SmartStart: Home-Based Cognitive and Language Remediation Program for Internationally Adopted Children
Children of different ages adopted internationally are often "at risk"
educationally. Deprived of essential learning experiences in orphanages, children
are indeed disadvantaged and may have cognitive and language problems moving to
more advanced levels of learning after adoption. What can be done to put these
children on a fast track to catch up with their peers?
The answer in many
cases is an early, well-planned, focused, and systematic cognitive and language
remediation at school, in the community, and at home.
The SmartStart program, created for children ages 3 to 8 by an educational
psychologist Dr. Carol Lidz (www.bgcenterschool.org/Instructors/CarolLidz.shtml)
with participation of Dr. Boris Gindis (www.bgcenter.com/drGindis.htm),
is a useful tool for any family with young children. It offers traditional family
activities and games, which parents are invited to make more meaningful and
remedial for their children without taking the fun out. These activities are
not randomly picked; they are selected to reflect what is currently known about
best practices in promoting cognitive and social development of young children.
What makes this program unique is that it bears in mind the specificity of
international adoptees and introduces basic cognitive concepts and skills that
might not have been formed in the adopted child's earlier development. It systematically
stimulates academic language development and at the same time, it promotes attachment
by providing parents and children with shared enjoyable activities. The SmartStart
program stresses the utmost importance of adult mediation, missed in the early
stages of an adopted child's learning. The prominent feature of each unit is
a vocabulary section: which words to introduce and how to explain an activity
to the child in order to make it more remedially meaningful. For international
adoptees, learning their new language is a major adjustment activity. They learn
English and the American lifestyle as a by-product of everyday interactions
with their adoptive parents. Based on that, the SmartStart gives adoptive parents
a large set of activities and provides the language that mediates these activities.
Unit 1: Introduction.
The explanation of specificity of cognitive
remediation in internationally adopted child.
Unit 2: Noticing our world.
The goal of this unit is to teach the
child how to look and what to notice; develop a vocabulary to share our experiences;
detect pattern and make groups based on a shared characteristic.
Example:
With crayons and paper, encourage your child to fill the whole page with different
patterns (i.e., a row of circles then a row of crosses). Repeat these rows in
a different pattern. Create patterns within a row. Model the making of a "pattern
page" for your child.
Unit 3: Let's make a plan.
The goal of this unit is to teach the
child systematically explore and organize, think ahead about the desired result
and plan steps to reach it.
Example: Suggest that your child invites a friend
over to play. Help your child think through the toys and how to get them ready,
and what might be a good snack to have with the friend. Afterwards, talk with
her about how it went: what the friend seemed to enjoy the most, what could
have gone better, what to think about next time.
Unit 4: That's fantastic!
The goal of this unit is to
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teach the child
differentiate between real and imagined, develop hypothetical thinking and think
of alternatives.
Example: Encourage your child to play thematic games with
toys and household objects: "In the airport", "In a supermarket",
"At school", etc., imagining being a pilot, doctor, or teacher and
transforming toys into the necessary props. Take the role of someone who is
interested, watching, and describing, but not directing. Encourage him to interact
with the toys and just add enough to help the flow of action or conversation.
If he wants you to take a more active part, encourage him to be "the director"
and follow his lead.
Unit 5: The nimble symbol.
The goal of this unit is to develop the
ability to create symbols and use them and to develop positive attitude and
readiness for literacy.
Example: Suggest a "measuring game" to
your child. The aim is to find all the different ways something can be measured.
Give an example, such as "See this table? I can measure it with my hands.
Let's see how many hands long it is! Now, I think I'll measure it with this
pencil. Let's see how many pencils it is!" Then ask your child to pick
something to use for measuring, and, once done, to think of another way to measure
the same thing.
Unit 6: What's the big idea?
The goal of this unit is to teach the
child to get the main idea from listening and learn to appreciate, apply, and
make up rules and general principles.
Example: Make up your own games with
rules, for example, a ball game: decide how long to hold the ball, who can throw
to whom, or a different way to move the ball (for example, with your hands,
with your feet, with your nose, with your knee...).
Unit 7: Who is in charge?
The goal of this unit is to teach the child
to control movements and learn to control attention and feelings.
Example:
Tell your child, "This is a special kind of ball game. We're going to sit
on the floor and roll this ball. We'll try to hit one of those toys with the
ball. But, FIRST, you have to say which toy you are going to touch. THEN you
roll the ball and try to hit it. Watch me do it first."
Unit 8: Making connections: understanding the past, facilitating the future.
The goal of this unit is to help the child to build awareness of new culture
and new family and develop cause and effect relationships.
Example: Let your
child know that the ancestors of most people in this country used to live somewhere
else. Make it interesting and fun to think about where all the different people
came from, especially your own family.
As educators and adoptive parents,
we have learned that love and good nutrition are not enough to accelerate cognitive
development and promote thinking, learning, and literacy in children who had
been victims of deprivation, neglect, and institutionalization. The SmartStart
program, available as on online class and as a CD at www.bgcenterschool.org, is your essential aid in the remediation of internationally adopted children.
About the Author
Dr. Gindis is known in the United States as a prominent child psychologist specializing in psycho-educational issues of older internationally adopted children. He is a chief psychologist at the Center for Cognitive-Developmental Assessment and Remediation at www.bgcenter.com, the author of many publications on international adoption issues and frequent presenter at conferences and workshops.
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