What specially developed activities do we offer and why?

SCEIC includes programs that are designed to enhance the developmental potential of special needs children:


Multi-Sensory Activities

Sensory Table. Where children can experience different textures like sand, mud, shaving cream, beans, and flour (they can fill containers, form and trace with their fingers and bury their hands in the medium)

Sensory Occupation. Where children create a variety of projects with the mediums mentioned in "Sensory Table"

Sight and Color Integration (color and contrast exercises). "Children with vision problems may not be able to use their vision to make eye contact, socially bond with family members, and also may have difficulty developing the sense of day versus night. Because vision also serves as a learning sense, children with visual impairment may not learn to perform many tasks as quickly as a child with full vision because they cannot learn by mimicking the behaviors of others. A child with impaired sight may be delayed in sitting, crawling, walking, talking, or learning to read and write. Vision stimulation activities can help children use their remaining vision more effectively. The theory is that by performing these activities, the visual areas of the brain are stimulated to maximize the development of vision. They are not exercises that strengthen eye muscles, or cure eye diseases or abnormalities to the brain."

(From: Developing Your Child's Vision: A Guide for Parents of Infants and Young Children with Vision Impairment, Copyright © 1999-2001 All Rights Reserved. The Center for the Partially Sighted, By Bill Takeshita, O.D., F.A.A.O., F.C.O.V.D.)

To read more about Sight and Color Integration, click this link:
http://www.low-vision.org/children-guide.html

Aiding and Augmenting Communication. "Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): Anything that helps children or adults to communicate when traditional strategies are not sufficient to accomplish a communication goal (Cress, working definition) Basic AAC intervention includes behaviors, gestures, cooperative actions, and sounds, and does not depend upon controlling complex systems or devices. These early skills do facilitate the gradual development of more complex skills."

(From: Augmenting Play and Communication for Young Children with Physical Impairments, Cynthia J. Cress, University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

For more information reference:
http://www.unl.edu/barkley/present/cress/cress2.html

These activities are important because:

• help promote self-esteem, encourage social interaction and increasing physical well being.
• The process of brain growth can be speeded through the increase of visual, auditory and tactile stimulation.
• They provide an environment that enhances mobility exploration, language development, and manual competence.

Developmentally Appropriate Techniques

These new techniques have been proven to be the most developmentally appropriate young special needs children. These techniques include; sensory integration, and focus on social and emotional competency.

Sensory Table. Where children can experience different textures like sand.

Sensory Integration. "Sensory Integration Dysfunction is the inability to process information received through the senses. It is also called sensory integration disorder, sensory integrative dysfunction, or SI Dysfunction, for short. The late A. Jean Ayres, Ph.D., an occupational therapist, was the first to describe the problem as the result of inefficient neurological processing. In the 1950s and '60s, she developed a theory of Sensory Integration Dysfunction and taught other occupational therapists how to assess it. Dysfunction in the central nervous system, at the "head of which is the brain. When a glitch occurs, the brain cannot analyze, organize, and connect - or integrate - sensory messages. The result of SI Dysfunction is that the child cannot respond to sensory information to behave in a meaningful, consistent way. He may also have difficulty using sensory information to plan and organize what he needs to do. Thus, he may not learn easily."

(From: SENSORY INTEGRATIONS DYSFUNCTION: A BRIEF DEFINITION, from the book "The Out-of-Sync Child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.)

To read more about Sensory Integration, click this link:
http://www.dsnetworkaz.org/Articles/SENSORY%20INTEGRATIONS%20DYSFUNCTION.htm

Focus on social and emotional competency. Social and emotional competency is a key factor in our children's success. We prepare our kids to function fully in society and do well in all their relationships (in school, work, play and home). We expect our kids to participate in all our social events and activities. This way, all students learn about relationships, what doesn't work and what does works. Our low teacher/student ratio allows our teachers to handle any "overloads" and still maintain a positive environment with our remaining students.