Switching to telehealth has only amplified that, she added. Still, Rogers said virtual therapy can help in a fundamental, too often overlooked, way: “Early intervention’s goal is always to make the parent the primary early interventionist of their child,” she said. Feeding therapists and physical therapists who rely on hands-on exercises to help children have to teach parents how to assess things like muscle tone over video and sessions with infants are largely spent coaching parents. Michele Rogers says parents are definitely “juggling more with this.” Therapists used to bring various resources and toys to the homes of children and now must ask parents to provide those supplies. Therapies look a little different now: in-person they ran for 75 minutes, but via video a child’s attention tends to peter out around 45 minutes. In Sonoma County, California, therapists in the early intervention program run by the Early Learning Institute, which provides developmental screenings and early interventions to children, have switched to Facetime, WhatsApp and Zoom to continue to reach the nearly 400 young children they serve. So every week is a lost opportunity for that brain development.” Michele Rogers, executive director and co-founder of the Early Learning Center in Sonoma County, California. “We know how quickly the brain grows and changes in the first one thousand days, which is the first three years. While that can be a lifeline for concerned parents, it can also pose a challenge: how do you get a toddler or preschooler to pay attention to someone on a screen and have parents support or even replicate the intricate work of a therapist? Meanwhile, many schools, therapists and families are now increasingly turning to online and digital sources for these early therapies. “So every week is a lost opportunity for that brain development.”Īcross the country, some counties have fully halted early intervention services aimed at infants and toddlers up to age 3, as well as special education preschool programs and therapies available once children age out of early intervention. “We know how quickly the brain grows and changes in the first one thousand days, which is the first three years,” said Michele Rogers, executive director and co-founder of the Early Learning Center in Sonoma County, California. Experts say losing these services during the critical early years is especially concerning considering how important early interventions are to address delays early. I know my experience is unfortunately not unique: parents nationwide are worried their children with delays or disabilities will regress without the constant, mostly in person support of highly trained teachers and therapists. But it would be so much easier if she was here in person, able to gently show him how to position his lips and captivate his attention, something that many parents have found is hard to do with young children as they try to continue therapies via technology. She is a fantastic therapist, and did as well as I could imagine with a wiggly 3-year-old. “Cherry.”Īt the end, as I took over the computer and my son began to play with his toys, she promised to send me some resources. My son climbed onto my lap and I copied what she was doing to push his lips slightly forward with my fingers. She demonstrated putting her fingers in a u shape around her mouth to push the lips out. “I find myself needing to narrate what he is saying for other people far more than I ever had to before quarantine started.” I sat down at my computer and sent a desperate e-mail to his speech therapist. We feared it was because he had now been out of school for a nearly a month due to coronavirus quarantining, away from his three attentive and diligent preschool teachers and his speech therapist, who regularly visited his classroom to work with students even if they were no longer enrolled in therapy. We had both noticed the same things: words our son used to pronounce well were now nearly unintelligible others were made up or nonsensical. Photo: Getty ImagesĪ few days ago, I turned to my husband and asked him if he, too, was noticing our 3-year-old, who graduated from speech therapy in January, was suddenly a lot harder to understand. Therapies for young children are increasingly offered online now but come with challenges for children and their parents.
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