Sensory motor play in early intervention

Robbie Levy, an OTRL who founded Dynamic Kids in New York, a practice that partners with NYU in graduate research came to talk in Chico.  She described how the children that are brought to her are increasingly younger, and also have a shifting presentation.  Where in the '90s there were more motor issue, the current presentation is dysregulation and anxiety. 

There are multiple issues that contribute to this changing presentation.  Children are from a younger age exposed to media.  The average 3 to 5 year old child spends 5 to 7 hours per day with media.  While the guideline is about 1 hour per day. And NO technology for children between 0 and 2 years old.  When a 3 year old spends that many hours on technology, she does not have enough time for physical movement, outdoor time, exposure to develop other than visual and auditory senses, time with manipulatives, quite, contemplative time, or pretend play...Another issue is when the parent tends to be on the phone as well.  This reduces the interaction time between the child and the parent. This interaction is important for the learning of the child, as it is during those interactions that the parent can scaffold the child's knowledge, and this interaction is most important as it helps the child to regulate. And this is were things seem to go wrong currently, as a typical general education kindergarten looks more like a special ed kindergarten looked like a generation ago.  Currently between 30 and 60% of children in a regular kindergarten class qualify for OTR services. 

What is needed is a real change in culture.  A lot of our current practices, not just technology contribute to the dysregulation of the children, leading to the need to introduce meditation and yoga practices in school.  In the following posts I will share some ideas about how to implement some ideas that can make daily life a bit easier if you are living with an easily dysregulated child. 

To schedule an appointment call An at (530) 321-2970