5 Strategies for Nurturing Learning in Children with Down Syndrome
Children with down syndrome are like any other child. They are curious and eager to learn new things. They just need extra help and time. I have written out and explained five strategies for nurturing learning in children with down syndrome.
We Nurture Our Daughter’s Learning by Showing Her
We nurture our daughter’s learning by showing her. When we teach our daughter a new skill we show her what we want her to do. We give her an example to imitate. We might have to show her 25 times. That is okay. However many times it takes for her to see and know what to do is how many times we will do it.
We Nurture Out Daughter’s Learning by Helping Her
We nurture our daughter’s learning by helping her. The hand-over-hand method is what we use to help our daughter. We will take her hand and do or help her do what we want her to learn. Fine motor skills can be a challenge for people with down syndrome. They may need extra exercises to gain strength in their hands. Once they have strength in their hands they may still need help learning to manipulate small objects. The hand-over-hand method helps the child know what they need to do and helps keep their hands steady while they are learning to do the task.
We Nurture Our Daughter’s Learning with Our Speech
We nurture our daughter’s learning with our speech. People with down syndrome sometimes have a slower processing time when it come to thinking through things. We speak a little slower than usual when we are teaching our daughter with down syndrome a new concept. Speaking with fewer words is also helpful. For example, instead of saying “Can you put the small block on top of the big block?”. Try handing her the small block and say, “Put block on.” and point to the big block.
We Nurture Our Daughter’s Learning by Pausing
We nurture our daughter’s learning with the power of the pause. As was mentioned above, people with down syndrome sometimes need a little extra processing time. By giving your child a little extra pause you can help them process what you are asking of them. Both speaking slower and pausing an extra few seconds can seem very awkward to us but it can make the difference between your child understanding or not.
We Nurture Our Daughter’s Learning with Lots of Patients
We nurture our daughter’s learning with lots of patients and consistency. Like anything that anyone wants to learn, patients and consistency are key. People with down syndrome may need just a little bit more of each. But don’t give up! They want to learn and they are fully capable of learning anything they want.
There are many ways you can help nurture learning in children with down syndrome. These are five ways we have found that make the biggest difference in our daughter learning new things quickly. What are some things you have found help your child learn new concepts?