One of the most precious gifts the Creator has given to mankind is the reproduction of those of our species, the birth of children. The birth of a child brings great happiness to parents.
But sometimes this happiness is very fleeting. When? When a child is born with a disability: mental, emotional or physical. There are currently approximately seven million disabled children in the United States. It is especially an incredible surprise when parents find out that their newborn baby has an intellectual disability like Mongolism.
Many years ago there were few professional agencies where parents could seek advice and support to do what was most loving and helpful to a child with a disability. But today the situation is different, especially in big cities. This situation has changed so much that some say that the present may be "the beginning of a golden age for the disabled".
First, recent reports point to the tendency to care for disabled children in close collaboration with normal or normal children whenever possible. Instead of keeping all these young disabled people to themselves as usual in institutions, more and more of them are taken care of so that they can spend more time with normal children. It is very advantageous.
Improved methods
The DC program in Washington, sponsored by the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, is typical of the best treatment for teens with disabilities. It takes young people out of mental health facilities and provides them with specialized training that progressively prevents them from using drugs, which facilities often rely heavily on to treat disabled or mentally ill patients. As a result, many of these young people may attend regular school or keep a job if they are older than school age.
Today, there are “child development programs” across America designed to help disadvantaged youth. According to a report, these "children of any intelligence level can develop and learn the specific training they need to start early." Even more encouraging is the position of the Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, That "there is no level at which children are desperate."
It has been found that most children are desperate to explore their surroundings and therefore can develop mentally and physically even when their surroundings are not ideal. However, delays can occur when the environment is really bad. The retarded child, on the other hand, must be tempted to develop intellectually. In fact, your mother should spend as much time as possible in this belief. It means talking to the baby, entertaining him, and encouraging him to be physically active.
The most effective way to do this requires education and training, which mothers in many large cities can get. Some of these services offer professional assistance. Workers spend an hour and a half a week teaching mother and child directly at home. Some communities also have the option of allowing disadvantaged children to stay in these centers for a few weeks and to receive education and training. Those who participate in this activity say that "it is a tragedy to have a retarded child and send him to an institution".
A report from a committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics highlights the importance of physical activity for adolescents with disabilities. The retarded child will need more physical activity than the normal child, but probably less. An inability in this direction worsens both your intellectual disability and yourself, resulting in poor coordination and obesity. A private agency in Philadelphia,Encourages mothers to teach their Mongolian babies when they are only five weeks old.
New and successful approaches
Another form of treatment that has produced surprising results in severely disabled children is the “BallBird-Stick” method. It is believed that all letters of the alphabet consist of a circle (a sphere), a triangle (a bird) or a straight line (a stick). Using this method, psychologists were able to teach children to read and write in children with IQs at the age of twenty or thirty. And with that mental improvement comes an improvement in the personality.
A typical example is the case of a severely delayed 18-year-old girl who continued to have tantrums, spoke spontaneously and rocked in a rocking chair for most of the day. Thanks to the "BallBird-Stick" method, he now speaks freely, rarely has tantrums, no longer swings all day and has developed humor. In fact, the rule of thumb is that the 49 who have trained around 49 with this method will see their personality improve significantly, show a standing position rather than a bent position and stop rocking in a chair for the day. They also doubt their appearance and want to be presentable. These are all healthy signs. The staff at these centers report that because of this training, these sorcerers at first seemed "non-human" when it came to communicating with them, but now they also impress others and real people.
Another successful approach for the mentally handicapped due to Mongolia or certain types of brain damage was music. The creator of this method, Richard Weber from Peoria, Illinois, used a music system that allows many children with disabilities to learn to play an instrument. A child who was impossible to live with and who did not seem to be able to learn quickly became completely normal thanks to this system. Thanks to Weber's "musical" method, as he calls it, hundreds of children, some of whom were severely delayed and never said a word, reached the point where they "learned to learn." Regarding this method, a director of a center for children with disabilities said: “Weber's innovations destroy a number of stereotypical notions. Since we started using their methods, we have seen children switch from vegetables to humans.
Hyperactive children
The said child who seemed impossible to live with was actually a hyperactive teenager. Hyperactivity (also known as hyperkinesia) is affecting more and more children, especially children. It is characterized by extreme restlessness and diminished attention, as these hyperactive children are unable to support their children and develop senses focused on a subject long enough to broaden their knowledge base. To make matters worse, these children are probably stubborn, persistent and five times more likely to end up in the poison bottle than other children. It really is a problem for your parents.
The most common and popular method of treating these children is by using various medications, strangely enough, that stimulate adults but seem to calm these children. However, more and more voices are being raised to oppose the pharmacological approach to this problem. On the one hand, there is always a risk that children become addicted and therefore need drugs as they get older. The question also arises as to what harm these drugs may cause. In addition, these drugs can hide personality problems or disorders that are often the cause of hyperactivity. For this reason, more and more child psychiatrists are recommending parents to be tough on these children.
It is also unfortunate that, as a psychiatrist observed, the physical examination is often overlooked, which should actually be the first step. This psychiatrist repeatedly discovered that the boy's hyperactivity was due to a physical defect, such as a faulty heart valve or a metabolic disorder. According to him, "it makes no scientific sense to use drugs to suppress undiagnosed hyperactivity and thus correct the underlying medical or physiological problem." To give just one example: a hyperactive child set fire to the family sofa. After receiving the drugs, he gave up. But what did you do when the drug treatment was stopped, provided you were cured? He set fire to the family's garage!
Various "somatic" programs
Another approach that has proven to be extremely effective time and time again is diet. Interestingly, the child's hyperactivity is caused by hypoglycemia, a condition called hypoglycemia.This can be solved with a diet that is very limited in protein and low in carbohydrates, especially a diet that avoids all junk food, including “sodas”, all “candies” containing refined sugar and crisps. At the same time, the metabolic approach to the administration of a child includes large doses of certain vitamins, as well as important trace elements. This treatment has also been very effective in treating children with the opposite of hyperactivity ie autism and even those with schizophrenia.
Since then, more than one psychiatrist has found that food additives like artificial colors and flavors, as well as antioxidants (which are added to prevent food spoilage) can make a child hyperactive. When they withdrew from the food that hyperactive children ate, they normalized. This is not a minor problem, as around 90% of the foods children enjoy eating contain these elements, including hot dogs.
Over the past year, it has been thought that another factor is probably a cause of hyperactivity in children, namely artificial lighting, especially fluorescent lighting. For example, a psychiatrist found that hyperactive children became normal by changing the lights to encompass the natural spectrum of light rays and by protecting children from the x-rays normally emitted by the cathode ends of these lamps.
Nobel Laureate Nicholas Tinbergen's approach to certain types of emotional issues should not be overlooked either. In Science,he talks about the value of muscle focus, which can be described as a gentle but very informed massage, performed correctly from head to toe, releasing body tension and working muscles and nerves. . usually. On the one hand, Tinbergen was happy to see that many men known for their vast knowledge were speaking positively about it, but on the other hand, he feared "that we might find this corner of psychiatry in a state of disorder and because we found so many ”. Established specialists (doctors, teachers and therapists) are very open to new ideas and even facts. "
"Tick" methods
It can be said that all of the above hyperactivity treatment methods are "somatic" approaches in that they attack the problem throughout the body. However, the program is the “check mark” which uses psychological means, that is, training and teaching methods. In this new educational program, children are given "checks" and "notes" based on their behavior and performance. This way, they can choose specific rewards. It takes a lot of patience and understanding on the part of teachers, as children need sustained individual attention. About 80% of hyperactive children return to normal in about eighteen months, the rest take a little longer.
From all of this, it is clear that there is more hope for retarded or hyperactive children. Besides having a variety of professional tools available to your parents, it is recommended that parents can do a lot of things for themselves that can be very helpful.
