Every Saturday, participants post photos based on a theme. The theme for this Saturday is RUIN(ED).

I have another RUIN(ED) entry here, photos inside the gates of Fort Santiago.

Below are photos of the gates of Fort Santiago or Fuerza  de Santiago.

Fort Santiago is a part of Intramuros or the walled city in Manila that was built as a defense fortress around 1571.

Fort Santiago gate upon entrance.

Below is a close up version of a part of the fortress’ gates taken from the photo above:

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Mobile phones have revolutionized the way communication has evolved.

Now it is easier to contact one another at a touch of a button. Those with good finger dexterity, they can send text messages in a flash.

Parents, couples, friends, business partners and “textmates” can send text messages when there is a need to let a message known. In short, communication is made easy (well as long as the mobile has enough credits to do such things like send text messages or make phone calls) with mobile phones.

There are, of course, negative effects to this. One is that in the case of children or a spouse or a partner, one can just call or send a text message to the other person even if that person is in the workplace.

Imagine a scenario when one is about to make a report to a board meeting and receives a text message that the baby fell from the crib and has a big lump on his head. Or in the case of couples who are having a misunderstanding, one calls and calls and never minds if that person being called is at work and is very busy.Talk about stressful situations.

And what about the murder of the spelling of words. I mean, come on, who hasn’t sent words texted in short cut and sentences with missing punctuation marks? And who hasn’t received messages like these?

And do we even think that this kind of spelling stops at text messaging? No! It is seen in test papers, in reports, in letters (yes, some still write letters), in bulletin boards, in emails, in signs, everywhere.

Are we to be alarmed? Yes, we should be. Read how spelling supports reading.

Here is a sample:

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Children and adults who are undergoing Occupational Therapy go through different tasks. Depending on their level of accomplishment and skills, they are taught a lot of skills needed to be able to help them to do Activities of Daily Living.

Activities of Daily Living consist two major areas: Self-help care and Environment Manipulation, of which the latter will be the gist of this post.

Below are some of the activities that need to be accomplished in Environment Manipulation:

• Being able to handle switches like light switches, and switches of electrical and electronic gadgets.

• Being able to open door knobs and door handles.

• Being able to use different kinds of faucets like kitchen faucets and bathroom faucets in doing kitchen-related tasks and self-care practices.

• Being able to operate phones or gadgets for telecommunication purposes.

• Being able to operate remote controls for different purposes.

Teaching these take a lot of hard work but the end result are good for both the patient’s mobility and ability to do things without too much dependence on others doing these things for them.

After all, one of the major purposes in having these services is for these children and adults to be able to do things independently.

Parents expect a lot when they have their children go into therapy, whether it is occupational therapy or speech and/or language therapy and physical therapy.

Of course, they expect a lot because they pay a lot of money to be able to get these services for their children.

Here in the Philippines, parents/families of children receiving therapy services pay for these services, unlike those children in other countries who get these as part of their tax benefits.

Getting into these therapy services don’t mean instant relief and instant improvement of the developmental and behavioral problems that need to be addressed.

So what should parents expect during the first few weeks of therapy?

Below are a few observations I have made during the course of working with these therapists:

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Writing or composition is one of the most difficult tasks children with developmental problems can do, especially those with Language Learning problems. Several  of my students have this problem, with grades in the Language subject bordering on the failing status. Why does this happen? Read here.

Yes, some of them have difficulty understanding the grammar rules or the syntax. The fact that they have difficulties understanding some of the finer skills in language like pragmatics and semantics, writing seems not a priority.

Many times this has happened to several of my students, they are able to explain in detail what was asked of them. But when they were asked to write down what they have just explained, they look blankly at me and ask: “What am I going to write?” When I tell them to write what they have just said, they really have that blank look on their faces like I have said something foreign to them.

Writing is a complex task and there are several ways to do this, to teach this:

• Plan what to write. making a graphic organizer or writing down key words and concepts would be a great help.

• Be sure that basic grammar rules, particularly subject-verb agreement is understood. Sometimes children can do this in drills but can not apply what has been learned in writing.

• Write in drafts so that corrections are easier to spot.

• Clear rules for what needs to be revised should be made known. It is also important to explain why the revisions need to be done.

There are many ways to encourage children to write and here are some suggestions:

• writing down a telephone message.

• Writing ideas, thoughts, dreams, quotations heard,movie or TV lines heard and even writing down information like phone numbers and addresses are just some examples.

• Writing down instructions like when to take the medicine and how to operate something.

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Fine motor skills are skills that require small muscle movements with the hands and fingers in coordination with the eyes to perform precise activities. This coordination with the eyes is also called as eye-hand coordination.

Activities that require eye-hand coordination are scribbling, coloring, writing, cutting, copying, encoding on a keyboard, use of a mouse with a pc, painting, tying shoe laces, doing a jigsaw puzzle, opening and closing objects, buttoning and zipping clothes, eating, pasting, and even turning pages of a book.

The most important concern for parents with school-aged children would be writing. The tripod grip, cutting, copying and control of the pencil and spacing of letters.

At home parents can try to let their children use different materials to write with: colored pencils, markers, pens, chalks, magic slates, finger painting and even drawing on different materials like on the sand, on the soil and with the use of non-toxic bath paints. Just make sure that they know where they are supposed to write and where not to write.

Eye-hand coordination is important in developing the fine motor skills because this will help your child in doing tasks that are necessary in the activities that they do in school.

Developing the fine-motor coordination skills may reduce anxiety later on that might develop when the child has difficulty coping with more demands that come from school activities.

Remember, doing these activities should be fun