Early intervention
Early intervention
During the first years of life a typically developing child, will achieve the gross motor milestones of maintaining a prone, sitting and standing position as well as achieving the ability to move by hands and knees crawling and walking.
For children, who are delayed in reaching these milestones, assistive devices can be used to compensate and to allow the child to challenge and develop within other areas of child development such as cognitive, social, emotional, speech and language and fine and gross motor skill development.
In the infographics you can see when the motor milestones is achieved in typically
developing children. “On-time” interventions using assistive devices means allowing all
children to attain the timely positions or move as typically developing children. For children with disabilities “on-time” might be early compared to current practice.
Learn more about how you can support your child’s development below.
Timing
The illustration below and in the five infographics is based on recommendations and data from the World Health Organization.
Tummy time is recommended for infants less than 1 year. For the gross motor
milestones the dashed line represent the time period where typically developing
children achieve the milestone, while the solid line represent the time period
where most children have achieved the milestone and thus the time period to ensure “on-time” interventions for children with delayed development to start using assistive devices.
References/supporting literature: 1 World Health Organization. (2019). Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age. World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/311664. License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
Lying
WHO recommends that infants should be physically active several times a day. For infants who are not yet mobile, this includes at least 30 minutes in prone position
(tummy time) spread throughout the day while awake.
Sitting
Children with disabilities risk spending more time sedentary than their typically developing peers.
Positioning the children in assistive seating systems, wheelchairs or special needs strollers aims to ensure a symmetrically aligned body position and supports the child in maintaining the upright posture against gravity to enable movement of the head, arms and hands when engaging in daily activities.
Standing
Enabling the child to maintain a standing position will let the child apply different loads on their bones, joints and muscles. When weight is applied to the joints due to standing in the upright position the child’s bone density will gradually increase.
At the same time supported standing lets the child be at eye-level with their friends and family and enables them to use their hands and arms for different daily activities. This will make it possible to develop new skills and prevent secondary consequences of the child’s health condition.
Mobility
Since children with disabilities risk spending more time sedentary than their typically developing peers, early intervention is all about getting them to move.
A walker, gait trainer or a wheelchair enables mobility and allows the child to move around and gain experiences about spacial awareness and about how to use their body. This means the children are both learning about their surroundings and about being physically while being able to play at the same time.
Physical activity has been associated with improved motor and cognitive development, psychosocial and cardiometabolic health in intervention studies and with improved motor development, fitness, bone and skeletal health in observational studies.
Toileting and bathing
Taking a bath, showering or going to the toilet can be an uncomfortable struggle for children, who have not yet learned to control their bodies. But with the right product solutions to support the child’s ability to maintain a seated or lying position while going to the toilet, taking a shower or a bath can be an enjoyable situation.
When bathing or washing hands the child also has the ability to train its sensory development while playing with water, soap and different toys.
