daily Routines”. It includes what to expect from children at different age levels with regards to self care skills and tips on encouraging independence in children including those with special needs. You can view it at http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/documents/teaching_routines.pdf or […]

Resistance Training in Children

Pediatrics published a review of the research on resistance training in children and adolescents. The researchers concluded that the ability to improve muscle strength increases with age and maturation without noticeable advancement noted during puberty. The duration of the study and the frequency of performed sets had a positive outcome on improving muscle strength. Reference: […]

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Motor Learning Versus Neurodevelopmental Treatment

A recent article in Clinical Rehabilitation compared two groups of children with cerebral palsy. Seventy eight children (ages 66-146 months) with spastic cerebral palsy (gross motor functional levels II and III) were divided into two groups. One group received motor learning coaching for 3x/week, one hour sessions, over three months. The other group received the […]