Frankie has received services from Early Intervention (EI) since we was 5 months old. He started out not seeing or responding much. It is amazing to see the transformation to where he is today! In the beginning he would not respond to a toy in front of him. The toy needed to rattle or make noise for him to turn towards it. I remember putting him in the exer-saucer and he had no idea that there were toys on it.
His EI teacher worked a lot on getting him to move towards the noise and also grabbing for things once he heard them. He would remember certain toys and learn what to do with them.
It was nice to have someone come to help him and to ask questions of, and still is!
Now he does so much more with his teacher. He gets excited just seeing the certain toy and loves to examine toys. He will bring them up close to his face and really study all the different parts! She is also working on speech with him and he knows some basic signs.
We also get to go to an age appropriate playgroup once a week. Frankie enjoys playing, sensory table, art, music, gross motor play, circle time, songs and parachute. He loves it all and interacts with the other kids a bit too. I think EI is great and so helpful in the early years!
2 comments:
Hello Susan,
What you describe as "not seeing much or responding during the first months of life" is a very frequent sign in albinism which has not been recognized for too many years (I found out about it some 8 to 10 years ago and did evaluations in my patients [over 500]: about 55% do have delayed visual maturation, it is most common in OCA 1A (nearly 90%)).
Many parents of older (>2 yrs) albinism children told me about the sorrow and grief they had during the first year of life of their child - they thought it was blind (and very often, alas, the ophthalmologist confirmed that, because the knowledge on delayed vis maturation in albinism is not too widespread).
This is a phenomenon which is a part of the spectrum of albinism (in all types) and is called "delayed visual maturation". As the name implies, this phase comes to an end - mostly between the 6th to 10th month of life, in some children only at the 12th month), when the children (either suddenly or slowly) start to fixate. During that phase nystagmus changes from rolling-pendular to jerky-jumpy.
This does NOT question the usefullness of early intervention!!!
I just say that some improvement of vision would have come within the second half of the first year or within the first year anyway.
BUT: early invention helps to reduce the duration of the seemingly blind phase.
AND: early intervention is very important for the development of visual acuity during the first two years, and to some lesser extend up to the 6th year.
In my (15years) experience albinistic children who have been fitted EARLY with appropriate glasses (see my paper on the site of the Albinism Fellowship UK:
http://www.albinism.org.uk/frameset.html
"Albinism, Spectacles & the need for vision correction")
and who haver received EARLY early intervention will have a significantly higher visual acuity once they are 6 years and older than children who did not receive glasses and EI.
There are some research papers in English on my homepage, if you are interested:
www.albinismus.info
--> click on "Literatur" and you will find a list with some English papers as well.
All the best!
Greetings from Germany,
Prof. Dr. Barbara Käsmann MD
Consultant in Paed. Ophth. and Low Vision
University of Saarland
Medical Advisor to NOAH Germany
www.albinismus.info
Hello Dr. Kasmann,
Thank you for your comments. I will check out your articles, I look forward to it!
My son is 20 months and he does not wear glasses yet. I think it is because they are waiting to see how much his eyes improve on their own. But it makes sense that glasses would help visual acuity. I will ask again when I go next month.
Thank you again,
Susan
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