421: Reflection 6

I am getting excited about the family project, this week our group found out that our child that we are pregnant with has down syndrome. We also found out that we are not religious. I find that so hard to think about, I feel like when you are in the church it provides so much light in understanding gods plan when you are put in a difficult situation that causes anxiety, stress, and fear.  My best friends little brother has down syndrome and as I was interviewing her for the application activity I was surprised to hear that when Seth, her little brother was diagnosed their family knew very little to nothing about the disability. When he was a baby they had a lot of support from different organizations and the community. But when he was a baby, he just seemed like a normal baby that was a little delayed and had “almond shaped eyes, and the biggest smile”. The application activity has helped in knowing how our “family” will react and what resources they will be able to be exposed to when the baby is born.

The sibling blog posts were very impactful for me, I loved the insight about how the siblings actually accumulate Christ like attributes quicker than most kids because they are but in difficult and frustrating circumstances on a daily basis. They are forgiving, patient, loving and compassionate.  Yet the siblings need to also feel those same Christ like attributes from the parents even in difficult and stressful times. The siblings have special needs just as much as the child that is disabled.

Quote: “tell me and I will forget, teach me and I will remember, involve me and I will learn.”-Benjamin FranklinI like this quote because I believe the best learning involves experiences  and personal application. Especially when we are teaching special needs children, we need to plan lessons and activities in order to help them gain life skills rather than expecting them to remember facts. The more you get involved the more you learn and the more you change.

HWD Paragraph:“Music and sign language to promote infant and toddler communication and enhance parent–child interaction” Chen-Haftek (1997) examined the link between music and language development in early childhood http://journals.sagepub.com.byui.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/0255761413491214 focusing on sound perception, pre-musical and pre-linguistic vocalization, and emergence of song andspeech and stated that music and language can only be discriminated between at later developmentalstages. Wylie (2004) found that preverbal communication could be developed through interactive musicalplay in a “follow the leader, follow the child” reciprocal interaction between caregiver and child.More recently, Nicholson et al. (2008) and Bryn and Hourigan (2010) used musical interactions topromote positive parent-child relationships and children’s behavioral, communicative and social development.While only two studies (Colwell & Murless, 2002; Schunk, 1999) specifically pairing musicand sign-language for language or reading acquisition were found, researchers of the current study wereinterested in combining sign-language and early childhood music, and using this infusion of music andsign language as children experience new information, ideas, and social interactions.