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communication and talking

How to Choose a Preschool for Children with Special Needs

By Dr. Donia Fahim Blog, Parenting Tips No Comments

While US federal laws requires that accommodations be made to educate children with special needs in all public schools across the country, many other countries have followed the lead on this. When it comes to educating pre-school children the regulations are not as stringent and, when it comes to choosing a preschool for children with special needs, great care should be taken to ensure you find the right place for your child.

When I worked in Africa and the Middle East, at a time when we were establishing the guidelines for setting up early intervention programs and inclusion practices during …

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Teaching Math Concepts to Children with Special Needs

By Dr. Donia Fahim Blog, Tips for Parents and Teachers 5 Comments

While language and auditory processing deficits can affect the ability to learn language, they can also hinder your child’s ability to understand abstract concepts and to master the problem solving skills conveyed when teaching math concepts. Children with special needs may have receptive or expressive language problems that can substantially affect their learning and ability to express what they do not understand, or to show how they solved problems.

Words and phrases we use every day, will have very different meanings when it comes to numbers and mathematical operations. When you say to your child, “I’m just in the middle …

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Tips to Reinforce Speech and Language Therapy at Home

By Tips for Parents and Teachers No Comments

Even if your child has not been diagnosed with specific speech language challenges, as a parent or guardian, you are the person who knows best if he or she would benefit from speech and language therapy. With that in mind, there are a number of ways for you to reinforce the work your child is doing in therapy to help build your child’s communication skills; or things you can do in the interim if you are waiting for an assessment.

Language building is essential during the first years of a child’s life, as this is when most of the pathways …

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Value of Reading to Children with Special Needs

By Dr. Donia Fahim Blog, Parenting Tips No Comments

reading-to-children-with-special-needsReading aloud is a great way of engaging with young children, while also promoting language development and early literacy skills. It is widely accepted that reading aloud is the single most important activity leading to language development and promotes early literacy skills in children; yet, when it comes to reading to children with special needs, recent research indicates that reading instruction in small groups may have more value.

According to researcher H. Lee Swanson, Ph.D., Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of California at Riverside, “Traditionally, one-on-one reading instruction has been considered optimal for students with [learning disabilities]. Yet …

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5 Tips to Communicate with Your Child with Special Needs

By Tips for Parents and Teachers No Comments

Finding effective ways to communicate with a child with special needs can be stressful and frustrating for both the parent and the child. Since few parents or guardians are trained as a speech language therapist, it’s unlikely that you will go into parenthood understanding the often-unique ways your child will try to express him/her self, or the best tips to communicate with your child with special needs.

When a child is not speaking, the adult will try to do anything to help but this often ends up with the adult speaking more and asking questions and, in turn, there is …

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