The Method of Good Start (MGS) is modelled on the French Le Bon Depart Method, established by Thea Bugnet. In Poland MGS was developed by Marta Bogdanowicz who has started to use this method as a form of preparation to take up learning of writing and reading. MGS is also applicable as a form of rehabilitation of mentally retarded children and children with disharmony in mental and motor development. Authors of this work made an attempt loo adapt this method for needs of autistic children.
The MGS tries to make the visual auditory and kinaesthetic-motor
functions more efficient simultaneously, and to help coordination
of these different functions. Other aims of this approach are,
too help fix handeness, establish body awareness, spatial concepts,
left-right orientation in body schema and space. The main idea
of MGS is lo develop the Integration of all psychomotor functions.
The MGS is based on series of exercises which are carried out in a, few stages.
The structure of MGS activities :
Although there is a strict programme of MIDS activities, the content of the exercises may change so as to accommodate them to the needs of individual children or groups. The form of organisation of activities has to be appropriate to their needs; it can be work with an individual person ( a child with brain damage), in pairs: mother - child in groups (autistic, mentally retarded,cerebral palsy children) or it can be group activities.
Then a song is presented, which is to be a "canvas"
or "semantic point"; for the ensuing activities. For example,
when the folk song, "Cucckoo" is used, pictures of the
bird are shown. Alive cat, dog or animals can be presented.
This is very important to show and to offer for manipulation concrete things like an apple or bail while singing a song on such a subject.
The song is also a mean of exercising phonological competence for higher functioning autistic children. During these exercises children are learning and practising analysis and synthesis of words by separating sentences, words, syllabes and phonemes also binding them to construct words, diversifying phonemes, diversifying words with different phoneme structure and so on. These exercises are also designed to develop their attention and auditory memory (for examples children count how many times the consonant "k" occurs in a given word).
The next stage are - the main activities - consisting of the three types of exercises already identified. The first of this the motor activities , are motor play which is related to a song's subject. During this type of play children's motor functions are improved - global movements as well as fine movements of hands and fingers, also relaxation. Each session consist of different exercises which always refer to a song.
In a second type of main activities - the-auditory motor exercises
are provided: motor elements 'are combined with sounds to enable
simultaneous development of motor functions and auditory perception.
During this type of activity hand and fingers exercises are carried
out on small sand - filled cylinders to the tunes of songs sung
by a teacher or children- From session to session the exercises
become more complicated and involve a range of movements using
fists, palm in various position, and fingers. The hands may he
in parallel or crossed position. Teacher can hold child's hand
(passive movements are harmonised with the rhythm of a song).In
final exercises children are encouraged to imitate song rhythms
in their own ways.
The third type of main activities, the motor-auditory-visual-exercises,
forms a substantial part of MGS. The main activities are based
on graphical symbols of increasing difficulty.
These are carried out while singing a song. The song's rhythm is illustrating by the graphical symbols or letters - This range of exercises combines three elements: movement, sound and three elements are involved in the activities and this Is the reason that motor, auditory and ,visual functions are developed and integrated.
The stages of motor-auditory-visual-exercises:
The teacher draws the pattern on the blackboard and sings a song which has the rhythm corresponding to the number of elements in the pattern. It is important to combine song rhythm with the movement while drawing the lines- For example, the vertical lines from the top to the bottom, the horizontal lines from left to the right side.
Multisensory learning: the teacher practices the same with a child and then a child draws a pattern singing or listening the song. In these exercises various senses are involved: touch, kinaesthesia, sight and hearing.
Reproducing level: in the exercises at this stage the children
reproduce the pattern or letter. The degree of difficulty gradually increases: the tools used become more complicated and the space where the activities take places becomes smaller. At the beginning only a hand is used. Then simple drawing tool such as chalk or charcoal are introduced, and finally waxpencils, pencils and in the end ballpens are given to the children.
In the same time the exercises become more complicated because of the space in which child works.(The space for children's reproduction of the pattern is reduced ; it is unrestricted at the beginning, then it becomes small and limited by lines, as in a copy book).
Children were more often contacting others, their reactions to grownups were better, they were more active. These results can be explained by the construction of the method which contains constant scheme of exercises. Children can very quickly learn the sequence of the exercises and are able to predict what will happen in a while.
| Develomental Areas | X1 | X2 |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive area (C) | 2,2 | 2,6 |
| Emotional area (E) | 2 | 2,1 |
| Social area(S) | 1,6 | 2,25 |
| Motor area(M) | 2,6 | 3,2 |
