It’s confusing to be a toddler. Toddlers often want to be “big kids” and be grown up (especially if they have older siblings)…but they may also really want to be “babies” and be taken care of (especially if they have younger siblings). They may go through long phases of wanting one or the other for … Read more
I spoke to a parent recently whose child was getting in trouble at school for being too “touchy” with other children—wanting to hug, touch, wrestle, tickle, etc more than was school-appropriate or allowed. I know these types of kids, too, and my heart really goes out to them! Rough-and-tumble play is a powerful and important … Read more
[Though I don’t currently have the bandwidth to accept any new consultation requests by email, I am still working through the backlog of consults that I did with people a couple of months ago when I was able to accept those. Here’s another of those questions.] *** A parent wanted to know about ways to … Read more
You may have heard someone say, “He has severe autism” or “They have mild autism”. You might have heard “She has high-functioning autism” or “He is very low-functioning”. In response to some backlash against these terms, there has even been a newer push towards classifying autism into “level 1, 2, and 3”. And, as I … Read more
“Sensory” is one of those buzzwords these days in parenting groups, on Pinterest, and in relation to different diagnoses. I’ve seen people use it to mean pretty much everything. When I talk about sensory processing, I am not talking about kids playing with rice or shaving cream in a bin. 😊 There are a few … Read more
“Sensory” can be a real buzzword these days, and can be a little bit tough to understand! There are a few different ways of understanding sensory processing, but Winnie Dunn’s “four-quadrant” model is a very helpful one. It describes how everybody in the world (not just kids, and not just people who have difficulties with … Read more
“What about the DSM definition of autism?” This is the kind of question that I’m more likely to get from experts who are maybe trying to wrap their head around a neurodiversity paradigm but having trouble letting go of what they’ve been taught in schools or other institutions. The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistic … Read more
Child’s favorite activity: searching for something hidden somewhere in the room My goal for child: that they would not feel completely threatened by the concept of writing/drawing/touching a pencil, but begin to see ways in which it could be meaningful My plan: hide a lot of things around the room, make a checklist for those … Read more
Describing autism as a spectrum sometimes leads people to conceptualize it as though it is a single axis with “more autistic” and “less autistic” at the two polar ends of it, and each autistic person placed along this axis somewhere. I’m going to go more in depth about autism classification later this month, but what … Read more
I did this activity with one of my older elementary school aged kids (in the 8-10 range): we went on a “sensory scavenger hunt” together. I had a lot of ideas in mind while I did this. -I wanted the child to be able to take a break from any classroom time, and get outside … Read more