Antonio was a two year old little boy born two months early. He was enrolled in early intervention services for fine motor and speech delays. He had a vocabulary of five spoken words, as well as several gestures that his family and those close to him understood. Antonio received occupational therapy at home once a month and speech therapy at home twice a month. He also had an early interventionist assigned, Julie, who visited him at home twice a week. Antonio had an IFSP developed by his parents, Julie, the occupational therapist, and the speech therapist. During Julie?s visits with Antonio she worked with him on the goals they had all agreed upon, selecting activities and toys that she felt would help him develop language and refine his fine motor skills. While Antonio would smile when Julie selected musical toys, he showed no increase in babbling or verbal communication, and he tired and became distracted easily. Julie worked with Antonio?s mom on designing some home activities for her and Antonio to help work towards his goals. Antonio?s mom reported to Julie that she regularly tried to work these activities into Antonio?s routine, but she was frustrated by his lack of interest and progress. In the six months that Julie had been working with Antonio, he had increased his two-handed activities, but was still not isolating his fingers. He had also not shown any increase in his verbal or gesture vocabulary.
The early intervention center where Julie was based had just begun a new program called ?Music-Talk? for children aged nine months to three years old. It met for one hour twice a week, was staffed by a speech therapist, physical therapist, and occupational therapist, and was open to all the early interventionists and the children on their caseloads, as well as each child?s primary caregiver. During ?Music-Talk? the staff led songs with finger play and worked with each child on fully participating. They sang songs with the children?s names in them, used toy props to act out songs like ?The Wheels on the Bus?, and even made up silly songs. Julie suggested to Antonio?s mom that they go together with Antonio to one ?Music-Talk? session each week for a month to give it a try. Antonio?s mom agreed, and during their first ?Music-Talk? session Antonio was extremely animated and fascinated by the finger play. His mother found that she had some of the same toy props at home, so as they continued to attend each week, she was able to sing some of the same songs, with the same props and routines as they used at ?Music-Talk?. After ten weeks of going with Julie and his mother to ?Music-Talk? once a week and repeating the activities at home, Antonio had begun to hold up and wiggle his index finger during the ?Where is Pointer? song, and had added the words ?bus?, ?me llama es? (meaning ?my name is? in Spanish)-paired with touching his thumb to his chest, and ?woof-woof? to his vocabulary, using them in context, as when he wanted his toy bus, approached another child, or saw the neighbor?s dog. His mother was very pleased.
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