Early Intervention

Brianne and I have begun a program in Virginia called Early Intervention. This is a program designed to help infants and toddlers that need extra help in order to learn and develop. The focus is on increasing the child's participation in family and community activities that are important to the family. This is done by identifying and implementing learning opportunities throughout the day in order to enhance Brianne's development.

Right now, what's most important for Brianne is to strenghten her neck and chest muscles. She needs to be able to breathe without the aid of oxygen.

Also, due to low muscle tone, she naturally keeps her arms splayed outward from her body. If she doesn't learn to keep them centered, or in midline, she won't learn to grasp at objects; and in the future feed herself or other activites.
She also won't be able to roll over or learn to pull herself into a sitting position.

Putting her on her side forces her to keep her arms at midline. Once she is there she naturally grabs for toys. What I find most interesting is that most infants learn this on their own. For her, these skills must be taught. (Just as Ryan needs to be taught social skills.)

By two or three weeks of age, my other kids were able to hold their heads errect without support. This is still difficult for Brianne. So, this is another thing we are working on. By lightly bouncing her on the ball she develops greater muscle strengh. She actually likes this, but, she's not thrilled with the other exercises that we need to do on the ball.

Like this one, she has to sit on the ball with one leg bent behind her. At first I thought it was awkward to twist her leg that way, until I got up from the floor and I put my leg behind me in the same fashion to get up. It's never to early to strenghten these muscles and learn these techniques. (Except they put her in a foul mood.)

She is doing so well at supporting her head on her own. She'll pop it up and look around-- sometimes she'll keep it up for a few seconds. Such a strong little girl. It's really exciting, just as exciting as it is to see Delaney put letter sounds together and learn to read.

This little frog dude really caught her attention. She'd pop her head up and follow it with her eyes from side to side for quite a while.

She has to take frequent breaks, all this work tuckers her poor body out! She'll even take mini sleep breaks from time to time...but she does this when she's eating too. Even drinking a bottle to milk wears her out physically--which is why we're trying to build better muscle tone.

I never really paid attention to the physical development, in minute ways, with the others. Of course I noticed the big events--rolling over, sitting, crawling, walking--now I'll get to notice all the little steps that needs to be learned to get to the big ones.