Here at Super Calm Sensory Products our aim is to educate parents, carers, teachers and children on neurodiversity and the impact it can have on the person caring for the child with a neurodiverse difference. We aim to increase understanding on what is happening in the body of a neurologically different person resulting in greater empathy in understanding certain behaviours. By developing sensory diets and activities aimed towards their specific sensory needs the child should reach optimum levels of arousal to allow them to be present during school and home life.
Someone who has neurologically diverse differences may react differently to others around sensory stimuli and other environmental factors. The overall goal is to promote understanding and increase empathy resulting in a more harmonious environment for all.
We at Super Calm are fully supportive of early intervention for neurodiverse children. Research has overwhelmingly proven that early intervention has a multitude of benefits. Below we have summarized the findings from many studies into an easy to read blog, links are provided at the end of the blog if you wish to further your research on early intervention.
Screening and the role of the paediatrician have become increasingly critical as research has proven the importance of early diagnosis. As such the topic of early intervention has been examined to see what benefits it can provide to neurodiverse children, their families, schools and social groups. Firstly when discussing early intervention it is key to define what it being implemented and the age group in which it has been tested. For this blog we are discussing intervention methods aimed at training neurodiverse children to essentially re-learn cognitive behaviours. The majority of studies relate to early intervention consisting of 15 to 25 hours a week involving children from ages 3 to 8. It has been found that age 4 is young enough to begin early intervention and see significant gains.
The benefits seen from early intervention are significant. Firstly, intensive early intervention has proven to lessen the debilitating effects of autism, which in turn allows the neurodiverse child to live a calmer and more soothed lifestyle. A study was carried out testing two groups of children and parents, one group was given early intervention techniques and practises and the other was not. The group which participated in early intervention improved significantly in their verbal ability and the severity of typical symptoms was reduced.
Another study was developed to see if the effects of early intervention would last a number of years. This study found that there were gains made in intellectual ability, adaptive behaviour, symptom severity and challenging behaviour. Another significant finding from this study found that two years post early intervention there was still an improvement in core autism symptoms and adaptive behaviour as opposed to the control group.
It is important to note that there are a number of factors which may affect the outcome of early intervention including the child's age and the severity of symptoms.
A well known model of early intervention is the Early Start Denver Model of early intervention. This model educated teachers on the techniques and strategies to use over the course of eleven 60 minute coaching sessions which they then implement in their school. The results from one case study on this model has shown that improvements were made however they were not significant enough to form a correlation between this model and outcomes as outlined above.
This is why here at Super Calm we have developed a number of activities and equipment specifically tailored to improve the resilience and learning ability of neurodiverse children. With scientifically backed research complimenting personal experience with a neurodiverse child our program is guaranteed to improve the lives of neurodiverse children, within school, family and social situations. Our program can be implemented both as an early intervention model and a mindfulness program for the school.
Links for research journals and articles explaining the above studies in further detail.
