Hello

Hello, Welcome to SANDGRAINS: Healing Through Arts.

Sandgrains: Healing through Arts is a centre started with the motto of using Arts based therapies such as Drawing, painting, drama, movement, dance, music, theatre games to bring about changes in the client. Art is also a form of psychotherapy that uses self expression to obtain therapeutic value.

I am Jaishree.K., RCI licensed Rehabilitation Psychologist with an experience of over 8 years in the field.

SandGrains- Psychological services is my brainchild, A virtual Therapy Centre founded in 2020.
Currently I am a full time Wellness Consultant with an MNC, Hyderabad
and a consultant psychologist with Ankura Childrens’ Hospital, Hitech-city.

You can connect with me for

Psychometric Assessments for children
Therapy – through Expressive Arts
Career Counseling
Anxiety Counseling
Sleep difficulty counseling
Corporate counseling & Workshop
Stress Management
Parental Workshop
Teachers Workshop
Life Skills Training for Children & Teenagers

on jaishreek15@gmail.com.
phone/WhatsApp: 9494925774/8639965698

Education & Experience:
M.Phil., Rehabilitation Psychology (NIMH) – Gold Medalist
M.Sc., Health Psychology (UOHYD) – Gold Medalist

Additional Courses:
Metaphor Therapy
Career Counseling
SandPlay therapy for relieving Trauma
Drawing Analysis
Signature Analysis
Play Therapy
Phonics program for children with learning difficulties
Infertility Counseling

 My area of work includes addressing the needs of children with Diverse Needs:

• Intellectual Disability
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Attention Difficulties
• Hyperactivity
• Learning Difficulties
• Cognitive impairment
• social-communication difficulties
• emotional difficulties
• Behavior problems
• Stress Management

I also work with Parents of these children, because I believe therapy is a holistic approach and working with the immediate family along with child yields results that we can never imagine when worked in isolation. Hence I regularly conduct workshop for parents, children and school staff – the close circle children live with.

Do check some of the workshop details in my earlier posts.

 The topics of my training and therapy include:

• Assessments : Tests of Intelligence (IQ), Diagnosis of : Autism, ADHD, Learning disability.
• Counseling
• Stress Management
• Relaxation through Mindfulness
• Cognitive Training
• Behavior management/Modification
• Play therapy
• Art based therapy
• Sexual abuse prevention training
• Assertiveness training
• Anger Management
• Remedial Training
• Home based management-  Home based therapy…

I have and am working with many clients and observed noticeable improvements in them. I believe as a therapist I grow while I address the needs of the client.
Hoping to make more difference!

Ms. Jaishree. K.
Rehabilitation Psychologist
Hyderabad

Advertisement

Attention Activities Using Ikea Beads.

“My child doesn’t concentrate”
“My Child doesn’t pay”
“He/she gets distracted very quickly”

I regularly hear these statements from the parents. The reasons for this in young children could be many, especially increased screen time. So glued to seeing the colourful world in the TV, they hardly like the reality which is not as colourful and entertaining as the screen. To reduce screen time and engage them in play, I am listing out some simple activities you can do using the Ikea beads.

Activity 1: Take beads in a plate, use a light weighted plastic spoon and ask them to pick the beads using one hand and transfer them to another box.

Activity 2: Picking the beads and sorting them according the colour in each of the sorting box.

Activity 3: Make different shape patterns, shade each shape with a particular colour. The child can now pick that particular beads and place them as outline.

Activity 4: I love playing with clay and I am sure most of the kids do too. So this activity would be putting these beads into the clay and asking them to remove the beads. It a great visual search activity.

Activity 5: The classic pattern boards. The child can pick each bead using tweezers and place it on the board to make a pattern.

Try these and have fun! 

Do comment your favorite activity. 🙂

 

EYE CONTACT

Eye contact is one the most important pre-requisites for effective social communication.

Especially in Autism, it helps the child connect and create awareness about the other person as well as the environment.

Here are few activities & tips that I usually suggest parents to do at home, which can enhance eye contact. 

1.Get to the eye level of the child when you speak. When you stand and speak, it’s difficult for both of you to build a connection. You can get down, lower your tone, focus and speak to the child.

2.Bubbles— I need not mention about this activity. We all know how much the kids like it and such fun it is. But there is a way it is blown. If the intention is eye contact, blow the bubbles to the eye level. If it’s for attention blow it upwards so children look up, down and sideways as the bubbles move.

3. Bindi Activity—Place red round Bindi around the eyes, above the eyebrows and if required on the whole of face. The color red attracts the child and they can remove the bindi and put it back on a sheet.

4.Face Painting—Painting on your face or on the face of the child. If the child likes painting, they are going to love it for sure. Even applying makeup on face will work.

5.Eye masks— Masks made of paper, glitter sheets, cardboard, foam sheet can be used.

These are some of the basic activities. Will mention few more in the coming posts. Do try and let me know which activity worked the best for your kid!

Menstruation and Personal Hygiene.

The important biological process responsible for reproduction is menstruation. yet it is seen as taboo and especially our culture doesn’t encourage talking about it openly. Hence this session focused on educating young girls about the process of menstruation, breaking myths and the importance of maintaining personal hygiene.

The session was completely activity based learning. The children could see, listen and model the concepts to understand it better. various group activities were conducted about breaking the myths, making strong affirmations and instilling confidence within oneself and the group of girls around. Understanding each others condition ad helping them during hard times was one of the underlying message.

The parts of reproductive system and the process of periods was explained clearly through models and hands on learning activities.

various group activities were conducted which included solving the jumbled words to form affirmations, labeling the missing parts of reproductive system, group discussions on finding out the myths out of the given facts .

Self disclosure,Sharing of personal experiences, stories heard from parents,  friends experiences, excitement about knowing new things. Session was full of fun learning and ended with an affirmation cards with he line given by the girls as a takeaway message.

Workshop for Parents – 2019

An orientation program in school need not always be about the school rules, infrastructure, student duties etc. It can also be about assisting parents working on the child’s behavior and developing a positive attitude towards school and studies.

On 1st June, 2019 – two days before the school starts, i was the resource person for the parental orientation program. I know that each level of school life will have its own benefits and challenges. so i had decided to not conduct a overall workshop but talk to parental groups individually who identify themselves with their children studying in either of the levels- Nursery. primary, middle and high school.

 

So 3 sessions were conducted with the following topics and the related concerns.

Session 1: Parental concerns of a Pre-Schooler- This was one of the most important and the very first session. It’s a time when the parents are filled with happiness that their little bundle of joy has grown big enough to attend school and also worried about how the child will be treated in the real world.  Hence the topics addressed in this session included:

• Socialization concerns
• Behavioral Concerns
• Academic Concerns
• and, Teacher-child interaction concerns.

Followed by experience sharing and techniques to equip the child in handling a bully.

Session 2: Parental concerns of young school Children – This session mainly involved parents of primary and middle school. This is the age of exploration and excitement, exposure to new things and peer groups, observational learning.  Hence the concerns were related to:

• Negative behaviors
• Aggressive Behavior
• Impulsive behaviour
• Screen time
• Learning disability
• Effective communication.
• Last but not the least – Consistent Parenting 

 

Session 3: This session was aimed at parents of children studying higher secondary and high school. The session which raised many questions and answers could easily be called one of the most curious session. The topics was very relevant to all the doubts parents currently have and helped them understand their childrens’ growing years with more clarity. The discussion was related to:

• Understanding adolescence & Physical changes
• Parenting
• The needs of adolescents
• Effecting communication
• Handling emotions, conflicts and, negotiation
• LAST BUT NOT LEAST – Following consistent Parenting.

Overall it was a a fruitful day with loads of parents taking away new information and techniques to work on and make their parenting and child’s growing years easier and meaningful.

 

 

Workshop For Teachers- 2019

Classroom Behavior Management and addressing Low Academic Performance are two main concerns of a teacher. Hence the 2 days workshop conducted on 15 ans 16th of May for the the Teachers of Assisi School, Bangalore focused on this topic.

Day 1 was Classroom Behavior Management and it involved discussions about Understanding Behavior models, classroom behavior, Prevention, correction and supportive strategies, Behavior management techniques and various self reflection activities.

Day 2 was about addressing & enhancing academic performance and it involved discussion on types of students, various conditions and reasons concerning low or inconsistent academic performance. Specific learning disability (SLD) was the main area that was focused. vignettes, real notes images were shared of student diagnosed with SLD. Subtle signs of identification and classroom strategies to be used were discussed along with various group activities.

The participants enjoyed the 2 day workshop filled with activities and, were ready to make classroom rules chart and put into practice various learning outcomes.

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Why is conveying the diagnosis important?

In 2018 after my M.Phil, for a brief period of time I worked in 2 different speech therapy centers. Soon after the assessment, the Speech therapist would tell me not to explain parents about the diagnosis. They say “parents don’t like hearing the word autism, they’ll never accept it.”

I wonder why it is so hard. Yes, no parent would like to hear it but if that’s the reality and there is no other option, then why not? I feel, we as professionals fail each time we hide the diagnosis. It’s not labeling the child but it’s called reasoning out the child’s behavior. Isn’t this what we are trained for?

Autism is a lifelong condition characterized by limitations in the areas of social communication mainly. These symptoms appear early even before the child turns two. Some are impaired mildly while some are profound. Sometimes with co-morbid condition of Intellectual Disability. But most of the times children with Developmental disabilities are diagnosed comparatively early because Autism concerns get ignored saying it is just a usual language delay or boys speak late or in simple words “don’t worry he’ll be fine”.

So what role does diagnosis and CONVEYING the diagnosis play?

There are many experienced professionals who do not believe in diagnosis. They feel diagnosis is like labeling and they shift their focus completely towards the interventions. That is all fine but there is a need to convey parents and I’ll tell you why.

Autism is like any other condition and when we openly talk about other health conditions like diabetes, why not about autism? If we first see it as normal and something that can be worked upon, the parents will feel more convinced and confident in handling.

It is a fact that parents find it extremely stressful to accept but there are other aspects as well. Sometimes the parent is relieved of the uncertainty about what exactly the child is going through. And they finally know that there’s a reason why the child behaves in a certain way.

Even before the child is born, they plan ahead for their future and be prepared and diagnosis is an irreversible change for them. They go through stages of shock, denial, anger, depression and finally acceptance~ which I would say is a healthy way of accepting the reality. They may get angry, scold us, blame self, but it’s all in the process of healing. That is where our skills come into picture. We are trained to handle it and help the parents running in search of cure, calm down, think and find the right interventions in the right place. It is not acute to focus on the cure rather a prolonged life condition.

Though they see it initially as a loss or threat, when information is provided and misconceptions are cleared, it is seen as an opportunity. They will start focusing on the strengths while working on the limitations. This entire process of acceptance helps parents readjust their expectations on the child and accept that though their child seems similar to other children, he has a unique way of functioning.

Most lives transform for better with the correct diagnosis, it helps people receive the right kind of help and support that would otherwise be denied. Be it related to education, finance or anything that improves the child and family’s quality of life.

Acceptance leads to realistic expectations, less stress on the child, creative thinking and, a flexible parenting approach. Now they know there is a reason why the child’s behavior is different. It is not because he’s pampered or spoilt but because of his condition.

These are few illustrative quotations from my dissertation on positive impact of having a child with intellectual disability.

Motivation to lead a better life = ‘If we don’t take care of us, we might become ill. Mentally ill is more dangerous than mentally handicapped, so I (mother) should take good care of my mind and body.’
Strengthened marriage = ‘…he (husband) was always work oriented but now he takes a break every day to think about the child and we spend time.’
Changed child rearing style = ‘I (mother) used to be very strict and always want everything to be perfect, now it is all gone. Now i am more flexible. This has helped my older child. He (older child)  is liking the new me because of his brother’s condition…’
Education = ‘…I (mother) did a course on special education and now I teach him many things. Though he (child) doesn’t like me as teacher (laughs), I teach all by myself.’

I have seen and interviewed parents whose life has changed for good because of accepting their child’s condition. It will soon be published and you can see how many domains of life the child has brought positive changes.

Finally I would like to conclude by saying, every parent has the right to know about their child. A good professional relationship, adequate knowledge, timely information and empathy are those that can help the child and family in a longer run and hiding the diagnosis is definitely not one of them.

Ms. Jaishree. Krishna
Rehabilitation Psychologist.
M.Phil (NIMH), M.Sc (HCU)
Jaishreek15@gmail.com  

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton