Sharing What Works in Supporting Infants & Toddlers and the Families in Early Intervention
Okay, be honest. Have you ever:
recommended that a family go buy books;
explained the importance of sorting colored teddy bears into matching bowls; or
listed “placing shapes in a 3-piece form puzzle” as an outcome on the IFSP.
If you answered yes to any of these, well, then you’re in the same boat as me …
Miguel is 19 months old and lives with a large family that includes his parents, three older siblings, an aunt, and his grandparents. He qualified for early intervention due to delays in gross motor development and low muscle tone. He’s also showing some slight delays in his expressive communication. During his assessment and subsequent intervention …
During the assessment, the professional team members notice some soft neurological signs in Seiko’s development, such as an indwelling thumb, slight scissoring of her legs, and low muscle tone in her trunk. Seiko was referred to early intervention by her pediatrician because she is 14 months old and not yet sitting or crawling. According to her …
Tyler is 20 months old and instead of playing with his toys or using his spoon to feed himself, he quickly throws them as soon as he picks them up. Tyler’s parents tell you that it’s really hard to manage during playdates or when they go out to eat. Tyler also rarely stays still to …
Toddlers. They weeble, they wobble and they fall down. A lot! The question is really, how often is too often? Toddlers are still remarkably unstable and often over-confident. Two year olds are much more confident with their physical abilities but they don’t have a very good idea about when to stop. They love to run …
You call Rordan’s mother for your monthly contact to check on services and ask her how things are going. She sheepishly tells you that Rordan has made little progress with his crawling and that she doesn’t think he likes physical therapy much. When you ask why she thinks he doesn’t like it, she tells you that …
What Does the Research Tell Us?
Physical therapy and helmet treatment are considered the conservative strategies for positional torticollis, congenital muscular torticollis, and deformational plagiocephaly.1 Retrospective and prospective studies of conservative measures have reported, “good to excellent results, with success rates ranging from 61% to 99% when intervention was initiated before one year of age.”(p.370)2 Ellen …
In my previous post I discussed five tips that will help early interventionists in collaborating with families to embed therapeutic strategies into their daily routines. To review, the tips are: start with a routine based interview, incorporate family goals into strategies, set up the environment, follow the family’s and child’s lead, and be creative. In …
I agree with Mahoney, Robinson and Perales (2004), “….the time has come to stop talking about parent involvement and to commit to learning how such involvement can be accomplished across a range of family constellations, circumstances, and values.” When I first start working with a family I explain that there shouldn’t be a “therapy” hour …
