School has started and children are beginning to establish the daily routine of completing homework assignments. It is never too early to have a discussion with your child about your expectations concerning study habits. It is, however, a parent's responsibility to provide the right environment for children to do their homework.  My first recommendation is never allow children to either study or do their homework in front of a television. Children should complete their homework in a space which does not have noise and distractions which will interfere with the child's attention and focus.  It…

For many parents that sweet and delicious child who was the "apple of your eye" turned into an alien somewhere around thirteen years of age. This period of time, which is usually fraught with bickering and/or conflicts about homework, chores, curfew and personal rights, may be over shadowed by risky behavior. Putting aside the issue of weird hairdos and clothing styles, it's the drugs, sex and alcohol that parents fear the most. What happened to the sweet little boy who hugged you every night at bedtime? Actually, the conflict does not in and of itself signal that the parent/child …

Parents who experience stress at home with relationship difficulties and children's problems are often difficult to deal with. Parents who are raising children with developmental disabilities are particularly at risk for stress related disorders.  Many times parents do not recognize that they are so overwhelmed by daily events and they displace their negative emotions inappropriately. Many of us have witnessed children's temper tantrums and parent meltdowns in restaurants, museums and parks. It is upsetting to view a child who is flailing and screaming at the top of his lungs but it is even …

The summer is over and school will be opening within the next several weeks.  Most children have moved up a grade in school and may even be attending a new facility. The move to the next grade level is not just about academic changes, it's also about changes in expectations and peer relationships.  As children get older, expectations increase and adults make assumptions that older children should know better. There are also greater expectations about academic performance, independent learning and good social judgment. These skills are not developed while children are sleeping and information …

The Willowbrook State School located on Staten Island was a residential institution for individuals with mental retardation. It was one of the largest state supported institutions in the United States. The school was designed for approximately 4,000 people but by 1965, it had a resident population of 6,000. The school's reputation as a residential institution was one of a "warehouse for New York City's severely disabled children." Many of these children had been placed by their families, foster care agencies or other organizations because services for children with disabilities were limited …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Not only do parents need to think about what their children will experience the first day of school, parents also need to review their expectations for the upcoming year.  Most parents whose children are attending public school have had a limited opportunity to sit in a regular classroom and observe the instructional process.  Classrooms are not ideal places because there are so many different types of learners and the demand for teacher …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Most parents have very clear expectations about how their children shouldperform and/or excel in school.  Sometimes parents have unrealistic expectations which may create school problems. Parents who are very demanding usually communicate by pressuring the child to achieve and to study. Parents may also feel the peer pressure to provide the best schools or classes for their children. The problem is that the child often gets lost in the parent's …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Many adults are of the opinion that young children do not understand most of the things that they hear in the natural environment. This is far from the truth. There are developmental stages that reflect children's growing abilities from infancy to elementary school. However, it is important to understand that the entire complex language system is up and running by age 3. The question that often arises is: "How complicated is language?" Over the …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Any time the economy contracts, charities which are dependent on public donations are often the hardest hit. The problem has also been complicated by the possibility that there is going to be a tax on charitable donations. This would be a disaster for most charities, which are struggling at this point to survive. So where could someone like Alec Baldwin who is a Long Island superstar become involved in all of this? We are very fortunate on the …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When there are economic problems invariably, government attempts to cut social services and programs. One program which has been constantly scrutinized and under attack has been special education. Today, it is harder than ever to classify a child as having a developmental disability. Years ago, children with mild, moderate and severe developmental disabilities had access to special education services.  Today, only children with severe and …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When special education comes under fire, there is usually a great effort to either remove children from special education programs or make it more difficult for children to get into special education programs. The committee of professionals, which is mandated by the New York State Education Department (i.e., Committee on Special Education), that makes the decision about a child's educational disability and special education program must engage …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When things take a turn for the worse economically, special education comes under fire. One of the typical attacks on special education programs is that the children are not "really" handicapped and, therefore, do not deserve to receive special education services.  So, how handicapped does a child have to be to warrant special education services? Let's consider how a child is actually evaluated and how complicated the entire process is from …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Infants are uniquely attuned to perceive the various sounds they hear in their environment. Some researchers suggest that babies are pre-programmed to learn speech since the acquisition process occurs so rapidly. The first sounds that infants acquire are the sounds which are universal to all languages.  Although infants can perceive a vast range of speech sounds (i.e., phonemes) within a language, they cannot, however, produce the same range. …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. The most important lessons in language development are not learned in school but at home with Mother. The interaction between mother and child during the first three years of life is so specialized and unique that it is referred to in clinical research as "Motherese."  When a mother speaks to her young child, she regulates the structure and the content of her input to her child's level of understanding. So when a mother speaks to her very young …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. For many years, researchers in the area of child development describe infants as a "tabla rasa" meaning a blank slate. Developmental studies over the past several decades, however, have shown that infants come into the world as well-organized learners.  In fact, it would be much more appropriate to describe babies as sophisticated learning "machines." When you consider how rapidly babies acquire language during the first three years of life, it …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Play is not "just" play. It is the mechanism for a young child to learn about the world. In fact, self-initiated play stimulates learning. It provides the mechanism for a child to explore objects in his environment. The ability to interact with people and objects is first related to the child's actual manipulation of objects. Play teaches the child about behavior not only by manipulating objects, but it also teaches what effect actions and …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. When parents are concerned about their child's behavior, language and/or social skills, the first question they often ask is, "Is he or she normal?" The word "normal" is not a helpful term since typical or average behavior includes a range of functioning. Especially in urban communities where there is a mix of diverse cultural groups even the term "average" can be challenged.   Be that as it may, there are two questions that parents can use that…

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. It is springtime and everything has come into bloom. There is a magnificent array of colors and arrangement of flowers. As gardeners, we develop an extraordinary respect for the diversity of our plants and struggle every year to take care of them. The similarities between flowers and children are quite extraordinary.   Obviously, there is a great deal of diversity across children who are developing and even within families in which there are …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. Sometimes people hear the phrase disabled child and they think about the child in a wheelchair. Now with all of the attention being paid to autism spectrum disorders, the stereotype is the child with autism.  However, there is as much diversity within the disability population as there is within the typical community of child learners.  Children with disabilities are different from typical children, but they are also different from one another. …

Editor's Note: Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman is the founder and executive director of the School for Language and Communication Development in Glen Cove. A pervasive problem that has been receiving a great deal of attention involves the increase in school violence. One type of school violence is referred to as bullying which is student-on-student harassment. Bullying includes one student's physical and/or verbal abuse of another. One dynamic of bullying is that peers often watch without intervening in support of the student who is being targeted. Often bullying occurs over a long period of time …