Extras

Peanut Butter Playdough

Here is a recipe for edible playdough.  We use this in our classroom (we do not have any peanut allergies) to help students with fine motor skills with out fear of it popping into their mouth.  Here is the recipe for parents to try at home!

 

Peanut Butter Playdough Recipe 
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 cups powdered sugar
Mix ingredients in a bowl and you’re done! Store in an airtight container or plastic baggie with air sucked out of the bag. (Quick tip: Spray your 1/2 cup with oil before measuring your honey and the honey will pour much easier.)

It's Rett Syndrome Awarness Month!

To help celebrate, here are some facts to help you better understand our friends who have Rett Syndrome.

 

It is the leading genetic cause of severe impairment in girls.
Even its most severe symptoms can be completely reversed in animal models.
Therefore we push for a cure tomorrow, but at the same time we raise public awareness about Rett Syndrome to increase understanding and improve care for all with Rett Syndrome today.
On Oct 13 we want to increase awareness of things that girls with Rett syndrome CAN do and not about those they cannot. Like every other individual…
Most girls with Rett Syndrome live into adulthood but they spend lives in silence, unable to speak but alert and aware. Thoughts and feelings of these girls remain throughout their lives trapped in bodies that cannot move normally.
Gene that causes Rett syndrome leaves receptive abilities(primarily visual) relatively spared. Vision and eye gaze are therefore major ways girls with Rett syndrome relate to the world.
Imagine your daughter a typical 12-18 mo. old. Then she loses her ability to talk, feed herself, walking becomes difficult, maybe she starts having seizures. Imagine realizing that dreams of college, marriage & independence are gone & replaced with 24 hour care. That’s what Rett syndrome does. It leaves the girls looking at us but unable to say anything and unable to even point with her fingers, like in a cage and the cage is her own body.
The goal of this event is to increase awareness of:
1. The burden of isolation of girls with Rett syndrome caused by their inability to speak/communicate.
2. Their isolation is UNECESSARY! because strategies exist that can allow these girls to EFFECTIVELY express themselves but are underutilized.
Their silence must not be misunderstood as lack of understanding.
Girls with Rett syndrome are unlike children with other developmental disorders because their speech does not develop despite therapies.
Why girls with Rett syndrome are different from children with other genetic disease:
Because they have normal initial development , including development of brain structures. The hallmark of this disease is lack of appropriate connectivity between otherwise normal looking bran cells.
Gene that cause Rett syndrome unevenly affects different parts of the brain: and functions: most severely affected are ALL motor functions (therefore girls with Rett syndrome cannot talk, cannot use hands, and even those who can walk do it with difficulties).
Every 2 hours one girls is born, 1 during this event! 11 more today!
Rett syndrome fact sheet:
Symptoms:
• Loss of speech and motor control
• Functional hand use replaced by compulsive hand movements
• Disordered breathing
• Severe digestive problems
• Orthopedic abnormalities including scoliosis and fragile bones
• Disrupted sleep patterns
• Extreme anxiety
• Seizures
• Impaired cardiac and circulatory functions
Parkinsonian tremors
Strong eye gaze is their most important means of communicating with the world.
Rett syndrome, occurs with the prevalence similar to Cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and is far less visible in out community.

--Sheryl Hand, mother of a Rett Syndrome Angel

Free PEC symbols!

Here are sources for FREE PEC symbols.  These can be used for your students to touch, pick up, or gaze at to help them communicate their wants and needs.  If you don't see one here that you think would help you at home: take your own picture, print it, laminate it, and use it! 

http://trainland.tripod.com/pecs.htm

 

Communication Resources

I am so excited we are learning about the weather this week.  Here are some signs that I think will be beneficial when communicating with your students about the weather!

http://www.ehow.com/video_4403505_sign-weather-sign-language.html

Communication Resources

 

Signing Time! Offers great videos for students (and adults!) to learn basic sign language.  This is a valuable communication tool.  Check out the video below to learn to sign "outside" words.  Enjoy!