Helping a preschooler with Down Sydrome keep up

I have borrowed the title of this post from an article I found with Angel's case papers. I couldn't have asked for more appropriate reading at this point. This article has some great strategies to help our little ones who are in their preschool years.

I tried to locate this article on the net so that I could link to it but I haven't been able to find it so I will quote directly from the article.

The author(s) of the article says that "during the preschool years, children develop a better understanding of the world and extend and expand their ability to act on it. Along with the growth of these cognitive skills, there is a corresponding growth in language. The child can tell her wants and needs and can use language for learning and gaining new information. She uses words to describe (on, big, one, soon) and develops early grammar skills. She uses and answers questions, and follows longer directions. Her speech skills improve and more people can understand her, although she may continue to use sign language along with speech."

The article goes on to say that the child's "play and social skills become more advanced and she begins interacting and playing cooperatively with her peers."

The article elaborates on several teaching strategies (listed below) to help a preschooler with Down Syndrome.

It's important to use multisensory, social and experience-related play and learning activities to teach the child because she is still a sensorimotor learner, which means that she learns by doing and experiencing.

Keep the child actively engaged in learning. Use movement, hands-on learning activities, and concrete learning experiences with frequent changes in the activities to keep her focused and engaged. Teach to the child's strengths and work around her challenges.

Use direct instruction, practice, and review to stabilize the child's skills, then encourage the child's use of these skills every day so that she generalizes them.

Use routines (familiar repeated activities that have definite sequences) to provide repetitive practice and predictability. The repetitive nature of these routines lets the child anticipate what comes next in the sequence and encourages active participation. Examples of daily routines are bath time, getting ready for preschool, feeding the dog, or meal time.

Each learning experience should have a definite beginning and ending with a logical sequence of steps. Break the learning activity into steps and teach one at a time as needed. Reinforce learning at each step

Have a variety of activities to teach the same thing. For example, when teaching the body part "hand," have the child use her hands to wave, give a "high 5", do handprints, or put lotion on.

Give the child a reason to communicate or use the skills and knowledge she has.

Encourage the child to keep trying and to stay with a task or activity until it's completed ("You're doing a good job," "Let's do one more," or "You get a sticker when we're all done.")

Reference and source: For Parents & Professionals: Down Syndrome, Published by LinguiSystems, Inc

Here's some more reading on teaching children with Down Syndrome, more from a schooling perspective.
Mainstreaming in early childhood education: How to help the Down syndrome child
Teaching Tips for children with Down Syndrome

Thanks for reading,

JD