Articles
Special education and development guides from our experts
Visualizing Reading Comprehension: The Power of Graphic Organizers
Imagine your child reads a storybook from beginning to end without stumbling — fluently and wonderfully. But when the book is finished and you ask, "What happened in the story?" you receive no answer. If you have experienced moments like these, it can be quite confusing. In conditions such as dyslexia and intellectual disability, even when children succeed in decoding words mechanically, they may have great difficulty making sense of what they have read.
Learning to Play: Transitioning from Simple Play to Symbolic Play
It can be disheartening to watch your child throw or bang together the colorful, educational toy you excitedly purchased, rather than playing with it as intended. Many parents wonder why their child spins the wheels of a toy car instead of driving it, or throws a baby doll instead of putting it to sleep.
Home Routines: Tips for Families on Dressing, Undressing, and Toilet Training
Every parent's greatest dream is for their child to gain independence in daily life. However, for families of children with intellectual disabilities, toilet training or teaching dressing skills can sometimes become a challenging and patience-demanding process.
Pre-Verbal Communication: Ways to Understand Your Child and the SÖMDÖ Approach
Your child's inability to express themselves with words does not mean they are not communicating with you or do not wish to. Families of children with delayed speech or no verbal communication often face great difficulty understanding their child's wants and needs. Yet in autism and intellectual disability, communication begins long before the first words are spoken.
Building Self-Confidence Through "Errorless Teaching" in Intellectual Disabilities
Do you experience moments when teaching your child a new skill suddenly goes wrong — when your child becomes agitated or completely withdraws? Watching your child experience repeated failures and develop the feeling of "I can't do this" is one of the hardest processes for any parent to witness. However, there is a scientifically grounded way to eliminate the sense of failure and the frustration that comes with it during the education of individuals with intellectual disabilities: Errorless teaching.