Being in Austalia our education and early intervention systems are so different from those in the USA so I was interested to know what kind of things might be being done over there that aren't being done in our little town. Gianni is 11 weeks old and so far all we do is see the PT once a month for about 1 hour and come home with a list of exercises to do. I assume it will a bit more later on, but I just wanted to check with you all and see if there are other things I could be doing.
Nicola

Hi Nicola,

My little one, Kyle - 13 Weeks, has had one session so far with the PT. We done basically the same as you, a list of exercises for the parents to implement. Our next seesion is another week or so. I'll let you know about that one then.

Keith

Hi Nicola,

Daniel is now 15 months old when he was as old as Gianni it was alot more tracking exercises. The Early intervention comes twice a week an hour each time . She would hold an object up and go back and forth and make sure Daniel would watch it. She also brings a surgical brush (very soft bristled) and takes off everything but his diaper and brushes his whole body , it stimulates their sences and awareness. She moved his legs back and forth like riding a bike kinda. She has a large exercise ball and puts him on his tummy and back.


Lisa

Hi Nicola,

Which EI service are you with in Australia? I'm an EI teacher and we have special educators, physios and speechies seeing the babes weekly right from the start, either individually or in small groups so the mums and dads can meet each other . . . I think getting in communication as well as physio stuff is really important. There's a good article about speech stuff;
http://www.altonweb.com/cs/downsyndrome/helpingbabies.pdf

Hope it's ok for me to post even though I'm not a mum. If not, I'm happy to edit this post.

Carly

Marty is 9 months and so far he only has PT once a week, we are pushing for an OT evaluation also, so we will see how that goes. They didn't start him on PT until he was about 4 or 5 months old though. He is doing well from my point of view. We have a big exercise ball that our PT will bounce him on and do other stuff (and it is great for crunches).

Carly-I think anyone is welcome here as long as you don't say "nasty" things.

Carly,
Thanks for your reply, and feel free to post a message any time.
We use the local EI service in Kempsey, NSW. I think babies come in to the centre weekly from 2 years onwards, but at this stage things are very minimal. Thanks for the link to that article- just printed it off and will read it tonight. Our centre is run by an OT, and a PT comes once a month from Taree which is 100km away. I saw a speechie the week after Gianni was born, but I know that we don't have a speechie in the town any more. As for special ed...I'm qualified but have never worked in EI! I guess I'll have to retrain! Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Nicola

Thanks, Nicola!

I think that article is really good on communication - another article which I think is excellent regarding physio (and I showed it to my physio colleagues who agreed it was very good) can be found here:

http://www.denison.edu/dsq/windersphysicaltherapy.shtml


Are you thinking of signing with your baby? You can get the Makaton book from the web - and they have a new one which is all nursery rhymes and songs which is such a good way to learn the signs. I know one of our mums uses signs with her baby already, and her older son (who is just 3) now uses some signs himself. Oh, and you can get a video from the same site I think which has the playschool people singing songs and doing nursery rhymes using Makaton signing.

Hope this is of interest to you,
Carly