NETwork Interventions Blog

Hi Everyone, Read more...

Categorize your child's toys into the following two categories:

Independent play
These will be items that your child can engage with when they are on their own. They should be able to play with them successfully without any help from an adult. For example, a cause and effect toy your child is able to press all of the buttons and levers on successfully or puzzles that your child is able to complete without any help. Read more...

When engaging in proactive play, you will teach your child how to interact with the toys successfully. You will do this by prompting, or in other words supporting. Read more...

As you play with your child and give them access to things that they want, you can help increase language by saying the name of the item they want. This will help to teach them what all of the items are and how to say it, which increases their likelihood of saying the word themselves. Read more...

Hi Everyone, Read more...

Hi Everyone, Read more...

The process of identifying that something is not quite right with your child through to actually receiving the diagnosis can be long and difficult.

Doubting yourself, blaming yourself or your spouse, grieving for your child, and telling your story over and over again to doctors - this is just a small sample of the challenges you may face during this time. Read more...

Setting up a support network. Not everybody has a support network to hand. The majority of people, by the time they are beginning a programme, do not have many friends around them. Play dates have become too hard, meeting other mums for a coffee a distant memory and going out either with or without children something in the distant future. I have met mums and dads who can go their whole week without having any adult contact and some without leaving their house at all. Our relationship with our spouse is often the first thing to be sacrificed as evenings are spent researching or clearing up after the day and weekends seeming chaos. Many of our families don’t have the luxury of having family members close by who are actually able to help. By actually being able to help, I mean somebody to come and spend an hour or so at your house so as you can attend a support group/go for a coffee. If your child is asleep when they are at your home, have them tidy up (they will like to help – honestly!). Sometimes we need to establish a whole new support and social network, and that is fine. Read more...

You have done the behind the scenes work and established your support network – now you are ready to get started with your home programme. Our guest writer, Paula Cowan who is an ABA therapist living and working in Ottawa, Canada, provides some insight about what to expect when inviting a professional into your home to work with your child. For those of you that are new to programming, an ABA therapist is the individual who comes into your home to implement programmes directly with your child. The programmes should be created and supervised by a consultant. Read more...