Toys for kids with Down Syndrome in India

When AM was just a few months old, I came across some great articles on toys for kids with special needs. One of them was this post - Ten toys your baby wants on Down Syndrome New Mama. I thought it was awesome except that being in India I had no access to most of these toys. These posts and articles did help though - they inspired me to look at toys differently, to assess the developmental potential the toy offered and they also gave me ideas on what kind of toys my baby needed - sometimes I would find something similar to a recommended toy and we would go with it.

Yet I would sometimes wish I had some sort of a ready reference to make it a bit. I'm sure there are parents who have felt the same way. So I thought I should put together a list of toys of appropriate toys specific to the Indian context for kids here.  I have also included links of online stores where you can buy them. This list is based on the recommendations of Maryanne Bruni in her book Fine Motor Skills for Children with Down Syndrome (available on Crossword.in).

Important disclaimer: Please note that I have quoted the production description for many of the products exactly as mentioned by the manufacturer/seller. This is not to be taken as an endorsement for any of the products.

Age 0 to 2 years
Baby play activity gym
                   

A whole range of play gyms are now available across India. The Fischer Price Folding Activity Gym which claims to "enhance baby's visual & tactile skills and encourage baby to reach & kick, helping motor skills develop as well as build eye-hand coordination" is available on Babyoye. FirstCry also has a range of baby play gyms that you can find here. Mom&Me has a few options for play gyms and you can find them here.
Prices start from Rs 2199. Alternative: Make your own with some inspiration from Wonder Baby.

Activity centre/ table
                       
This product is Chicco's 3 in 1 Play gym which is available on FirstCry. The product description says that this is a multi-functional activity center with 3 different positions that follow the stages of your child’s growth. "For babies at least 3 months old: The gym can be used with your baby lying down and will help to develop coordination and movement skills with lights, sounds, and the colors of the 3 fun dangling characters.
For babies at least 9 months old: The 3-in-1 play-gym deluxe becomes an activity panel that your baby can use while sitting up. The musical keyboard with its colored keys and fun melodies will stimulate your baby’s manual and audio skills
For babies at least 12 months old: The 3-in-1 Play-gym Deluxe becomes a multi-activity panel that your baby can use standing up. Your baby will enjoy playing with the fun animal characters that will help develop shape recognition. The multi-activity panel will also improve your baby’s manual coordination, logical associative, and musical skills."

Another option is the Fischer-Price Lights and Sounds Table (see below)

                                                     

                                                  

Soft wrist toys

These toys weren't available in the Indian market until recently so I was pleasantly surprised to find they are now available here. These are totally worth the price. Maryanne Bruni, in her book Fine Motor Skills for Children with Down Syndrome, says that soft wrist toys help an infant become aware of his hands and help him develop early control of arm and hand movements. 

                                      

This Playgro wrist rattle is available on FirstCry. You could also find wrist toys on Babyoye. 

Rattles and squeeze toys

Squeeze toys are good for babies with Down Syndrome as they work the hand and finger muscles as they are squeezed which helps to improve the tone of these muscles. 

                                

This pink dolphin squeeze toy is available on Babyoye.  Squeeze toys are also easily available at your local toy store. FirstCry has a good range of squeeze toys too. This bunch of squirting toys make a good bath time variation to squeezing activities.

                      

Rattles are possibly the easiest to find on this list. Online stores also offer many options for rattles. Featured below is Chicco's First Boat Musical Rattle available on Babyoye. Also check out the range of rattles on  Hoopos.

                                                   

Chewing toys

These toys are also widely available both online as well as at your neighborhood baby care store. One of my top picks is this Fun Teething Rattle - Elephant from Chicco's at Hoopos.

                                  

Touch and feel books

A whole range of touch and feel books are available online. Some great touch and feel books can be found on uRead. AM has a big collection of touch and feel books and her all-time favorite is Baby Hugs (available on Crossword). 

                                                   

These are just a few suggestions. I will be posting a few more lists of toys in the near future.

Thanks for reading  

Sensitive periods and helping kids reach their potential

Every child has potential. Maybe some of us have been led to believe otherwise about our kids with special needs, but the truth is that our kids have potential too. As parents, the first thing we possibly want to know is how do we help our child reach his or her highest potential? If you are the parent of a young child with special needs, a good place to start would be by learning how a child develops.

A lot of research has been done on this subject and the consensus is that early childhood is the most important period in the development of the child. The most critical period is from birth to about six, which provides a window of opportunity to build a strong developmental foundation. There is a lot of information out there on how one can go about aiding a child's development during this period. One of the most systematic is the developmental philosophy propounded by Dr Maria Montessori.

Dr. Montessori was one of the foremost educationists of the 20th century and she is credited to have revolutionized early childhood education. Incidentally, her earliest experiences in the field of education was with children with special needs. 

One of Dr. Montessori's many path-breaking discoveries was the identification of "sensitive periods" in the development of the child. These sensitive periods are phases in early childhood during which the child is hard-wired to acquire a particular skill. While no external influence can affect the start of these sensitive periods, parents, care givers and teachers can do a lot to optimize these stages of development. 

Listed below are some of the sensitive periods that Dr. Montessori identified along with their approximate time frame:

Birth to 1½ years	Movement
Birth to 5 years	Acquisition of language
1½ years to 4 years	Interest in small objects
2 years to 4 years	Order
2½ years to 6 years	Refinement of the senses
2½ years to 7 years	Grace and courtesy towards others
3 years to 6 years	Music, art and dance
3½ years to 4½ years	Writing
4 years to 6 years	Mathematics
4½ years to 5½ years	Reading

These are approximate time frames. Sensitive periods vary from child to child. 

Sensitive periods manifest themselves in the child through the child's interest. For instance, during the period of sensitivity for movement, the child will repeatedly try to walk or climb and will do so without losing interest. At this point, parents could facilitate the development of movement by giving the child as many opportunities as possible to walk, run, climb, jump, etc.

The period of sensitivity for acquisition of language may not be very apparent and may go unnoticed but the very fact that a child learns to speak fluently without being taught its primary language means that it has a sensibility for language. Experts recommend that the child's environment should be rich in language to help them build this essential skill. You can find some interesting information on helping your child develop his or her language here and here. 

Similarly, parents can help children optimize their development by facilitating their progress through all the "sensitive periods". You could use the above chart as a guideline to know which sensitive period your child is going through based on the age. Here's another great article that offers practical suggestions on this subject  - Sensitive Period According to Montessori and Why is it Important in Child Development. 

Our Experience: When our daughter AM was born we had no clue on how to raise a child with special needs nor did we know much about child development. Also, we didn't (still don't) have any support group or structured early intervention except for physiotherapy. So we didn't consciously plan on doing any developmental activities. However, she did benefit from all the activities that we were doing with our older daughter. We would do a lot of reading time, we did rhym es and action songs, spontaneous play at home and a few hours at the park every day. 

By the time AM was a few months old - and the shock of Down Syndrome had worn off a bit - we started providing her opportunities to encourage movement even at home by building cushion forts and we made a game out of climbing over obstacles, crawling on slopping surfaces and pushing heavy objects around the house. AM took her first steps at around 14 months which was considered a bit of an achievement by her physiotherapist. We now know that the efforts we put in have paid off - Last week, AM had her Sports Day where she had to participate in two events. By the way, she is the only child with special needs in her class. I am happy and proud to say that my little girl finished sixth or seventh in a group of 14 kids. Imagine that for a child who is hypotonic!
AM's language acquisition has been even more remarkable. She is 4 now and she surprises us with her vocabulary and her choice of words. It is not unusual for her to say things like "It's delicious" or "I'm thinking" or "I have a good idea" or even something like "Ewww disgusting!" especially to her sister :) Her last developmental assessment puts her language development as age appropriate. We are now consciously working on developing her reading, writing and math as she is now in the period of sensitivity for acquiring these skills. 

More in my next post...

Thanks for reading

The Miracle Workers

For the first post of this blog, I would like to share two stories. Both these stories are about women who were born in the 1800's, both worked with children with special needs at a time when few would invest time or effort into educating these children. And they both achieved remarkable success in their work and were seen as 'Miracle Workers.' They continue to inspire many of us even today.

1) Anne Sullivan 
Anne Sullivan was a vision impaired 20 year old when she was offered a job to be governess to a six year old girl. She took up the offer and moved to Tuscumbia, Alabama, to tutor the blind, deaf, mute daughter of the Keller Family. When she arrived at the Keller home on March 3, 1887, she met a child who was angry, rebellious and very aggressive. Some accounts even describe the little girl as being feral.

But Anne Sullivan was not deterred. She worked relentlessly and with ingenuity in teaching her young student. During one lesson, she finger-spelled the word "water" on one of Keller's hands as she ran water over her student's other hand. Keller finally made her first major breakthrough, connecting the concept of sign language with the objects around her. From that point, Anne Sullivan's student made great progress in her education and eventually graduated from Radcliffe College. Soon the world learned of her and Helen Keller became famous for accomplishing things that nobody would ever have imagined. And it was all because of the belief, commitment and perseverance of one person - Anne Sullivan



2) Dr Maria Montessori
Dr Maria Montessori was the first woman to graduate with a medical degree from the University of Rome. Soon after her graduation, she began postgraduate research at the Psychiatric Clinic of Rome and began to work with the children who were labeled as 'deficient'. Because of her success, Dr. Montessori was appointed by the Minister of Education in Rome to run a school for 'deficient' children from the schools of Rome and 'mentally disabled' children from Rome's asylums. Dr. Montessori took a keen interest in the education of these children. Dr Montessori travelled to London and Paris in search of ideas to educate retarded children. On her return to Rome she spent many hours working with teachers and children, building on ideas from Froebel (the founder of kindergarten) and special educators Itard and Seguin.

She developed and utilized scientific methods to enable these children to learn better. She would spend much of her time observing these children and at night, she would write out her notes, analyze them, and make new materials for use in her classroom. She would then go back to the school to test these new materials. She would again observe them, take notes and would use all her studies to fine-tune her methods and materials. Over a period of time, the children made remarkable progress and after two years Dr Montessori's work brought surprising results with several 'retarded' children passing the public examinations, performing as well as normal children. Eventually Dr Montessori went on to develop a whole new way of education which would come to be known as the Montessori Method, but it all had its genesis in a school for children with special needs.

 I often wonder that if these great women could achieve so much with so few means and virtually no technology to support them, how much more can we achieve. I am truly inspired by what Anne Sullivan said to her fellow students at her graduation from Perkins School for the Blind: "Duty bids us go forth into active life. Let us go cheerfully, hopefully, and earnestly, and set ourselves to find our especial part. When we have found it, willingly and faithfully perform it; for every obstacle we overcome, every success we achieve tends to bring man closer to God."