ezpz Mini Feeding Set

Facilitation of Feeding Skill Development

Feeding specialists must select appropriate tools when facilitating feeding skill development. There are a myriad of materials available that make it challenging for therapists to select the tools that match the needs of their pediatric clients. Therapro is always in quest of useful, practical, and therapeutic oral-motor and feeding tools that will promote feeding skill development. Innovative designs are widely available to therapists and families for utensils, cups, and oral tools that are conceived to help advance oral development and feeding skills. We’ve reviewed extensively what is available to therapists and families, and are able to offer these new items from ezpz with our stamp of approval. All materials used are safe and a breeze to clean.

ezpz Oral Development Tools used for Facilitating early Feeding Skill Development

Oral Development: Oral Development Tools are designed to provide oral sensorimotor input for babies and youngsters who are beginning to explore their mouths. The 3 tools (loop, smile, and stick) are easy to grasp and provide smooth and textured surfaces. They can be used without food to explore oral movement for pre-speech activities, provide oral sensation, and can also be dipped in liquids and graded food textures to facilitate oral motor skills of the lips, tongue, jaw, and cheeks. The Oral Development Tools are a great tool for facilitating early feeding skill development.

The ezpz Developmental Utensil Set

Utensils: The Developmental Utensil Set consists of utensils for infants age 4 months+ called Tiny Spoons; Mini Utensils (fork and spoon) for infants age 12 months; and Happy Utensils (fork, spoon, and knife) for children 2 years+. The entire set consists of 7 utensils that can be used as the child’s feeding skills develop.  The Happy Utensils are available as a separate set that encourage safe and successful self feeding. These utensils are a great tool for facilitating the development of scooping, piercing, spreading and cutting needed for successful self feeding.

Developmental Cup Set

Cups: The Developmental Cup Set is a developmental training system for teaching cup and straw drinking skills. It introduces open cup drinking for infants 4 months+ using a Tiny Cup (2 oz). The Mini Cup and Straw Training System is the next level with a 4 oz cup, screw on lid and flexible, durable straw for infants 9 months+. For the older toddler (2 years+), the Happy Cup and Straw System consists of an 8 oz cup with screw on lid and flexible, durable straw. The system promotes oral skills including lip closure, lip rounding, tongue cupping and elevation. All 3 of the cups are available individually as well as in the set.

These ezpz tools are a great resource for facilitating feeding skill development. You will be able to examine and try out these new products and many more when you visit Therapro’s exhibit at the ASHA Conference in Boston on November 16-18. We’ll see you then!

Guest Blogger: Filomena Connor, MSOTR, Retired

Social Language Rules & Tools: A Preschool Curriculum of activities to improve social–ability

Activities to Improve Social–Ability in Play

Teachers and speech language pathologists (SLPs) can use highly interactive social language roleplay activities to improve the social-ability of their preschool students.   During these fun lessons children learn strategies to help them to establish joint attention so that their communication attempts will succeed.  

Why do so many Of preschooler’s attempts at communication fail? 

Failed communication attempts are not uncommon for preschool-age children, especially those with social language challenges, such as autism. The missing key is joint attention.

  • One child begins to talk about his painting, “I made a fish.”, but the other child turns away.  There’s no joint attention,  so communication fails.
  • One child asks, ”Where is the truck?”, but the other child talks over them commenting on their bridge. There’s no joint attention,  so communication fails.
  • One child requests the red train, “I wanna have the red one?”, but the other child talks about his new shirt.  There’s no joint attention,  so communication fails.
  • One child comments on their toy cat, “My cat is scratchy.”, but the other child just ignores them.  There’s no joint attention, so communication fails. 

Joint attention ensures that both the speaker and the listener are looking at, referring to and or thinking about the same topic. Adults take responsibility for creating joint attention with children by getting down on their level, by following their lead and by persevering in calling their attention to interesting objects or events.  Therefore, communication with adults is often successful. 

However, peers with social language challenges are less likely to be able to initiate and or respond to other’s attempts at joint attention resulting in many missed opportunities to successfully close the communication circle. 

Age Expectations

 It is interesting to note that most babies should be following the gaze of their parent by turning to look at whatever their parent is looking at by 6 months of age.  Babies begin pointing by 8-9 months.  Babies use gestures, eye gaze and vocalizations to get caregiver’s attention by 12 months (for more, see Developmental Milestones on page 196 of Social Language Rules and Tools).

What is happening? 

In order for a communication attempt to succeed, the speaker and the listener have to create joint attention toward each other, toward an object or toward an idea. Joint attention is the key to success in completing the communication loop. Many preschoolers, especially those on the spectrum, are still developing this skill. That’s why communication attempts with adults, who take responsibility for creating joint attention are much more likely to succeed than preschooler’s communication attempts with peers. The speaker needs to be aware of their listener’s needs.

  • “If I don’t get their attention then they won’t know I’m talking to them.” 
  • “If I don’t get close enough to them they might not hear me.” 
  • “If I don’t say it in an interesting way they might not notice me.” 

The listener needs to be responsive to the speaker. 

  • “If I don’t look up or say a word then they won’t know I heard them.” 
  • “If I didn’t understand what the speaker said then I need to ask.“ 

There’s a lot that can go wrong! 

What to do? 

Many children with special needs, such as autism, benefit from specific and direct social language instruction.  The Social Language Rules and Tools Curriculum provides this type of instruction. Key features of the Rules and Tools Curriculum include:

  • It is focused on specific chanted rules. 
  • It is prompted with non-verbal devices, such as, gestures, pictures, objects, etc. 
  • It is presented in integrated group lessons.
  • It is modeled by typical peers and supportive teachers.
  • It is incorporated into increasingly novel play, conversation and learning activities. 
TAP AND CALL TEACHING PICTURE  used to teach joint attention

An example of an activity that provides needed direct social language instruction is Tap and Call, from the Rules and Tools Curriculum. Tap and Call is the first rule of the 68 rules and lessons in the Social Language Rules and Tools Curriculum and is taught to increase successful interactions by ensuring  joint attention. If you teach preschoolers to Tap and Call then:

  1. The preschooler who is speaking will get close to the listener
  2. The preschooler who is speaking will look at the listener
  3. The preschooler who is speaking will gain the listener’s attention

With this the preschooler who is listening is much more likely to respond with eye contact or a verbal response; they will establish joint attention and the communication circle will be complete!

How to teach this? 

Roleplay! Through roleplay, parents, teachers and speech language pathologists can engage preschool children in interactive lessons to teach these skills. 

Pointer finger icon from Rules and Tools

For example, using a large pointer finger prop (which is easily and inexpensively cut out of foam board) creates drama as adults model Tapping and Calling their listeners before they talk. Best of all, this can become an interactive game for the preschool audience watching the role play. Encourage your preschoolers to call out “FREEZE, YOU NEED TO TAP AND CALL!” when the adult role players ‘forget’ to Tap and Call before talking.

Enhance the learning experience with a multisensory element like singing. In the example above preschoolers can say and clap out a chant:  “They might not notice me at all, if I forget to ‘Tap and Call’!” 

Using songs when teaching social language rules can tap into different learning styles.  Songs have been shown to improve attention and memory.  Tap and Call has a song to the tune of “TAPS” (see Social Language Rules and Tools Curriculum for the words to the Tap and Call song).     

Adults and peers can use the large pointer finger prop/token along with the chant and song to playfully generalize the Tap and Call rule to the classroom during snack, games, crafts, and free play activities.   These props, chants and songs can be sent out of the classroom to many different settings within the school and to the child’s home to ensure generalization of new rules to different environments and to different people.   

How to find out more information?  

Refer to Rule 1.1 of Social Language Rules and Tools Curriculum for details about these interactive roleplay lessons and the multimodality teaching methods. 

Some children are missing positive communication experiences over and over in every possible interaction with peers, teachers, siblings and parents. What a lot of missed opportunity and missed reinforcement from those possible interactions!  Unlike ABA and Playfulness therapies where adults do all the work, Social Language Rules and Tools Curriculum teaches communicatively challenged children to recognize and implement subtle, key rules or behaviors that their more successful peers use intuitively all day long. 

The rule sets are listed in developmental order based on literature review (included in the program on pages 195-229). 

Stay tuned for the next Talk and Play blog for Lesson 1.2 Answer, ‘What?’ 

Guest Author: Deborah Fortin, author of Social Language Rules & Tools: A Preschool Curriculum

Bean Bag Chair

Enhancing Sensory Experiences in the Home Daycare Setting

Porch, the home services platform, reached out to Therapro for help with their latest article, Safeguarding Your Home Daycare: What Experts Have to Say. The question posed to the Therapro team was: How can home daycare providers utilize therapeutic and educational resources to enhance sensory experiences and cognitive development for children in their care? Therapro’s team of experts had a lot to say on this topic! Read our latest post to see what Therapro shared and be sure to check out the full article for additional information!

Home daycare providers can greatly enhance sensory experiences and cognitive development for children in their care by incorporating therapeutic and educational resources from Therapro, among others. In this post we are covering several strategies and Therapro resources that can be used to enhance these experiences.

Tactile Search & Match a tool used to enhance sensory experiences

Sensory-Focused Environments: Creating sensory-focused environments within your home
daycare is a great, all-around way, to enhance sensory experiences. This can be accomplished simply by utilizing sensory tools, like fidget toys, or sensory integration equipment like therapy balls. These resources can stimulate children’s tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular senses, promoting sensory exploration and integration.

Create And Play Sensory Beads (6 Pack); a set of 6 beads with various textures to enhance sensory experiences

Sensory Bins: Therapro offers various sensory bin materials, like mini animals or sensory beads. These bins can be customized to match educational themes and provide opportunities for tactile exploration, improving fine motor skills and cognitive development.

Waddle Plastic Balance Board

Fine and Gross Motor Activities: Tools like therapy putty, sensory beads, and balance boards. are examples of therapeutic resources that can be integrated into activities to enhance sensory experiences. For instance, swap therapy putty for traditional playdough activities to bring in grounding proprioceptive input. Add a balance board to traditional circle time activities to add vestibular stimulation that can increase alertness. 

By integrating therapeutic and educational resources into your home daycare setting, you can create an enriching environment that fosters sensory experiences and cognitive development for the children in your care.