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AD Kids - Assignments

Help With English
Bloom's fear that Spanish would only serve to confuse her
son's understanding of English is a common worry. However,
DeBroff says the lessons learned in another language may
help youngsters to grasp the first. "Parents may wonder
whether learning a second language before your child has yet
to fully master English will detract from his learning
ability," she says. "To the contrary, learning the roots and
structure of a second language typically enhances your
child's English. As long as children hear these languages
methodically and regularly, they can learn more than one
simultaneously."

Learning a second language can help children grow and
develop in cognitive, language and social development,
DeBroff says. The more language learning there is, the more
cognitive development there is. "The more languages a child
is learning in the early years, the longer it will take him
to speak, but once he starts speaking, he will speak in all
the languages he knows," she says. "The receptive learning
part of the language development process takes longer
because the understanding process of two or more languages
takes longer. Socially the child is enhanced, because he
will be able to relate to people from different cultures. He
will acquire more experience with different kinds of people
– It is important to understand how truly beneficial it
will be for their child to speak and understand easily and
comfortably in more than one language."

"By 6 months, children in English-speaking households
already have developed different auditory maps, shown by
electrical measurements, that identify which neurons respond
to different sounds, from those in Swedish-speaking homes,"
she says. "This is why learning a second language after,
rather than with, the first is so difficult. The auditory
map of the first language restricts the learning of a second
language."

DeBroff says that while children engage in fun activities in
a foreign language, such as singing, story telling or
cooking projects, they naturally take in and start to use
the new language comfortably and effortlessly. But this
natural talent for learning language has a shelf life. As
children approach puberty, neural connections develop, and
the nature of language learning and storage changes becoming
less flexible, DeBroff says.

AD Kids Inc.
No Additives Please
Which baby foods? A decade ago, nutritionists called
attention to the fact that some commercial baby foods
contained food additives, sugar and salt. To their credit,
the baby food manufacturers responded by eliminating
unnecessary additives from most of their products. As a
result, today's baby foods contain no added salt and little
or no sugar.

Unless your baby is going to eat the entire contents of a
jar of baby food at one mealtime, it is best not to feed
directly from the jar. And be careful not to store an opened
baby food jar in the refrigerator for more than two days.

About AD Kids Inc "At some level, parents have to be aware
that concern by others might in fact be an issue," says
Billingham. He suggests smiling at people and making a joke
about the behavior by making comments like, "Only another 15
years of this!"

And keep in mind what matters most: your relationship with
your child. "How the other people view you is so less
important than how you interact with your child," says Polland.

"Most of us at some point in life have been either the
toddler or the frustrated mom," says Douglas. "We just have
to hope that we don't end up turning into the annoyed little
old lady down the road, forgetting just how challenging it
can be to be that young mother."

News With Susan Henrichs

But language delays aren't always the result of hearing
impairment. In some children, the physiological systems
responsible for communication sometimes take longer than
usual to mature. My son was one of these 'late bloomers.'

These types of communication problems generally fall into
one of two types:

Expressive language delays occur when a child has difficulty
sending a verbal message. A two-year-old whose language is
limited to only one or two words or a child who talks a lot
but is difficult to understand are both examples of
expressive language delays.

Gabriel from Dundas, Ont., was diagnosed as having an
expressive language delay when he was 18 months old. His
mother, Leslie Hodges, noticed that compared with his peers,
Gabriel seemed unable to say any words. With the help of a
speech-language pathologist, Gabriel worked with his family
to learn to pronounce consonants and 'to remember where
those sounds were in a word,' says Hodges. Now nine, Gabriel
is doing well. 'He's reading now,' says Hodges, 'at a lower
grade-four level, but he is reading.'

Receptive language delays affect a child's ability to make
sense of messages that are sent or to follow instructions.
'A child who is two years old and can't identify body parts
yet' is typical of this kind of language delay, explains
Basiliki Passaretti, a speech-language pathologist in Hamilton.

AD Kids Intensity of Reaction
In general, how strongly does your child react to positive
or negative experiences? Does a scraped knee send him into
hysterics or does she tend to cry a bit, dust himself off
and keep going?

Distractibility
Is you child easily distracted by things going on around her
or can she shut out intrusive stimuli and stay focused?

Attention Span and Persistence
Can your child stick with a task or does he tend to give up
or lose interest quickly? Does he have difficulty switching
from one activity to another, or can he stop what he's doing
relatively easily?

AD Kids Inc Info To Reward or Not to Reward?
Another tried and true strategy is to reward good behavior,
but many parents feel like they're bribing their child. Some
experts, however, believe there is no harm in a little
reward as long as you don't overdo it.

Billingham feels that rewarding children is a great strategy
because it teaches cause and effect. Douglas agrees. "We get
rewards in adult life for good behavior," she says.

You may be thinking that rewards could get a bit expensive,
but they don't have to be. Barbara Polland, professor of
child and adolescent development at California State
University, Northridge and author of No Directions on the
Package: Questions and Answers for Parents With Children
From Birth to Age 12 (Celestial Arts, 2000), suggests buying
a bag of cheap party favors and then wrapping them
individually in tissue paper. When you're on your way out,
tell your child that after he behaves he'll get to open the
gift. But be sure never to give the reward if he does not
have good behavior.

Other inexpensive rewards can be activities that your child
enjoys, such as stopping by the park on the way home or
playing a favorite game.

Don't miss out, learn more: News With AD Kids , Susan
Henrichs , AD Kids Inc.