Here we are, at the beginning of not just a new year, but a new decade.

I never quite got the celebration thing. Apparently, the foundation of the New Year’s celebration is to bid farewell to the previous year and welcome the new year. I personally liked 2019. I had the opportunity to see many fantastic changes in hundreds of children.

For our NACD Family, 2019 saw many children with Down syndrome learning to function at levels of their typical peers. Children on the spectrum became more present, tuning in and participating well in our world. We saw children with previous learning and attention issues excelling academically and socially, and “typical” children not only doing great academically, but learning the value of chores and service and being given the opportunity to discover their strengths and passions through our home education programs. And we saw some brain injured children show us what unlimited potential is all about.

I’m thankful for 2019, for the honor and privilege of working with a fantastic dedicated staff and some of the greatest families in the world. Some of our families can measure 2019 by the obvious gains their children have made. The reality is that many of our families do not have an easy road, fighting problems like serious health and seizure issues, or difficult behaviors, and just working hard to get to the point where they can even really seriously implement their program. A step toward better health, better seizure control, less need for medications, and better management of behavior are all things to be celebrated. I celebrate 2019 and our successes, but look forward to 2020 because we can do it even better.

2020 isn’t just a new year; it’s a new decade. Now is a great time to take a step back and reflect over the past year and even the past decade and for us all to evaluate how we can move forward and do it all even better. Truth is, we can all do it better if we commit to it.

We need to establish our priorities, to approach this new year and decade with the intention of working better and smarter. But first, renew and refine your vision. Believe that we and our children have unlimited potentials. We can constantly redefine who we are and take new steps forward toward creating greater and greater visions of what we can accomplish and thus achieve better outcomes.

Parents who are part of our NACD Family–you are not alone. You are part of a powerful team. We not only welcome, we encourage in every way we know how, more communication and interaction. The more communication we have, the more targeted we can be in developing each child’s dynamic program.

Together we can redefine the vision, redefine potential, and not only help our children, but help provide a new vision of what can be for others.

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, January 2020 ©NACD

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— Sandy and Scott Hendrix

Dear Sandy and Scott,
The video game question is a really BIG question. I think the jury is still out on some of the long-term effects, but I will share some of my perceptions.

I recently was driving with friends who had their two children in the back third seat of their SUV, and I observed how quiet and content their kids were, playing their hand-held video game systems. I recalled many painful hours as a child with my sister, traveling in backseats of cars, with nothing to occupy our time other than trying to irritate each other to the point of explosion, whereupon our parents would jump all over the offending child, producing a point for the victor.

Video games can be a good source of entertainment, given the content is appropriate. I personally do not feel that adults, let alone children, should play a lot of the games because of the content. But with appropriate content, video games can be a source of entertainment that is certainly much more interactive than television.* In addition there seem to be some developmental advantages to a number of the games. Many of the games involve problem-solving, requiring the child to process information and manipulate it in working memory. There is also a motor component to video games. Manipulating the controller helps develop fine motor skills. If you watch a child simultaneously using two hands and manipulating often six or more buttons with each hand, you can see the brain learning to isolate the fingers, and you can imagine the integration and development of proprioception that is occurring with all of that information shooting between the hemispheres through the corpus callosum. This motor development can improve handwriting, typing, and piano playing, as well as many other fine motor activities. If the child is using the Nintendo Wii system, they are also engaging in gross motor activity and can, if used properly, actually develop some sports-related skills and get some degree of aerobic exercise.

Another aspect of video games is that they can assist in the development of independent play. When a young child functioning at about a three year old level has moved beyond cause and effect toys, has explored how to empty out all of your drawers and take apart anything that is not nailed down, but does not yet have the attention span to engage well with building-type toys, nor has entered the imaginary play 4’s, then introductory video systems such as the V-Smile can be quite useful. They serve the dual purpose of teaching the child how to engage in meaningful independent play and provide a conceptual foundation that will then permit them to interact with educational software.

Interactive play between young children is often a challenge. Unless an adult is available to structure the entire interaction, most little children lack the language skills and complexity of thought to interact in a peaceful, productive manner. Often video games can provide an interactive structure that permits these little ones to begin to learn how to take turns, share, and play together.

There are certainly those who object to all forms of video games on the basis that children should be interacting with adults, be outside playing, or doing something more developmentally or socially appropriate. I obviously am about as strong an advocate for parental interaction with their children as you can get, BUT to be realistic even the best of parents can’t spend every moment of their child’s waking day interacting with them, nor should they. Parents need some space, as do kids. Children need to learn how to keep themselves engaged, and they also need down time. I personally feel that between school, homework, structured sports and after school lessons, most children have far too little time to just play and be kids. I think we are structuring far too much of our children’s time. (And just for the record, I am anti-homework for most children.) Let’s give them time to play, to run around and get some exercise, and to read for fun so that they develop a love of reading.

On the negative side, video game content is of considerable concern, and parents need to check the content of all games that their children play. There is also a concern that many, if not most, of our children are developing an imbalance between their auditory and visual function. Our society has moved and continues to move into more and more of a visual society, and our children are not developing the auditory processing and conceptual function that they need in order to think, learn, and communicate properly. Video games are visual and as such help develop this imbalance. There is also the concern that some children become obsessed with video games and play them excessively and do not get the exercise they need, engage in meaningful social interaction as they should, or even attend to their school work or chores as they should.

The short answer is that some time playing appropriate video games can be a good thing, but it needs to be supervised, content-controlled, involve interaction with another child or adult whenever possible, and along with TV be limited to probably less than one hour per day. **

However, as parents, you are the experts on your children, and if you sense that video games, even for a limited time are causing problems, decrease the use.

I hope I have clarified this for you and not muddied the waters.

Bob

* NACD’s Simply Smarter sequential processing/working memory study is indicating that sequential processing skills are lower across the full spectrum of age in all individuals watching more than one hour of television a day.

NACD Newsletter, Volume 1 Issue 3, 2008 ©NACD

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