Search Results for: blog do you want better social skills

The Importance of Not Sharing

It’s one of life’s most important lessons and it doesn’t come easy. Sharing is a challenging concept for many adults to master, so imagine the toll it takes on preschoolers. Most preschool curriculums incorporate a slew of opportunities for four year olds to learn the fine art of sharing.  They are taught to be generous with their possessions so their peers don’t feel left out.  However, is sharing really caring?  Does it really matter if kids share and share alike? Some educators don’t think so. In fact, a growing number of preschools are putting the kibosh on forced sharing in … Continue reading →

Men and Women Are from Earth

A study came out recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: “Men and Women Are from Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender.” The central hypothesis of the paper is that men and women actually aren’t all that different.  Many of the differences that we might demonstrate have more to do societal expectations than inherent biology. This isn’t the first study on the subject.  I recently read the book “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference,” by neuroscience psychologist Cordelia Fine.  In it she exposes noticeable trends in male vs. female psychology, both in … Continue reading →

Homecoming, Halloween, Toy Catalogs, and More!

This Special Needs Week in Review blog just so happens to fall on the very last day of September. A wide variety of subjects hit the blog this week. There are blogs about homecoming rumors, Halloween activities for kids with special needs, a new drug, a new toy guide, and some concern about “clustering”. Arbaclofen May Help Symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome Arbaclofen, (also called STX209), has been approved to treat one of the symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome. It helps with social withdrawal. There is potential that this drug might also help people who have an autism spectrum disorder … Continue reading →

Baby Bullies

My son loves his daycare. He’s made lots of little friends and is learning social skills that he may not have learned otherwise being an only child at home. But lately I’ve been a little worried about him. He’s been coming home saying that one little boy in particular has been being mean to him. Little kids often get into little scuffles over having to share a favorite toy or taking turns on the swings, but when Logan started coming home from daycare with scratches all over him I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t switch daycares at … Continue reading →

Helping Your Child Overcome Shyness

My son is naturally shy. Researchers claim that it’s a genetic trait. So in reality, my son’s shyness does not surprise me at all. As a child, I wouldn’t even play games at my friend’s birthday parties. I had an intense fear of failure and I was worried the kids wouldn’t like me. Looking back, the fears were highly irrational, but try telling that to a six year old little girl! I had a few close friends, but I didn’t branch out too much. I was well liked and very focused in school, but when it came to social settings, … Continue reading →

Too Much TV

How much TV do your kids watch? What do they watch? I remember when I was first divorced, sometimes the TV was my lifesaver. Being the only parent of an only child meant that not only was I the only one doing housework and laundry, cooking and paying bills, I was also the only other person in the house to entertain her. I hate to admit it but many times I parked Hailey in front of the TV when she wanted me to play a game with her or read a book with her, anything, she just wanted my time … Continue reading →

Co Habitation

I read an article that said co habitation is becoming the norm. As a society we are so afraid of divorce that we don’t make the commitment in the first place thinking that if it doesn’t work out it will be easier if we are not married. Yes, in many ways not getting married makes it easier if you split up, but maybe it also makes it easier to split up. Where is the determination to make this marriage work? Our children suffer when their parents separate whether they were married or not, there is no difference to the child. … Continue reading →

Things You Shouldn’t Say

There are certain things that one should never say to the parent of a child who has special needs. This little piece of compassionate wisdom seems lost on some people, however. For reasons that I cannot fathom, some people just feel the need to “share” their misguided opinions at the most inopportune of moments. It has happened to every parent of a child that has special needs. Your child has very loud “meltdown” in a public place, and everyone turns around to stare. As if the stares weren’t bad enough, there are some people who are heartless enough to make … Continue reading →

Study Shows Why People With Autism Confuse Pronouns

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A study that uses brain imaging reveals new information about why children (and adults) who have been diagnosed with autism tend to have difficulty selecting the correct pronoun to use. This could reveal some clues as to why people who have autism tend to have problems picking up social skills. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to compare the areas of the brain that were activated when participants were doing a task that involved rapid comprehension of pronouns. The researchers included participants who were young adults that had high-functioning autism, and also a … Continue reading →

Anxiety: When Meds are OK

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My 18 year old daughter just graduated from high school. As we sat and discussed all of the plans for the weekend something jumped out at me: the anxiety she had been dealing with through her teen years was not getting better, and the impact on her day-to-day functioning was going to get worse. I have been noticing symptoms of anxiety in her for years, and spoke openly with her about options. However, as someone who spent years working with adolescents with serious emotional problems, I was leery to start her on medications before she became an adult. I wondered … Continue reading →