Katrin Stroh Functional Learning - anyone with any experience out there?

[Firsttimer7259]

Hi
My daughter is turning 2, she has GDD and is about 10-12 months old in terms of her development. We have the usual physio, SaLT, portage and OT to start soon, plus lots of tests.
I am gearing up to start some functional learning sessions with her at home. Has anyone done these, how was it? I think I might just start with banging, piling and placing and leave sorting (seeing as its so far from what she can do atm) Or should i do all of it. Also how often?
Any answers would be interesting
Thanks

I haven't heard of it, sounds interesting though. Is it about encouraging her to manipulate her environment?

Really? no one?

Hi Oodles: its quite focused activities. No distractions, praise, encouragement. You just sit behind your child and take their hands in yours and do lots of repetitive moves like banging, or picking up blocks and putting them on a bowl etc. The idea is that you mimic what NT children do normally when they satrt to play/explore and that this gtes the connections going in the brain putting in place basic learning tools like placing. banging etc. I ahve seen people talk about hand over hand work, maybe its that.

I get the feeling that something doesnt work for my daughter in terms of using her arms and I wonder whether doing the motions again and again would help her get more control over her body whcih would then let her play more like a NT child.

I would go for ABA rather than this , but I haven't come across it I must admit. But I know banging etc would not have helped my boy (ASD and LD). What he needed at that age were the speech centres of his brain stimulating, so that he learned to verbalise. ABA gave that, and much more.

Im not sure sickof I dont really think she has autism mainly because her motor skills are v delayed in a way that isnt usual for autistic children (they tell me) Thats why I think her motor skills are the place to start.
The ABA stuff I have seen online is always with children who have far more skills that DD, can you do it with someone pre langugae (more even that pre verbal - she has no receptive langugae we can pin point) Do you hvae any links I could ahve a look at?

ABA works better the younger you start and indeed the most fantastic results I've seen recently were with my pal's kid, who has delay but no autism. If you google EIBI you will find useful info. Certainly it can be done when there is no language: that's how my boy was at the start. Must admit I am less clued-up on the motor skills stuff, but I guess a good OT could advise?

I have read about the theory of moving limbs to stimulate the brain. How are her gross motor skills?

Still working on the walking, she's nearly there...I have been saying that for months now. But its more her fine motor skills I suppose. She doesnt seem to have much control over her hands (meybe even her arms). She has a pincer grip but doesnt really manipulate objects much - flails a bit. Also often isnt looking at what she's doing - maybe its a concentration thing? But when it suits her she does hvae concentration, or at least the ability to remember what it was she wanted to do and go back to it again and again despite endless distraction attempts.
The professionals are mystified. Eg she can pick up a cup and pretend drink, from her eye contact/expressions also communicating with me when she does this but then she can't play meaningfully with bricks just sort of bats at them (altho she will knock down a stack). Consultant told me she had no idea how to score this

I have been told about the HANDLE method by a cranial osteopath that I take DS to. It might be a similar thing?

www.handle.org/about/what-is-handle.html

Sorry posted too soon!

I don't know much about HANDLE but it was recommended for my son who has a genetic syndrome leading to low muscle tone, speech delay, learning difficulties etc. He is 22 months and scoring at 12 months for communication.
I will look into it, but it seems a bit pricey.

I wanted to update, mainly because so few people appear to have heard of this and because I feel we are seeing pretty good progress at the moment. (of course we are a sample of just 1)
But we have been doing this now for 6 weeks and my impression that it is helping connect the dots in our daughter's brain is getting stronger. We had her SaLT and portage worker over today and they were amazed at what she is doing with her hands suddenly.

The hand over hand working has also drifted into me showing her hand over hand how to work toys etc and she gets that much more than if I just show her the toy.

We are doing a 10-15 min session 2 x a day (always once a day anyway) placing, banging, scraping, pairing in as many different ways we can think of. We are seeing a therapist for instruction in the technique which helps us get it right.

No one out of the therapists who work with D nor the nursery has heard of it but it seems pretty ok - nothing weird or far fetched about it IMO. Its not diagnosis specific so you can try it with different children and see what you think. I am pleased atm

I have done Waldon at home with my son since last summer. we go for a session with a practitioner every week. It is useful for any child - even those without delay. I think it is a good pre-cursor for school.

Teaching a dc how to use their hands to play doesn't sound too wacky.

If she's been bored, or 'wanting' to do stuff, then it'll be intrinsically reinforcing anyway. It sounds sort of like physio for play movements.

Ds's language skills are a bit like that. Huge vocab, wonderful grammar, can parrot back poems... but can't follow a 3 step instruction. I wonder if there's a fine motor skills equivalent of echolalia, where you can perform long strings of actions perfectly and even in context. But off script, you're almost mute

Have a look at apraxia which isn't the same as dyspraxia.

Impressive list of academics etc praising it

sickof, it looks as though it would work very nicely in an ABA context.

I wish I had come across this when mine was muh younger. We did the hand over hand a lot(that is how she learnt most skills). But I am still struggling with the fine motor skills. Is the OP around?