Early Start Australia Westbourne Park, SA

29/07/2023

What a fabulous weekend of learning in Brisbane at the Association for Behaviour Analysis Australia - ABAA annual conference! Including a workshop with two giants in our field Jill Dardig & William Heward 🤩 We can’t wait to bring back & try all the wonderful interventions and ideas we’ve learnt so far - and another whole day tomorrow 🤓 💖

29/05/2023

We’re excited to be invited back on campus (after a 3 year covid-hiatus!) to be a guest lecturer in The University of Adelaide’s Learning and Behaviour course 👩‍🏫

The next best thing to changing our client’s lives is inspiring the next generation of Behaviour Analysts to do the same 🤩

08/04/2023

Happy Easter Saturday! Here's your 5th and final Easter activity: Find the hidden egg.
In this sensory-based activity your child will have to find all the eggs hidden in rainbow rice! Rainbow rice is simply plain rice with added food colouring, it is a simple yet effective way for your child to engage in play and meet their sensory needs!
Develops fine motor skills!
By using a variety of different egg sizes and colours you can increase your child’s engagement!
TIP: The smaller the egg the more challenging it will be!
TIP: Use small tongs or pair of tweezers to challenge your child, while strengthen their pincer grasp!
Have fun and Happy Easter from Chantel 😊

04/04/2023

🤏🐣 Chantel's Easter Activity 4: Easter Egg tissue paper tearing!
Colouring pictures are always an Easter go-to, how about trying something a little different this year?
Instead of using pencils to colour, change it up by tearing tissue paper and pasting it to your Easter picture!
This activity can build on hand strength, hand-eye coordination, motor planning, precision and improve overall fine motor skill development.
Plus, it allows your child to explore their artistic side and create various patterns, such as designing different shapes and colour contrasts, and scrunching the paper into small or large balls.

04/04/2023

Over the weekend our amazing group of Program Supervisors had the wonderful opportunity to attend a 2-day workshop with our Today’s ABA hero, Dr Greg Hanley, learning about compassionate, trauma informed and person centred behaviour change services.

Our credentialed supervisors and technicians have been implementing the treatment to bring in meaningful outcomes and joy for their clients but an in person opportunity to learn from Dr Hanley himself could not be missed.

Our team at ESA are driven to continue working towards individualising the therapy approach by prioritising the needs of their clients and start the process with Joy😄 and end with Empowerment💪🏼!

02/04/2023

🥚👩‍🎨 Chantel's Easter Activity 3: Egg painting!

Another fun Easter activity is painting an egg! An easy and inexpensive activity that can be done anywhere, simply paint the egg using a thin or thick paintbrush or even your fingers!
This activity encourages the development of fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and messy play!
TIP: If you like adventure, go on a walk and try to find an oval shaped rock to use instead of an egg.
TIP. Select a specific pattern for your child to copy on to their egg (colour, style,
size), to increase the challenge of the activity!

29/03/2023

🥚 🧩 Chantel's Easter Activity 2: Puzzles hidden in eggs!
Get into the Easter spirit by collecting plastic eggs and hiding puzzle pieces inside. Ask your child to open each egg and make the puzzle!
This is an easy and simple task to help your child build on their fine-motor, memory, planning and problem-solving skills, while having fun!
Tip: to make it more challenging, place the eggs into a basket or bowl of rice, your child has to use a pair of tweezers or tongs to pick them up!

26/03/2023

🐣 Easter is almost here! Our amazing OT Chantel has come up with some fabulous Easter activities for you! We going to give you 5 fun ideas between now and Easter that you can do to make the holiday season extra special.
These activities can help build your child’s skills: hand-eye-coordination, bilateral integration (integrating both sides of their body), problem-solving and cutting skills. While also allowing them to engage in sensory, messy, imaginative, and constructive play! Today's activity:

20/03/2023

💡 Helpful parent tip from Program Supervisor Deblina: How to get your child to do their homework without tears!

1. Make it an expected and predictable routine. Set up a time (like right after their afternoon tea), set the specific the number of work tasks to be completed, and what they can do once it’s done (e.g. they can watch TV or play Nintendo).

2. Acknowledge their emotions when they get frustrated / upset (e.g. “I can see this is making you upset, it’s really frustrating isn’t it”).

3. Prompt them to ask for help in the initial stages before things get too tricky / feisty! For example 'when you get to the 3rd question can you let me know because I'll come over and help - that's a super tricky one".

4. Allow breaks. Encourage short breaks if you see them fading, or even as a surprise for working so well. Don’t give them the end reward (like screen time) just yet however – stay strong until the work is done!

5. Praise and follow through with their reward. Sometimes homework tasks can vary in length, if it takes longer, and by the time they complete it it’s too late in your mind to go on screens for example – follow through and allow a shorter time at least. We need to say what we mean and mean what we say.

Need some help with improving cooperation with things like homework and other instructions at home? Book in with our Behaviour Analysts today. Ph Westbourne Park Clinic on (08) 8911 0041

Early Start is a national therapy organisation dedicated to helping children and families grow to their full potential. Our evidence-based therapy helps children develop the skills they need for everyday life.

10/03/2023

There isn't a manual handed to you when you have a baby, but if there was we're sure it'd have the 7 parenting tips from our first seminar next month!

We are proud to present the first in a series of free parenting seminars for our local community.

📆 When: Monday, April 3rd, 10-11am

👩‍🏫 Who: Presented by Child Psychologist Susan Petrie

🗺 Where: Goodwood Theatre and Studios, 166 Goodwood Rd (next door to the Westbourne Park Clinic)

💡Topic: How to improve your child's co-operation at home, increase their listening skills and find out more about how to support your child's development.

Booking is recommended 👇

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-make-parenting-easier-tickets-575019578037

Free parenting session with Psychologist

05/03/2023

💡 Helpful tip for parents: How to say NO without tears!

😠 Is the word ‘no’ a trigger for your child?

Here are some strategies that can be useful:

1. Prepare your child beforehand. For example, before going to the shop, let your child know what they can and can't have. “We’re going to BIG W, we are getting a present for Jack's birthday, but we aren’t getting any other toys today”.

2. Predictability: If you know when your child CAN have what they are asking for, let them know. For example, your child comes home from school and asks for their iPad that they are only allowed to have when their homework is done. Instead of saying ‘no you can’t have the iPad’, try saying ‘Yes, let’s do your homework and then you can play on the iPad’.

3. ‘No means no’: Only say ‘no’ if you are going to remain strong and follow through with your decision. It is really hard to see your child upset, and it’s really hard to stay strong with your decision when your child is screaming and putting the lollies back into your shopping trolley each time you return them to the shelf. However, saying ‘no’ then buying the lollies may teach them you are likely to change your mind if they scream.

4. What CAN they have?: When you say ‘no’, offer an alternative. When they ask to go to the park, but you don’t have the time, say ‘not today, but we can go into the backyard and play together’. By doing this, you are teaching your child that ‘no’ doesn’t mean there is nothing that they can have, and it also teaches them to look for other options when their first choice isn’t available.

5. Catch your child being good: Notice the times that they remain calm after you say ‘no’, or the times that they happily accept the alternative option that you have offered. Thank them for listening, praise them for finding something else to do, give them a high 5 and make a conscious effort to ‘catch them being good’.

Want our help with your child's behaviour? Book in with one of our clinicians today: Ph Westbourne Park Clinic (08) 89110041

Early Start is a national therapy organisation dedicated to helping children and families grow to their full potential. Our evidence-based therapy helps children develop the skills they need for everyday life.

26/02/2023

Free giveaway reading tips! Want to know the secret to your child becoming a fluent reader? Here are evidence-based tips for you:

1. For younger kids, read stories they know by heart but pause before you finish a sentence - leaving them the chance to fill in the word. This fosters comprehension and confidence with reading.

2. Play eye spy with the starting letter as the letter sound, not the letter name (see 3!).

2. Phonics. Teach the sounds each letter makes rather than the name of the letter. e.g. the letter M makes an "mmm" sound, not 'muh', they will need this to sound out words.

3. Rhyming. Teach your child to rhyme e.g. 'what's a word that rhymes with sat'. This is essential in building phonological awareness.

4. Ask them questions part way through a story about who's talking / who said that, what do you think will happen next.

5. See if they can figure out what a word would be without the starting letter, e.g. "what's box without the /b/?" "what's treehouse without tree? this helps to separate sounds and blends.

6. Teach using a phonics based approach rather than whole word reading. The sight words will come later, being able to sound out words is the priority first.

Is your child struggling with reading? Book in a standardised reading assessment with our team today and find out which components your child needs to focus on in order to become a fluent reader.

Call today (08)89110041 and ask for a Reading Assessment.

Early Start Australia is a team of passionate health professionals providing assessments and early childhood intervention therapies to help your child thrive.