Final Home Visit

Final Home Visit

I was able to go into the home this week as the child was feeling better. I was able to see that he has made some improvement with his trunk strength. I brought a bigger mirror this week which he was excited about and he was looking at, I then gave him the home made activity of a sensory bag i layer him on his front and put the bag over the mirror and he stayed on his front for about 30 seconds, which is longer than he previously have. I then introduced his mom to an activity they can do to keep him engaged while laying on his front, I put some card in a ziplock bag and squeezed different colored paint on the card inside the bag. I then put this in front of him and he was able to do 'finger painting' in the bag. He stayed engaged in this activity for over a minute moving the paint around, his Mom seemed excited about this activity and wants to continue trying it. We then tried to do some crawling, he have become more coordinated with his arms and legs, if we move a leg for him he will move the correct hand forward independently, so he has made improvements there also.
I have really enjoyed this opportunity to work with this family and the progress i was able to see the child make, even though i was not able to go as much as expected.
I like the set up of the course and think that it is fair with the amount of credits. I think it will work a lot better over the course of a full semester so they will be able to create more of a routine with the family and see more progress over the time.

Reflection 3

Reflection 3

This week was interesting because although I was not able to go and visit the child that I am working with, I was able to go on two other home visits. 

I learned a lot as I was able to see the differences between all of the children. The first child that i went on a visit with was the same age as the child that i am working with. I knew that this could be the case due to the developmental delay, but watching this child and seeing how they were meant to be developmentally at that age gave me some ideas with what to work with on my child. I think that during my next home visit I want to work on the transition from sitting to crawling and how he needs to move to get to the crawling stance. I think I also saw the importance of working on fine motor skills as it is necessary for later skills such as feeding themselves.

I was also able to go to another home visit and see how games can help in everyday life. The family that we visited was worried about their child not stopping when they told her too which was a safety issue. We went outside in the garden to play some stop go games, the child wanted to go on the slide and swings so I was able to incorporate stopping into those activities. This helped me to see how intervention can be child led which makes it more fun and interesting for the child, rather than them being forced into these activities that they may not want to do.

Reflection 2

Reflection 2

This week i was planning on continuing working on crawling. I feel like last week i was able to make a little progress with him and was also able to gain a good grasp of where he was currently at and what he was capable.

This week since i was able to make a little progress with the activity of having him crawl toward an object with assistance, i wanted to carry on with this activity. There was adjustments that i was going to make such as holding the object up, so he would look up rather than down and hopefully keep his balance a little better.

Unfortunately, the child was sick this week and so i was unable to go into the home to work with him. 

My plan if i am able to go into the home this week is to work with an activity with him laying on his stomach and having him stay on his stomach. Then if he seems up to it having him work on the crawling activity.

Reflection blog 1

Reflection 1

This weeks focus was on getting comfortable with the family and gaining a grasp on the child's abilities.

My intervention plan this week was based around the game peek-a-boo as his parents want him to play more interactive games, he responded well to this game but was not engaged enough to use the game as an incentive to crawl.

Recently he has been enjoying playing with mirrors and keys. We got his attention and let him play with the mirror for a little bit and them would hold it a little our of reach to see if he would make an effort to move toward it. Although he is able to stay in a crawling stance, he is not yet able to move to crawl. After talking with his Mum about what he currently does with the therapist we tried moving his arms and legs for him so he got the feel for crawling. This was affective and he would move with help and sometimes independently moved his arm in the right motions. We did realize the importance of holding the mirror high, as he is 'head heavy' he would sometimes just have his head fall down, so we held the mirror high that would help a lot.

We also found while he was having a break that at any opportunity he would roll over to his back which is something his mum wants to discourage.

It was interesting to see what his abilities are and i think that we will definitely be able to make some progress in his movements over the coming weeks. Next week i want to continue using the mirror and keys as motivation, but bring a mirror this time, and continue to assist his crawling. I want to work out a way to keep him on his front when resting, maybe i will bring an activity for him on the ground so he will stay on his front.