Developmental delay
Developmental activities are essential for organizing your child’s growing body and brain. Developmental movements activate a child’s inner resources for his emerging sense of self and connection with others. Well organized movements in the first years are essential for bonding and social/emotional maturation as well as early learning and cognition skills. Developmental movements create coordination and postural alignment for your child’s growing body. Whether your baby or toddler has a small delay or profound challenges in reaching milestones, early intervention can set your child on course.
Movement delay
During the first year, your child’s brain and body are primed for specific movements. In a developmental movement assessment I can identify the small gaps and barriers to your child meeting her developmental milestones. I will provide you with simple movement and touch reminders for you to help your child catch up during this sensitive period. There is very little value in waiting for a child to grow out of delay when outside normal ranges.
Children with very low tone or with very high tone are prone to movement delays. I combine myofascial toning with developmental movement therapy to yield the best results for your child’s development.
Emotional-social delay
Does your child have a hard time connecting with you or with other children? The early signs of emotional and social delay show up as poor bonding and attachment. If your baby or toddler is not connecting well with you, she may have sensory or sensory-motor difficulties, or may have experienced emotional trauma during birth. Social-emotional delays have profound, long term consequences, since young children develop in interdependent relationships.
Help your child bond with you
Young children depend on their caregivers in close relationships. They are designed as social beings who call on parents and others for help. If your youngster makes little contact, is unresponsive, or pulls away, he is showing us that he needs help to make connections with you and others.
Even with the best of parenting, a child may not be able to bond. You have so much love to give this child, but he may not be not responsive. Infants and toddlers who cannot easily bond are usually stressed in specific systems such as touch, hearing or vision. Stressors can include difficult birth, NICU separation or prenatal stress. Life may have already been difficult for a young child who has experienced birth trauma, sibling loss or adoption. These stressors create a barrier to the natural inclination of a child to connect with his parents. Gentle, patient therapies can provide your child with a gradual increase into close connection with you.
Early learning & language delay
Early learning and language development emerges from a sound base of experience in movement, breastfeeding and social experience, along with good auditory function. If your baby was delayed in these earlier experiences, he can often quickly catch up with simple daily activities to rebuild this base.
Some children experience language delay because of clogged ear ducts, due to displaced cranial bones from the intensity of birth. Craniosacral therapy can open these ducts and restore full hearing.
Profound challenge
If your child faces profound challenges in many arenas, I can help with direct hands-on therapy and show you how you can help your child move along in development day by day at home.