Try looking on greatideasforteaching.com. Go under the language/auditory processing section. They have some great products. I have used quite a few of them and have been happy with all of them. The auditory processing in dinosaur land (I think that is the title) was good. About 10 directions per page you can easily make them harder as well. There was another one we used from there that had much more negatives involved but can't remember which one it was now.

Some of my favorite bean recipes come from the site budgetbytes.com. I just made the kale and chickpea soup last night, very yummy!

I would like to join! Looks like a great way to find some new dinner ideas. I usually plan for the week. Sun: kale and chickpea soup Mon: roast chicken, quinoa and asparagus Tue: using leftover chicken for double stacked tortilla casserole and mixed green salad Wed: turkey manicotti and broccoli Thu: Cauliflower soup and salmon patties Fri: leftover soup and spinach salad Sat: homemade pizza for family movie night

I would also consult a pt if possible. I have personally seen too many people try to tackle gross motor challenges with only OT or PT. While there is lots of potential overlap, we have found having both to be far more effective. If the OT does not feel motor planning is playing a role in your daughters gross motor delay what does she think is causing the delay? Has she suggested you follow up with other doctors or therapists? I find it odd that she would not give you some more thoughts as to potential causes for this and suggest the necessary follow up you need to pursue. That would be a red flag for me with regards to the therapist.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I believe it is important to step back and look at the child's problem solving abilities. Troubles with problem solving are going to lead to reactive and explosive behaviour. Not sure of the age of your daughter, but you can check out Raising a Thinking Preteen, and also some of the problem solving materials from linguisystems. HTH!

Yes, Zones of Regularion is by Leah Kuypers.

Have you ever had any success in talking to her after a meltdown about putting together a strategy for next time? Can she articulate anything that helps her calm down and also things that trigger her? Does she have something that always seems to trigger a predictable outburst? What I am picturing is picking out a fairly predictable trigger that she identifies and coming up with three or four calm down strategies she thinks she can use to help herself out. Maybe have her make up a visual for the strategies she thinks she can use sucessfully such as deep breathes, taking a break in her room, listening to a favourite song etc and come up with a way for you signal her to use it before she gets too out of control. With of course the hope being if she can find herself successful in curbing or controlling one trigger she can build on that for other things.

Over the weekend I was reading The Sensory Child Gets Organized: Proven Systems for Rigid, Anxious, or Distracted Kids by Carolyn Dalgliesh. http://www.amazon.com/The-Sensory-Child-Gets-Organized-ebook/dp/B00A26OY86 I didn't learn anything I didn't already know about visual schedules etc, but thought it was a helpful book for those that are newer to supporting a child with sensory challenges.

Wanted to mention that there is a zones of regulation app. It is NOT at all a stand alone from the book, but can be a helpful reinforcement of the ideas for younger ones.

Oh, between this and the other rhythm thread, I am having all sorts of flashbacks to things we have done in therapy over the years, lol. If clapping is too much trouble, you may want to take the midline issue out of it and see how he does jumping to a beat first. You will want to see if he can keep it going for at least 6 in a row. I vaguely recall something about it going into an some sort of automatic response for the motor planning after six. Ds use to do 4-5 reps when we started this stuff. He would then have a slight pause before he could continue. We knew his body and brain were not connecting to make it an efficient motor plan. It was interesting to see how he progressed over time.

For an OT I would look for someone who practices and is certified in the Ayres approach to sensory intergration. Since he has apraxia I would really want to rule out other motor planning troubles as well. I know that some children simply have verbal apraxia but more often then not there is other praxis issues at play. So much variance in gross motor at his age can make it hard to see if he is encountering trouble with motor planning. How you describe his ability to maintain clapping etc raises a flag for me with that. I would also suggest if the OT eval shows troubles with praxis, getting a PT consult as well with someone who treats kids with DCD/Dsypraxia. There is a lot of overlap in treatment of motor planning from an OT and PT, but I find many people forgo the PT in favour of OT. For us we had the best results from having ongoing input from both. Zones is a terrific book! I really think most children can benefit from using the program. You can find lots of movie clips and extra ideas about using Zones from Pinterest.

I have always understood troubles with rhythm to be rooted in motor planning issues not processing speed. Interesting to think of processing speed also playing a role. Not wanting to try many sports is pretty consistent with motor planning challenges as well. Has he had an OT or PT eval? Do you have any concerns with his gross and fine motor abilities overall? Our OT had ds do swimming as well as various metrenome activities to help. We had to start out with very basic clapping activities and continual build up to more complicated movements. We also did this activity where ds had to throw dried beans into a empty coffee can. He had to alternate his hands and do it to the beat of the metronome.

Sbgrace - have you looked at Zones of Regulation for the self regulation piece? It was incredibly helpful here for my ds9 who has HFA.

I was also going to suggest MindUP. Love that program! Another 2 books that may be a helpful read are the Whole Brain Child and Raising a Thinking Child. We have also done lots of what if scenarios. Very helpful! What ever you think seems like an appropriate level of activity I would suggest doubling it! That is about what seems to work here. Has he had a OT evaluation or do you think sensory wise things are okay?

Fantastic! Wonderful news!

Fantastic! Always love hearing about good days!

Learning the ROPES for Improved Exeuctive Functioning is great for those with HFA and Asperger's. I also love Unstuck and On Target for the flexibility piece. For the motor skills you may want to read up on dyspraxia. A good book is Beating Dsypraxia with Hop, Skip and a Jump. I see you mention he has had OT and Speech, but I would see if you can find a PT to assess him and give you some ideas on how to best help that along. I was reading and discussing an interesting study with our PT the other day about how better motor skills for children with ASD lead to increased social skills development. Motor planning challenges are difficult and require lots of intervention to assure that the child develops a full tool box of skills and a reliable approach to movement.

I have been trying to get back to write this post since yesterday. I only had a chance to list out some books that we have used. Will try to get back with some of the ideas we have done. Books about EF: No Mind Left Behind Smart but Scattered Boosting Executive Function Skills Late, Lost and Unprepared Learning the ROPES for Improved Executive Functioning This next list is more the ready made lesson plan EF books: Unstuck and on Target (emotional regulation and flexibility) Zones of Regulation (emotional regulation) Executive Functions Training Elementary by linguisystems Not really classed as EF books, but support various EF goals I have for ds: The 6 Success Factors for Children with Learning Disabilities (Very classroom based. I haven't done too much with it yet, but it has sparked some ideas for me) Seven Habits of Happy Kids MindUP Raising a Thinking Pre-teen The Whole Brain Child I think there are a few more, but the above are the ones I have found most useful. I am just on the iPad now or I would have added links to those books.

You may want to look at the book Zones of Regulation. It has lots of activities that help develop emotional regulation. It also helps the child understand how their behaviour affects others. http://zonesofregulation.com/the-book.html

How about a general everything to do with executive functioning thread? Troubles with executive functioning almost always plays a role for our kids with learning challenges/special needs. I have probably read all the applicable books on EF, and have done lots around here to try and help these skills along, but I am running out of creative ways to up that "just right" challenge for ds. Was thinking there are probably lots of us on here feeling the same way. Would love to chat about what and how promoting executive functioning looks like in your house. From books that you found helpful to ideas you have implemented in your house to scaffold your child's EF. Please share all of your wisdom! Will be back later with a list of books and ideas that have worked well here.

For my ds who has ASD we have had good luck with IEW for writing. We did PAL writing last year for 2nd and saw some wonderful gains from that, so we are conintuing on with SWI A this year. AAS and HWOT have also been a great fit for ds.

SOS is pretty widely practiced, although you sure wouldn't know it from those listing on their site! I am in Canada, so nowhere near those three areas and didn't have any trouble finding one. I also know they offer training courses often, so I suspect there are many OTs that are certified. Not sure how you have to go about finding OTs where you live. Here I can look up listings of all OTs in the provincial association, where they list contact info along with specialities and extra certification courses they have. Maybe something similar exists in your state?

Another book you may find helpful for the emotional regulation piece you discuss is The Zones of Regulation. http://zonesofregulation.com/the-book.html. My ds 9 does have ASD and we found that book very helpful, but I think it is a helpful book whether or not your child has ASD. We continue to use the language and concepts he learned from the book daily. We also used Unstuck and On Target that a previous poster mentioned at the same time. We had great results from that book as well. I personally think both books really dovetail each other nicely. For the feeding issue, you may want to look for an OT who practices the SOS feeding approach. That program literally saw my son go from eating approximately 15 foods to eating most things I put on his plate. He still has trouble with some textures and is never going to be a big casserole fan, but it is night and day to what his eating was like before. It took about 2 months to start seeing results.

From your example it sounds like she is not only having trouble with her reading comprehension but her listening comprehension as well. The reading comprehension would not concern me as much as the listening comprehension. I would be very concerned about her receptive and expresive language skills if she is often unable to answer simple wh questions, like that posed in your example. Does the mom have other concern with her dd's language? Is she able to follow directions and carry on conversations okay? I would urge your friend to have her language assessed by an SLP.

You may also want to look at the Hyperlexia kit from linguisystems. I used the level 2 kit with my ds along with VV and have seen good results with both.