10 Top Speech Therapy Tips for Children with Down Syndrome

The following list of SALT ideas for young children with Down syndrome might help you and your child develop their oral motor skills.

A few of the speech therapy tools for children with Down syndrome

Every child is a unique individual.  Each one develops at their own pace, responds well to their favourite toys and has their own strengths and areas that need support. This is no less true for children with Down's Syndrome, so trust your instincts.

Silent Sunday

My Superheroes for #LDWeek13

superhero  (ˈsuːpəˌhɪərəʊ)
— n  , pl -roes
	characters with superhuman abilities or magical powers, wearing a distinctive costume, and fighting against evil

Learning Disability Week is an annual awareness-raising campaign organised by Mencap. This year it is taking place from 19-25 August 2013 and will celebrate people with a learning disability, their families and supporters by asking the question; who is your real-life superhero? 
I was honoured that Mencap posed this question to me, and here is my answer, in the form of a poem (bear with me, poetry is not one of my superpowers).

Disguised in scrubs and gloves
a uniform of blue or white
or none at all
our superhero morphs

Her face smiles kindly
a wisdom that has seen, 
or with enthusiastic youth
he embraces our fears

'Go and love her'
'An ambassador you will be'
'She'll teach you'
'We will be here'
'You learn how strong you are when there is no other way'

The superhero stops us falling
drowning
going under,
saves a tiny life worth living

He fixes a heart
Helps you walk, talk, see, hear
Makes tea and listens
Congratulates, helps, believes

She paves the way with her example
a role model, 
a patient visionary
the tireless ambassador

Barriers are smashed as
Superheroes include, encourage
proudly teach and expect
they know no stereotype 

Transported into school
hospital, here at home
or online
our hero is there

She wields a gift, an invite
patiently shows flashcards
a scalpel, keyboard or camera
his weapon of choice

Her whistle blows loudly 
arch villains he outs
gently melting our hearts
future change from the start

For our superhero is one
is many
is you

Full of heart, so selfless and true

When I was asked to write about my superhero I wondered where on earth to start. Would I write about  our daughters who have taught us so much? Mia the thoughtful, gentle soul, with a keen sense of right and wrong. A feisty know-it-all, equestrian and dance queen? Natty who melts hearts wherever she goes, and demands a rethink from all she meets about what Down's Syndrome means today. A model fighting for ad inclusion, a loving daughter, an annoying sibling, a team player, a valuable classmate?

Or my unfaltering husband who simply announced that Natty was our daughter and that she would be fine as he proudly held her aloft on the day that she was born? Our wider family who swooped in to help?

The wise midwife who shook me out of my self-pity, the breast feeding support, the trainee doctor who smiled and told us we would be ambassadors for children like Natty when she was 3 days old. I wish I could track him down and tell him how motivating his words were.

But I couldn't miss out the surgeons and doctors that had saved Natty's life. Or the neonatal nurses that cared for her, and nurtured our bond in the early days. The emergency middle of the night medical strangers, the familiar staff on the paediatric wards. Where would we be now without people like that?

And what about the physio and SALT and portage worker who lifted me with tea and encouragement each week in the early difficult days as they gently encouraged Natty to reach her potential.

The teachers and TAs at Pre-school and school who embraced different methods of teaching, who believed in Natty's abilities and spent hours working out what they were and how to nurture them.

To everyone who has seen my worry, tears, frustrations and listened. To those who offered childcare, tea, hugs, meals, advice, resources, some of whom I have never met in the invaluable online support network.

The charities we couldn't have done without, both those who have provided support directly relevent to our family, and those who work for a safer better future for our children.

The fellow ambassadors, the writer, the photographers, the campaigners, the politicians who believe?

And finally the wonderful adults I have met along this journey who have a learning disability. They light the way for us, make our lives more colourful, show us what is possible. They are the role models for our children.

So, a mix of them all is had to be, and my poem depicts a superhero made up of all these people. A multi-facetted superhuman, whose costume and appearance might change but who influence remains constant.

Thank you to our super heroes this Learning Disability Week.
Join in the hashtag #LDWeek13 on Twitter and link up your posts their or in the linky below.

You can follow our exploits @DownsSideUp as well.

Fun with Speech Therapy

Most children with Down's Syndrome need SALT sessions to help them communicate more easily and speak more clearly. This can focus on the use of signing/Makaton, jaw position exercises and using certain types of cups, toys etc, or it can be about having fun with sounds and using visual ways to break down words.

I was a language teacher in a previous life, well, in my life before becoming a Mum. I used to teach English as a Foreign Language and that very often entailed helping students to produce quite tricky sounds in a fun and relaxed, even silly way.                                


I decided to take the same approach with Natty. She's been having trouble with ____sp words, such as crisp. They tended to come out as ____ps, or crips.

So, we took each syllable as a unit and reeeeeally exaggerated it, pulling funny faces and giggling as we went.

crisssssssssP

The P sound is what is called an unvoiced plosive, which basically means that lots of air shoots out of your mouth when you say it.
So, you can have masses of fun practising moving paper in front of your mouth, or, as we demonstrate here, blowing someone's hair around.

Watch Natty and I work on the word wasssssssssP at story time.


                                

Natty's Key Worker Writes a Guest Post

Natty was blessed to have the most amazing, loving, caring, thoughtful key worker when she attended pre-school 

Natty and H (aka Boff Lady) have a great rapport

Everyone who worked there was wonderful, but the particluar angel who believed so fervently in Natty's potential, the one who spent hours of her own time making flashcards and other teaching materials and attending SALT sessions and learning Makaton and recording every little success in beautifully made learning journals, and listening to my worries and hopes and fears and tears and frustrations, was H.

(They actually call her H, which is odd, because that's what my husband calls me too. But Natty always called her Boff Lady for a reason none of us can ever fathom.)

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"I have to say that initially I was very apprehensive about having a child with Down’s Syndrome join our setting. In my ignorance I wondered how we would cope with all her wants and needs in our village hall setting, where the only specialised equipment is an adult’s disabled toilet!

However we had a good transition from Portage workers, and Natty then began her 2 ½ years with us. I was lucky enough to be her key worker for 18 months.

Natty settled in extremely well and enjoyed all the busyness the session had to offer, joining in the activities with confidence and spending time with other children. She also accepted, and most of the time adhered to, the rules and routine of the setting, just like any other child would. 

Various activities and the general set up were adapted so Natty had equal access to everything. I remember she was so small when she started, she couldn’t even reach the sand/water tray!

We found Natty to have bags of character, determination, stubbornness, a great sense of humour and she certainly knew her own mind!!!

I have just so many memories of Natty’s time with us.

One of my favourites was when Natty brought the whole, very busy, pre-school to a complete standstill. We had a karaoke machine set up in the top corner of the room which was proving to be very popular! Six or seven children, Natty included, were sitting together watching and waiting patiently to ‘take to the mic!’ 

MC Natty G sings Mary Poppins, karaoke style

Eventually it was Natty’s turn and she chose ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’ from Mary Poppins, her favourite film at the time. The first chorus was just a warm up, giving Natty time to get used to the microphone and suss out her audience (who she felt weren’t paying her nearly enough attention) so by the time Natty got to the second chorus, we heard a terrific, ‘WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, LESS GO (dun dun dun dun dun)... FIYA KIIIIE …….' [sic]  booming around the hall! 

That was when everyone, children included, immediately stopped what they were doing and just watched Natty perform, right until the very end of her song. Half a dozen bows then followed. Natty was clearly very happy with her performance. 

The children then resumed their activities leaving the adults, including a Speech and Language Therapist who was visiting at the time, completely speechless and teary-eyed! It was so emotional to see her up there, so full of confidence and determination. Natty had proved herself.

I found Natty to be a very eager and enthusiastic learner, wanting to be challenged and stretched. At times I found Natty’s eye-contact to be extremely intense. She would hang off your every move or word, eager and ready for the next cue, like a little lion cub, ready to pounce on her prey! There were obviously times when Natty was not in the mood, not receptive, or ‘having none of it’ which can happen with any child. Activities would then be postponed or adapted.

Funnily enough, a lot of our real quality 1:1 time was spent with Natty on the potty, killing two birds with one stone you could say!! I had a captive audience and Natty had the 1:1 on which she thrived. We did everything from matching pictures (‘same, same’) in the early days, to learning phonic sounds and pictures. (ai, ai was her favorite – with the hand salute!)

So much was learnt in those most memorable sessions – and it certainly wasn’t just Natty!

The cry would go,

‘’Where’s ‘H’ and Natty??”

“Oh, in the loo again!!”

We have always been taught to praise and reward children’s efforts and achievements. Some loved to get stickers or choose a toy for themselves. Natty’s reward? She liked nothing more than some quality 1:1. A playful tickling session, or singing one of her favourite songs. ‘Five Cheeky Monkeys’ springs to mind and we would sing and giggle together with very exaggerated facial expressions!!

I believed in her. 

I believed in her potential - she had shown it to me on so many occasions.  

I worked on it, built it, and she responded – willingly and with great results.

To use that age old cliché, ‘You only get out what you put in,’ and working with Natty is a perfect example of that.

I still keep in contact with Natty and her family, and I am amazed by her progress. Her reading, her language and writing her name have all astounded me, yet Natty seems to take it all in her stride.

There is still so much for Natty to learn, but with the support from family, friends, school and a changing society, she is the kite, and the sky is the limit.

Much love,

Boff Lady! Xxx"




You might also enjoy reading: 
Learning Activities to Try at Home or 
Living Life to the Full

I've already told you, it's called Triceratops!

A precious little clip of our clever youngest girl, not only delicately and proudly painting independently, but saying Triceratops pretty clearly too!