SK is 18 months old- Update

After 4 months of intense therapy, we charted his developmental profile.


Developmental profile- SK- 18 months


VISUAL: He has moved three blocks up. That is a great news!
AUDITORY: He has moved 1 block up. He is in the process of reaching the goal 'understanding of 10 to 25 words and 2 couplets'.
TACTILE:He has moved 1 block up.
MOBILITY: He still remains at level 2. Yet, his crawling technique has improved. Now he can crawl up to 200 ft/day. He is now pushing up on his arms with the intention to sit up.
LANGUAGE: He has perfected level 3. On his way to level 4
MANUAL: His prehensile grasp has improved a lot. Now he is able to bring both his hands forward to receive or take an object. The control in his left hand is still less than perfect so he stays in level 3 functional.

According the developmental profile at 18 months we see that his neurological age is 9.25 months. In a span of 4 months he has grown for approximately 4 months and now his injury is moderate, relatively diffuse and bilateral. This evaluation was done at home and a formal evaluation is yet to be done. We are planning to take our son to Philadelphia this year in order to get a complete evaluation and work plan.

We are so happy with the improvements and we look forward to seeing much more like this in the near future.

For more information on IAHP & Glenn Doman visit their website : http://www.iahp.org/
For the initial developmental profile of SK click here

Free download- 150 equations for math - Lessons 6- 10



CONTENTS

LESSONS 6 to 10

Lesson 6: Multiplication 

Lesson 7: Division 

Lesson 8: Zero

Lesson 9: Three step multiplication

Lesson 10: Multiplication and division combination


Total equations: 150


Free download- lesson plan & 150 equations for math


SK loves math. He gets really excited when he sees me take out the dot cards and his favorite part is problem solving.At this point, he is 18 months old and he knows how to add, subtract,multiply and divide using dot cards.

Currently he is learning percentages. We have started numerals for him but he doesn't like it as much as the dots.We are planning to introduce factors and multiples once he completes percentage.

I know how hard it is to frame a syllabus for the math program.The next hard part is coming up with equations for the respective lessons.So I have decided to share my work with you.

The following download contains lessons 1 to 5 of the syllabus, that I have framed for my son's math program.It contains a total of 150 equations. I will very soon update lessons 6-10. 

Click here for lessons 1-5

It would be nice if you would leave a comment in case you find this download useful.Share this post if you think someone else might benefit from this.

Thank you! Have a nice day!

My experience : The 'What to do about your brain-injured child course?'



'The What to do about your brain injured child course' is a 5-day video course that teaches parents of brain-injured children on the whys and hows of treating their child.

My experience:

Overall it was a fantastic experience and it is a course that I would recommend every parent of a brain-injured child to attend.

The content and time period: 

The course was divided into 3 major parts- intellectual, physical & physiological over a span of 5 days.
Every day started between 7-9 am and ended by 7 pm (approximately). Some days were longer than the others due to the content discussed.Every topic was discussed for an hour followed by a break of 10 mins.

The auditorium & food:

The auditorium was purposely maintained cold and the explanation for it was given in the course. The food was not even palatable , in my opinion, and we attributed it to the cooking style of the hotel where we had lunch. Only by the 3rd day we were told that there was no salt in our food and that is why the food tasted bland(can also be read as bad).

DAY 1:

The first half of the day was mostly about introductions; introduction of staff, course etc. By mid-day, the lessons started and it was all about brain injury- what it is, the causes, how to deal with it and so on. 

DAY 2:

Day 2 was the continuation of day 1 and it was a bit more scientific in approach. After lunch, the developmental profile was discussed and the parents were taught how to evaluate their children. With the help of the staff, everyone created the initial developmental profile for their children. Personally, I liked this day very much because it helped me see where my child was and where he needs to move up on the profile. 

DAY 3:

This day was dedicated to the Physical aspect of the program.

We were made to crawl and creep. Though the whole activity was fun , it also helped us realize how tough it is for our children to crawl and creep.
We were made to pattern children (Different types of patterning for different age-groups of children).
There were also live demonstrations for crawling and creeping by children who have been on the program. It was a touching experience to see children who were determined to move in spite of their injury.

DAY 4:

This day was dedicated to intellectual and physiological excellence.

Intellectual:
This part of the course dealt with the importance of the flashcard program( reading) and why it would benefit the child if included in the daily routine.

Physiological excellence:
It was all about creating a toxic-free environment for the children and following an excellent nutrition program.

We were also made to design our home program as a part of the home-work.

DAY 5:

Summary & certification ceremony.

IAHP Course Certificate
My certificate


All of us were requested to answer the question "What is the most important thing that you have learned?".

Everyone had something wonderful to say and it was enlightening to hear what other parents felt. Most of them have been through a lot and it was evident in their speech.

The course concluded with the certification ceremony.

You can check out more about this course at http://www.iahp.org/hurt-kids/what-to-do-about-your-brain-injured-child-course/

Note: I am in no way endorsed with IAHP and the above written text is my own experience. I have not received any monetary benefits for writing this article.

Free download - words for english flashcards



It is definitely not an easy task to consistently do a flashcard program. One of the major hurdles that most of us face is keeping up with the pace of our kids and providing new materials.

I had to go through such a phase once and from it I learnt what a waste of precious time it was to pause the flashcard program due to insufficient new cards.

In this post I have provided a link to the list of words that I compiled for the English flashcard program. The list contains 1000 words comprising of single words and couplets.By any means this is not a comprehensive list of words under each topic.



Click here for the word list

Hope that helps. Have a good day !


Nutrition notes- A mathematical approach to giving Sai Kishore the perfect diet

 

Physiology- nutrition

Being a mathematics graduate, I tend to use math in every way possible. When Sai Kishore was 8 months old, I started measuring the nutrients (in addition to just measuring the amount of food) that he consumed everyday. I maintained an excel sheet to log in the values and to check whether he consumed the required amount of nutrients( say omega-3,calcium,iron,etc). I would then try to fit in a diet that would give him all the nutrients over a span of a week.


Sample of how the excel sheet looks



People said that I was crazy to do such things and a few of them even said that it was really wrong to measure the amount of food that we give to a child.

Now, after attending the course, I realize that what I had been doing so long was right and that IAHP too advises the parents to measure the amount of food and the amount of protein , carbs and fat that the child consumes. This is in order to ensure that the kid receives optimal nutrition.I had been doing this for the past 6 months so I find it easier to follow.

I feel that once a good diet routine has been established, it is not required to check every single gram of food the baby eats because you already have an idea about the nutrient value of the food. So I will stop doing this excel sheet work once I have set a balanced meal plan for Sai Kishore. After that point, I will check his diet once in a while to see whether it requies any changes.

LIQUID BALANCE: I have never (accurately) measured the amount of water he drinks. I give him water whenever he feels thirsty.

Now, I have started measuring the amount of liquids that he needs to drink each day so that he doesn't drink too much or too little both of which would cause serious problems. As per the formula provided by IAHP, for his age and weight, he has to drink around 400 ml of liquids everyday.We live in India.Considering the climate here, I have added a 50 ml of liquid allowance which sums up to be 450 ml of liquids per day.

In the next post I will provide information on what foods I feed Sai Kishore,how well it has been working and what changes I have been asked to make.

I have completed the What to do course successfully!!!

My certificate



The "What to do about your brain injured child' course is a five-day intensive course that teaches parents on the whys and hows of treating their child.

Click here to take a look at the details of the course

The course was really informative and it is a course that every brain-injured child's parent must attend. The course was divided into 3 major parts- physical, intellectual & physiological.

I'll post the updates in a similar 3-part manner.I'm trying to plan a really good program for my kid and it is time-consuming. I'm allotting the first week for physiology, second for physical and third for intellectual. I will be back with the updates soon.

The WTD course is happening!!! & other updates...

Yay! The WTD course is happening in India on October 18 , 2015 and we are eagerly looking forward to attend the course.

Krishna Jayanthi - Our little Krishna!



INCLINED CRAWLING TRACK:

He has started moving forward in the track and that is definitely a great news.
I will upload step by step videos after he starts cross crawling.

SWIMMING:

What if all the doors are closed; we have found a window.

We have bought an intex easy set up swimming pool to teach him to swim. So far things have been going really well and he loves spending time in water. Swimming has definitely helped his gross motor skills as well as his muscle tone.

Things are happening... We hope to see a positive change in Sai Kishore very soon.

A tiny light of hope

For the past 3 months things were not happening as expected.

We so badly wanted to attend the 'WTD' course in June but it got postponed to October. We were given a choice to attend it in Singapore but I did not get my passport at the right time , so we couldn't go to Singapore either.

We tried a lot but we couldn't arrange enough funds to attend the course in Philadelphia. So the chance of attending the course this month at Philadelphia is out of question. This leaves us with no choice except to wait until October to attend the course in India; and till this date we are not sure whether the course is happening this time at least.

Anyone who has read the WTD book will know that 0-36 months is the most important period for brain development and delaying therapy is bad for the brain injured child. Time is precious and must be used as effectively as possible in order to stimulate the brain of the kid.

Sai Kishore is still functional in the stage of crawling( Stage 2) & prehensile grasp( Stage 3). It seems like he is stuck and not able to complete those stages. He has been there for the past 3 months and we strongly feel that ' patterning' is the key to unlock the skill of crawling. Patterning is like a surgery , says Glenn Doman, and that it must not be given without proper training, which means we have to wait.

I had a few health issues due to which I had to pause his Flash card program. SK was not gaining weight at the expected rate in spite of feeding him a diverse range of healthy foods. He got sick for the first time in his life and he was totally down for a few days.

We wanted to teach him swimming in order to improve his gross motor skills as well as to help him with his muscle tone. After a long search we found that there are no infant swimming classes in our city. When we approached a few swimming camps whether they would accept our child, they refused. We were asked to come when SK turns 3 years old.

There was a period where he was seizure free , but the last three months he had more than 10 such occasions and he had around 3 brief episodes on his birthday.

We came to know that Frankincense will help him with his seizures and improve the activity of his brain. So we searched all over the city to get this essential oil and there was not even a single shop that had this oil.

We wanted to meet a pediatric neurologist but couldn't meet one due to financial constraints. Every single month we strive hard to save some money for the appointment and we hope we will be able to meet the doctor by this month.

Nothing was happening. Whatever we tried , it did not work.

Suddenly, things have started to change. Good things are coming and I can see a tiny light of hope. All the efforts that we had put in the past 3 months are starting to show results. People are coming forward to help and support us. It is not possible to mention everyone's name in a single post so we are planning to dedicate a CREDITS tab in the tab section of the blog to thank every single person for whatever help they have done.

We have started to give him intense therapy again. We strongly believe that we would see great improvements and we will definitely update the results soon.

Cure for microcephaly - Part 2

I was wondering whether a combination of stem cell therapy and 3D printing could cure microcephaly - Stem cells to grow the brain and 3D printing to re-adjust the shape and size of the skull once the brain has grown.

I thought of this after reading the following news  3D printing saves a child's life from hyrdocephalus and a few other research papers regarding microcephaly like this one - Gene mutation in microcephaly

I wrote this two-part post just for the sake of sharing my idea and getting some honest feedback about how viable this idea is. I am not a medical student so I do not know much about all this stuff. If there are any medical/ scientific errors in this post please let me know.

After so much reading and researching, I found a few links that actually support my idea.This might remain an idea forever or it might become a treatment option in a few years or maybe decades. There are a lot of different opinions among people regarding the use of stem cells for therapy and in many places it has not been approved of.

For example I found a German website that claims to treat microcephaly using stem cells - Stem cell therapy for microcephaly.

On the other hand , the following links caution us about the false claims regarding stem cell therapy-  link 1 , link 2.

I also found a link that states that microcephaly can be cured through 'in-utero gene therapy' - In-utero gene therapy rescues microcephaly

In the process of searching for information regarding stem cells, I also came across other therapies apart from the standard early intervention program that can benefit a person with microcephaly( and any other brain related injury or insult).

Alternative therapies : 

HBOT- Hyberbaric oxygen therapy - out of which some people have unbelievable improvement while some do not show any positive signs of changes- success story link 1



Aromatherapy - Frankincense oil has the power to heal even traumatic brain injuries.Essential oils and brain injuries , frankincense oil benefits

Music therapy - where the patients are made to play an instrument or to listen to music.

Massage & reflexology

I request anyone who intend to give therapy to their kid to analyse the pros and cons of the method, study the method in and out and then decide whether it will benefit their kid or not.

Thank you for reading through the post. Do you have any information that can be added to this post? If so, please leave a comment below.

Cure for microcephaly - Part 1

According to most of the medical sources I have read through, microcephaly is a permanent condition that is incurable. It is said that the size of the brain cannot be increased but the functionality of the patient can be improved via therapy.

'Impossible' does not exist, at least in medical science. What once was thought to be impossible is possible now, say , growing mini brains on a petri-dish! Who would have ever imagined such things 50 years back?


Some medical researches are held unethical and against nature , like cloning. Some people treat stem cells in the same way.Cloning and stem cells research are related but not the same.

Cloning is a process by which a genetically identical copy of a gene, or an entire cell or even an organism is produced. A stem cell is a cell in the body or in an embryo that has the capability of turning into many specialized cell types and it can be used to treat diseases and repair body parts.



There are different types of stem cells ranging from the embryonic stem cells found only in the earliest stages of development to adult stem cells that remain in our bodies through out life. Each type of stem cell has its own strengths and drawbacks.




There is a lot of debate going on regarding stem cell therapy. Considering from where an embryonic stem cell is taken, people have strong views about how against nature the process is. Not all stem cell research involves the creation,usage and destruction of embryos.





Current goal: Teaching Sai Kishore to sit independently


I am an INTP. For those of you who do not know what it means you can refer to the picture below for an explanation.


MBTI personality types
16 personality types - MBTI


Being an INTP is tough. Only 3% of the whole world's population is INTP and female INTPs are even rarer. This makes it tough for me to relate with people around me. 

There are lots of advantages being an Introverted intuitive perceiving thinker. For example, INTPs are strong in logic, quick learners, idea generators etc. 

Coming to the drawbacks, INTPs are very curious- curious to the point that they keep on learning new things and forget to perfect what they have learnt. When in one angle it is good not to keep doing the same thing over and over, this constant jumping around results in less productivity.

I have been trying a lot not to do this jumping around when it comes to SK. Most of the times, I start with listing out what I have to do. Then I try to get as much information as possible regarding the to-do list. When scouring for information I find something new and start searching about that and completely forget what I had intended to do. 

In that process, I will have surely learnt something new; but what about my to-do list? I am in such a position where I do not have time to build my knowledge. I have to concentrate more on my to-do list and try to accomplish them step-by-step, one-by-one.

That's why I decided to make a step by step action plan for my to-do list.

So, here comes the first goal... Making SK sit independently.

Step 1: Making him push up on his arms. 

Step 2: Strengthening his core.

Step 3: Getting him to sit when propped 

Step 4: Muscle memory technique to get him to sit up on his own.


I have not set any deadline for this because I do not want to rush my baby to make milestones happen.I just want to help him in the process. 

I had enrolled in the WTD course provided by IAHP that was to happen on June 28th and unfortunately it got postponed to October. I am waiting to attend the course; meanwhile I just cannot keep my baby idle. He demands us to keep him entertained. So , I decided to take things into my hands. I will keep doing things in my way until I attend the course and get an action plan to work on. 

The above 4-step technique is my husband's idea and yes , he is an INTP too. 

Do you know what personality type you are?  If not you could find out yours here: http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

There are many other websites out there that provide the same test. Feel free to cross check your results with a few more websites before coming to a conclusion about your MBTI personality.

How I started teaching my baby using flash cards...

How I found out about Glenn Doman and his method of teaching:

I stumbled upon brillkids.com when I was randomly surfing the internet about brain development in babies. After reading through all the information I felt a little overwhelmed. For some unknown reason I felt compelled to try it out with my baby. The methods listed in the website were Glenn Doman's method and Shichida's method.I went with the Doman method.

Why I chose Glenn Doman's method:

1. Flexibility - you do not need to start from the first if you have missed a few days of the program.
2. Fun - The method promised fun for both the parent and the child.

Flash card method: 

Before jumping into the teaching stuff , I wanted to check whether he liked to look at flash cards. So, I made a trial set of 3 cards ,in big red font on a white background and flashed it quickly in front of him. He looked at the cards intently and smiled. I thought to myself "Oh well! It works. Or may be it doesn't. I will need to make more cards in order to know whether this program works."

I have been using Glenn Doman's method for the past 6 months to teach my son words and numbers. 
Whenever I show him the cards he smiles broadly which encourages me to move forward with this method. The only drawback in this method is that the method is against testing babies since testing kills fun. Glenn Doman says "Never test your baby". We just have to assume that he would have learnt the words or numbers or whatever that is shown in the cards. 

So far, I've showed him a lot of English words, dot cards for numbers and pictures( encyclopedic knowledge program). Making the cards is time consuming and requires a lot of effort from the side of the parents. 


flash card- sample 1
Flash card- sample 1

Dot cards- for math
Flash card- couplets- sample


Does it work? 

It is too early for me to comment about the results. I do not know whether the method works. Moreover, I do not care whether it works; as long as he smiles whenever I show him flash cards I will keep doing it. 

I hope that when he starts to speak I will come to know whether the program has worked or not.

Opinions:

'Teaching young babies'

Some people are totally for it and some are totally against it.

There are researches that support early learning and claim that they work; and of course there are researches which claim that these methods are a waste of time. You can see a lot of YouTube videos where kids less than 3 years old are reading books and identifying pictures. On the other hand there are a lot of newspaper articles which say these methods don't work. 

You need to decide for yourself whether this is the kind of method you want to use to teach your baby. Trust your parental instinct - because a parent never does the wrong thing for his/her child.

Do you want to follow this method of teaching with your kid?


The founders of this method claim that this works well if you start early.For more information you can visit the iahp.org or read the how to teach your baby to read book.

I have uploaded the flash cards that I had made for Sai in the free materials section. Instead of trying to make everything on your own, just download the ready made files with a single click and save your precious time.

You can also visit domanmom.com & classicalmommy.com for many more free materials. 

The only suggestion I can give is - Do not concentrate on the results. The moment you start concentrating on results , the fun part will vanish.

What do you think about using flash cards to teach babies?

*Update- 1/03/16* The flashcards do work. Though he is not verbal yet, he chooses the right word when offered options and he can even do math( dot cards). I would definitely recommend this method for teaching young kids.