Gone are the days of, “I just don’t like it”. SENSE –sational Place Mats™ provide children and toddlers through school-aged, a child-friendly way of thinking about the food they eat. SENSE –sational Place Mats™ were designed for picky eaters and problem feeders that are limited not only in the number of foods they eat, but also in their ability to accurately interpret the sensory properties of the food on their plates. These colorful placemats, designed by both speech-language therapists and occupational therapists, provide children with the vocabulary needed in order to help them process and explore unfamiliar or non-preferred foods. SENSE –sational Place Mats™ can be used as a tool to help aid the feeding therapy process or as a support during mealtimes in the home. We have come to find these placemats to be extremely popular with the kids during Cawn/Krantz’s feeding therapies!

I’m sure many of us can all recall a point in our childhood where we found ourselves disagreeing with our play friend on what to play and who was going to be first. Here is one example in which I’m sure many individuals can relate to – playing “house” and deciding on who was going to be the “Mom” first (seriously, who really wanted to be the “baby” or the “daughter”), or what about playing superheroes and deciding who was going to be Batman first (again, who really wanted to be Robin). Nevertheless, despite these problematic encounters with our play partner, we always managed to communicate a fair way (many times this fair way consisted of tossing a coin, or playing “paper-scissors-rock”); regardless how it was determined fair everyone had the opportunity to play what they wanted, and be who they wanted to be. This successful problem-solving occurred because both play partners verbally expressed their ideas in a regulated state and were able to process their options. But what about those play experiences where we were forced to play a game that we didn’t want to play because our play partner started to cry, say mean comments, or physically hurt us. No matter how fair the decisions were made they were still viewed as being “unfair”. We immediately found ourselves shutting down, and playing with whatever our new friend wanted to play in order to prevent a meltdown from occurring at any second. This then became more of an inconvenience instead of something that should be seen as fun.

 So, why are peer relationships so important to a child’s developmental process? Positive peer relationships are a critical component to a child’s developmental process because they come to learn how to socially communicate in appropriate ways, and they also learn how to initiate and maintain social relationships. As children are exposed to a wider range of interactions they learn to build stable and foundational friendships, in which they come to feel safe resolving social conflicts by being able to communicate, comprise and negotiate with their peers. As children develop stronger relationships over time they are often observed demonstrating greater flexibility within play themes, display increasing sensory awareness, beginning to initiate the ability to self-regulate, and establish an improvement in their social-language skills around peers. They learn to become independent thinkers, learners, and explorers of their environment.

 Have you ever wondered what defines “good communication”? Since the beginning of my professional career in working with kids with developmental challenges I have found myself asking this question in various forms on a consistent basis – is it being able to make eye contact with an individual you are conversing with; is it being able to express your opinion using words (or to simply put it – talking?). Perhaps, it is being able to distinguish an appropriate time to talk versus moments of silence. We all know that in order to be a successful communicator we must possess a robust set of verbal skills, but is that all?I had the opportunity to observe a therapy session here at Cawn/Krantz the other day, and I was fortunate enough to be observing the cutest most adorable child (who am I kidding, their all cuties!). Prior to observing this child, I was informed that they had a very limited language and speech repertoire. So taking this information into consideration, the goal of the therapy session was to work on some speech sounds and build upon the engagement piece in order to create opportunities for circles of communication. For the next 50 minutes I sat, observed, and took note of one of the most beautiful interactions that involved: the child, the caregiver, the therapist coaching the caregiver, and a bean bag ball. Now here is the real shocker – this beautiful interaction was all NONVERBAL! Wait, nonverbal – what does that mean?  Throughout my professional career, thus far, I have come to learn the power of nonverbal communication. I have read countless articles and research papers stating that the majority of human communication is nonverbal. Wow – crazy, right? So, what exactly is nonverbal communication? Nonverbal communication or also known as body language consists of eye contact, facial expressions, bodily/facial gestures, posture, where our bodies are relative to a verbal communicative interaction (are we too close to our peer or too far), and even the tone of our voice plays an essential role. On a daily basis we are consistently interacting with others in our surrounding environments where we are continuously giving and receiving countless wordless cues. All of our nonverbal cues send strong messages. Therefore, nonverbal communication is vital to not only our developmental progress, but it is a vital piece of communication that we as humans must acquire in order to be “good communicators”.

    Children Who Don’t Eat:
Making the Thanksgiving Feast a Treat

Thanksgiving is most often about the food. Most of us look forward to the feast and think, Yummy!  But for many children the Thanksgiving table may be overwhelming.  The sensory system has a lot to process; it organizes and interprets many sensory sensations.  Each food has a different smell, feel, taste and look. The quantity and the accompanying festivities, which includes conversations, can also contribute to the fears and sensitivities around the Thanksgiving gathering.

For children who may experience this anxiety recommended techniques include:

1. Present your child with an empty plate and suggest that two items will be put on the plate. Give him/her three choices (which includes one preferred food) and ask him/her to pick two.  The choices can be put on the plate together or separately.
2. Start with a very small portion of each food. They can always, or you can always OFFER more.
3. Talk about the food as you put it on the plate, “The sweet potatoes are so sweet and feel so good and creamy in our mouth.”
4. Have a ‘dress rehearsal.’  Have a mini Thanksgiving feast at your home before the real thing, choosing a few of the items that might be served on Thanksgiving.
5. If food is served family style encourage your child to participate in the passing of the various dishes.  Have them help serve the person sitting next to them.
6. If Thanksgiving is at your home, encourage your child to help you to get ready:

• Help set the table
• Make table decorations
• Help prepare one of the foods with you; perhaps a preferred food (dessert) and a non-preferred food.

 

Have a Wonderful Thankful Day!

                                    Jerri and Sherri

And all of us at Cawn-Krantz & Associates: Caroline F., Caroline M., Cortney, Gwen, Kim, Lauran, Mike, Meghan, Michelle, Nancy, Ryann, and Samona

In a round table discussion parents shared about how to get their children interested in food. One thought was to play restaurant with their child. This imaginative play helped them interact with food in a fun way! The child wrote down the orders on a pad of special waiter paper. They then were even able to serve their parents! We have found that having the child help talk, prepare, and serve the food creates a more positive experience for all!

What other ideas have worked for you and your child?

Many children look forward to Halloween with anticipation and excitement, their minds envisioning oodles of goodies and becoming their favorite character for a day! What children with sensory needs don’t look forward to are the other factors that play into Halloween. These can include funny-feeling costumes and masks, sudden bursts of movement and noise, new people at every doorway, and familiar people looking very different than they normally do!

In honor of Sensory Awareness Week (October 25-31), please consider these important tips to making Halloween successful for children with sensory needs.

-Pro-actively build in quieter break times from stimulation to ward off sensory overload before your child exhibits any signs. This can include going home for a time to regroup, or choosing a less busy walking route between main streets.

-It may be helpful to hold “dress rehearsal” of sorts for everyone in the family that will be dressing up…you could even go trick-or-treating to the bedrooms in the house! This will minimize surprises on Halloween that the entire family looks so different and familiarize the child with the actual sequence of trick-or-treating. It will also give the child the ability to feel what his or her entire costume feels like on their body all together for a longer period of time

-Consider talking with your child in advance about what he or she might see (vampires, monsters, ghosts, or anything else potentially frightening) and emphasize that it’s ok because every costume has a boy or girl underneath.

 Here is a really great link on creating a IEP that will truly help your child succeed in school!

 

http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/legal-rights/IEP-day-one.gs?content=2866

 One way that our feeding groups have been experimenting with foods is through dipping. When the children are able to dip food into something they are able to taste how it changes! This can be a great activity for picky eaters. We decided to create our very own “dipping bar!” The kids were given carrots, and other crunchy vegetables, to dip. We had set up bowls of ranch, humus, and cream cheese.  We had fun dipping our vegetables, chewing them with our new dip, and talking about the taste. It was great to see the kids eager to try vegetables, when sometimes this can be a little more difficult.

For the younger kids we made Apple Trees. This was simply chocolate pudding with mashed up graham crackers to create mud. We then planted our apples into the mud by cutting up slices into thin pieces. After we planted our apples, we used them as spoons to lick the chocolate pudding. However, the part the kids enjoyed the most was dipping our apples into the mud and then using to the mud to write our own names on the table. It got a little messy but that just made it all the more enjoyable!

Remember making meal time fun can cause even the pickiest eaters to be enthusiastic about trying new foods!  

We used cream cheese, ranch, and humus as dips. What other dips do you think the kids would have enjoyed with their crunchy vegetables?

Today was a great day at Cawn Krantz!

What was your favorite thing that you did today at Cawn Krantz?

One of the recipes that the boys seemed to struggle with a little more was “Veggie Bugs on a Rock.” This was made up of a bagel with cream cheese. On top of the cream cheese was different vegetables cut up in various shapes.  We were then going to decorate the vegetables with frosting to transform the vegetables into bugs.

We started off with the bagel and this was a type of food that all the boys were used to from home.  However, as we added the different vegetables to the table many of the boys started to become very nervous. We had about four types of vegetables that we brought out on to the table one at a time.  The boys struggled with trying to eat the different vegetables. When B got nervous about what was in front of him, he would try to change the subject to something that was happening later that day.

After this session it was realized that this recipe was probably too visually stimulating for the boys. With all the vegetables and all the shapes it was hard for them to process what was what.  If we were to do this recipe again we would probably limit the number of vegetables that we used on the bagel. This simplicity may have helped the boys to focus on what foods they were exploring.

One hot summer day we decided to make fruit popsicles to cool ourselves off!  To create the popsicles we had to first start off with frozen fruit.  To the boys in the group the frozen fruit was very different than what they were used to.  Not only was it a little bit wet, but it was also very cold. We started off with strawberries and as we passed them along we encouraged the kids to put some on their plate.

R was a little nervous about touching the frozen strawberries. However, once he was given a spoon he was easily able to place them on his plate. With the strawberries in front of them we began to discover the strawberries. This discovering phase was beneficial to the boys because it gave them time to get used to having the strawberries right in front of them. The exploration also gave them the chance to experiment with the food, before we asked them to try it.  

Nancy, one of the occupational therapists started to mash up the strawberry with her thumb. All the kids were excited to see how this then made strawberry juice!  The boys started to mash up their own strawberries, some of them using their spoon to do so.

However, while making the popsicles it was difficult to get the boys to try the frozen strawberries, pineapple, and raspberries. Once we were finished we placed them in the freezer to eat at the next session.

Because the boys were a little more nervous to try the frozen fruit we were unsure how they would react to the popsicles. We brought them out for them to try and they loved it! They toasted one another and happily licked their popsicles.

I am not really sure why the popsicles were so much easier for them to eat than the frozen fruit.  Why do you think the popsicles caused less anxiety for the boys?