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Music Therapy Benefits Children With Special Needs

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Music is powerful. It can evoke strong emotions, inspire people to dance, and bring back memories of the past. There are many ways that music therapy can help children who have a special need. Parents interested in having their child try music therapy should seek out a licensed music therapist. Music therapy is an evidence based use of music interventions in order to assist a child with accomplishing specific goals. People who are licensed music therapists are part of an established health profession. The music therapist and the child he or she is working with will use this therapeutic relationship … Continue reading →

Anxiety and Therapy for Kids

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As my full time job requires I have a good understanding of community standards I try and keep up with what community centers are offering around the US. What centers accept Medicare, have sliding fee schedules, or provide outreach are things I keep an eye out for. These centers often provide great services to all via their websites, so they are good resources. In one of my recent quests I came across a center in Montclair, NJ. I don’t know anything about the center itself, but they had a great article in the “Montclair Patch” about children/teens with anxiety. My … Continue reading →

Anxiety: When Meds are OK

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My 18 year old daughter just graduated from high school. As we sat and discussed all of the plans for the weekend something jumped out at me: the anxiety she had been dealing with through her teen years was not getting better, and the impact on her day-to-day functioning was going to get worse. I have been noticing symptoms of anxiety in her for years, and spoke openly with her about options. However, as someone who spent years working with adolescents with serious emotional problems, I was leery to start her on medications before she became an adult. I wondered … Continue reading →

Massage Therapy Could Help Children Who Have Autism

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It seems counterintuitive to suggest that massage therapy, something that requires a lot of physical touch, could be beneficial for children who have autism. However, an interesting study reveals that massage therapy could be helpful for at least some children who have autism. It requires a well trained massage therapist, who has a good understanding about what kinds of physical contact children who are the autism spectrum tend to be adverse to. Massage therapy is something that seems to be becoming more and more acceptable as a form of healing, or as a means to ease certain kinds of pain, … Continue reading →

Special Needs Children and Your Marriage

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The divorce rate is high in this country – over 50%. That’s huge. That’s more than half of the weddings you have been to and half of the happy couples you have celebrated with. Although statistics differ, the divorce rate is even higher for couples who have children with special needs. And I completely understand why. We head into marriage with big dreams, goals and ideas of how it will be. We picture this perfect life with these perfect kids. We may expect some bumps along the way, but when your child is sick, disabled, or challenged in anyway, it … Continue reading →

Ten Ways Pet Therapy Is Helpful

Pet therapy helps people in so many different ways. Exercise long-term recall skills. Asking a person about the pets they have owned can trigger all kinds of happy memories. Talking about pets you’ve known helps develop your cognitive skills. Exercise short-term memory. Asking a person to describe a pet who just visited is a good workout for the short-term memory. A well-trained dog could take a series of commands from a patient — the pup will be happy with the attention and the patient will get a chance to bond with the dog. Develop speech and communication skills. Many people … Continue reading →

Have You Failed to Recognize Your Child’s Anxiety Disorder?

We assume that parents intuitively know when their child has a problem. Yet in about half the cases of childhood anxiety, mom and dad have failed to recognize what is going on (Berstein and Layne 2004). See if you’ve observed any of the following symptoms in your son or daughter (he or she may have several or many): The child: worries about as many as six things at a time. has difficulty falling asleep, unlike most children who are sleeping twenty minutes after going to bed. wakes in the night or early morning and can’t get back to sleep. has … Continue reading →

“Hypo-Parenting” is Not a Parenting Style

Have you ever wished that you could hypnotize your children so they would behave the way you wanted them to? One parent has been doing exactly that, though there is no science to support the idea that hypnosis is an effective parenting tool. Lisa Macheberg is a hypnotherapist who has three children. She says she started hypnotizing her children the help them get through the night without wetting the bed. She didn’t stop there, though. She now uses hypnotizing as a tool to help her kids deal with range of problems from performance anxiety to difficulty focusing. In an ABC … Continue reading →

Special Needs Podcast Roundup – Week of July 16, 2012

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Each week, the Special Needs Podcast Roundup brings you brand new episodes of podcasts that discuss topics that are relevant to parents of children who have special needs. Subjects could focus on a particular special need, Special Education, and more! The Coffee Klatch released an episode on July 10, 2012. This episode is called “Anthony Petrucci Filmmaker- Mina Martin”. This episode discusses a film called “Mina Martin” that was created by filmmaker Anthony Petrucci. The film is about school violence and the bullying epidemic. As you may already know, kids who have special needs are more likely to become the … Continue reading →

Special Needs Podcast Roundup – Week of February 6, 2012

The Special Needs Podcast Roundup is back! This is where to go, every week, to find out about news that is relevant to parents of children who have special needs. You can learn a lot from a good podcast! The Coffee Klatch has an episode that was released on February 1, 2012. This episode is called “Stress Free Kids”. This episode features Lori Lite, founder of “Stress Free Kids”. She created a line of books and CDs that are designed to help kids, teenagers, and adults to reduce stress, anxiety and anger. Raising Arizona Kids has a brand new episode … Continue reading →