occupational therapist & child development specialist
Does your baby hate tummy time? With time and a few simple techniques, any infant can learn to tolerate tummy time. My website www.TummyTimeTips.com provides tips on how to introduce tummy time and increase an infant’s tolerance without making parents’ and baby’s life miserable. To visit the site, just click HERE!
How can parents play an important role in fostering their baby’s overall development? By understanding early infant growth and development! However, most parents are extremely busy and don’t have the time to read a textbook on infant development. Fortunately, parents can pop in Aimee’s Babies First Year Milestones DVD for a wealth of information on infant development.
This DVD is wonderful resource for parents who want to promote their little one’s social, emotional, and physical development. It includes important information about your child’s sensory motor development and milestones during the first year of life, as well as a variety of activities that will help baby meet those important milestones. To give your child the best possible start in life, check out this amazing resource.
Click HERE to visit Aimee’s Babies website and order the DVD.
For a chance to win an Amee’s Babies First Year Milestones DVD, like my Facebook page and sign up for my newsletter.
How many hats do you wear in an average day? The list is probably quite long… mom, wife, chef, employee, chauffer, housekeeper, and many more!
You dedicate countless hours to your many responsibilities, why not set aside some time for yourself? You can do this by signing up for my new self improvement course, Living Your Most Authentic Life. The course will help you will gain a clear perspective of your strengths, vulnerabilities, beliefs, emotions, and motivators. There are weekly exercises, activities, audio excerpts, and images that can be used to develop a deeper understanding of yourself, as well as how to discover true joy.
As soon as you sign up for the course (you choose how much you want to pay), your first lesson will be available. The remaining lessons will be emailed to you weekly. Don’t miss this self improvement opportunity!
Here are several of the topics that are covered:
The Path to Self-Discovery- Learn how to become more aware of your thoughts, behaviors, and actions.
Understanding and Dealing with Discontent- Discover how discontent can be used as a positive, driving force in your life.
How to Live Passionately- Tap into your creative side to experience flow and passion.
Mortality: The Gift That Keeps on Giving- Learn how to accept the aging process, as well as mortality, in order to truly give of yourself without reservation.
The Gift of Love- Find love through forgiveness, giving to others, prayer, and meditation
Your Soul’s True Joy- Realize who you were created to be and begin to live your true purpose.
Congrats to Viorletta for winning the AAP Autism Book!
Autism Spectrum Disorder: What Every Parent Should Know is a new resource published by the American Academy of Pediatrics that provides information on the most current types of behavioral and developmental therapies for Autism Spectrum Disorder. 
Here are several facts taken directly from the book:
-Recent research suggests that one child in every 88 will be diagnosed with autism.
-Studies suggest that mothers with gestational diabetes are more likely to have babies with ASD.
-Based on 29 studies since 1999, scientists report no evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism.
-Between 25 to 30% of children who develop autism appear to be developing normally, then regress, losing many or all of their language and social skills.
-Early signs of ASD are not pointing to draw attention and limited social interaction.
-Early intervention and treatment leads to better outcomes for individuals with ASD.
For a chance to win future books and prizes, all you have to do is “like” my Facebook page and sign up for my newsletter. You will be entered in the next drawing! Good Luck!!!
Early exposure to reading can increase a child’s chances of future academic success. Reading experience, as well as exposure to rich conversations, help improve a child’s vocabulary and ability to communicate.
This is not good news for children who live in poverty. Research has found that there are a dozen or more books per child in neighborhoods with average incomes; however, in poor neighborhoods you will only find one book for every three hundred children. Additionally, there is significantly less conversation between these parents and their children. These issues lead to limited exposure to reading for children living and poverty.
What does this mean? By the time they are school age, these children have 25% of the vocabulary than children from middle-income neighborhoods, which puts them below the national norms with language and pre-reading skills.
Many organizations in the United State are working to decrease this gap, by making books available to those who cannot afford them. They are working to increase the access of low-income families to books. For more information, visit their websites.
Do you have a baby on the way? Are you a new mother? Have you heard that breastfeeding makes your baby smarter? Certain studies have indicated that breastfed babies eventually do better on cognitive tests and make higher grades in school than non-breastfed infants. However, the research supporting breastfeeding is even stronger regarding the following issues. Breastfed babies have a lower incidence of middle ear infections, a reduced risk of asthma, and a reduced risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Try to breastfeed for at least six months, and if possible, a full year. The longer your infant gets the nutritional value of your breast milk, the better.
It’s not just your little one that benefits. Nursing strengthens the bond between you and your infant, and you may find that it reduces your stress levels. Research has revealed that medical bills are less for breastfed babies compared to formula fed babies. Of course, everyone wants a healthier infant, and for a working mother, this means fewer sick days.
Critical brain development occurs during the first three years of life and nursing your infant gives your baby a wonderful start.
As a parent, do you dread tummy time? Does your baby cry every time you position her on her belly? Thankfully, with time and a few simple techniques, any infant can learn to tolerate tummy time. I have a website that shares a number of tips on how to introduce tummy time and increase an infant’s tolerance without making parents’ and baby’s life miserable.
Tummy time that is provided on a daily basis leads to the mastery of important motor milestones, such as rolling over, pulling up, and crawling. Also, infants who aren’t exposed to tummy time are at risk for motor skill delays and developing flat spots on the head. So click HERE to visit Tummy Time Tips, and be sure to check out the video!
These conditions are serious, and we need to bring attention to them with a PLAGIOCEPHALY & TORTICOLLIS AWARENESS DAY in order for parents to recognize the signs early and get their children the help that they need early on.
Here is a testimonial from a mom who has dealt with these conditions first hand:
Both of our sons developed plagiocephaly after birth. With our first, I noticed that he tended to always look to one side right from birth, but even though I’m a physical therapist myself, it never occurred to me that he might have torticollis (tight muscles in the neck) or develop a flat spot– I was so worried about breast feeding, lack of sleep, and everything else that comes along with a newborn that I just wasn’t looking at my baby through PT eyes!
When my son was about 10 weeks old, we finally noticed his tendency to look to one side and the flat spot that was developing, so we went to the pediatrician, who told us not to worry about it, and repeatedly telling us “it will round out on its own”. I think my husband and I were in denial a little, not wanting to even consider that it might not resolve on its own. So we waited and waited, and didn’t pursue further intervention until he was almost 1 year old.
At that time, we went to a local Occupational Therapist who specializes in babies with torticollis. She is a very skilled therapist, as well as a very warm and empathetic person– she is a wonderful clinician. She began educating us on stretching and positioning, and strongly recommended cranial banding due to the assymetry in his face, ears, and jaw. Our son began wearing the helmet shortly after his first birthday (which is very late in terms of effectiveness for cranial banding!), and wore it 23 hrs/day for 3 months. I was SO anxious about the helmet, and remember crying about my poor baby having to wear it… but we had it painted to look like a footbal helmet, and he actually looked really cute in it and it didn’t bother him one bit. Most importantly, it worked!
He is now 5 years old and has a perfectly round head with no assymetry. Also, the OT and our pediatrician (who later got on board with treatment) wrote excellent letters to our insurance company, and our cranial band was paid for IN FULL– we were amazed and ecstatic!
Our second son was born about a year after our first came out of his cranial band, and he also had a strong tendency to look towards one side right from birth. The second time around I was definitely watching him through my physical therapist eyes! We noticed the torticollis immediately and brought him to our OT within about 2 months. We started doing weekly OT sessions and home exercises, as well as using our knowledge about appropriate positioning and use of tummy time, and after a couple months his flat spot had disappeared and he was no longer turning his head in only one direction.
I feel strongly that if we had not intervened as early as we did with our second son, we would have ended up needing a cranial band for him too, so I’m so happy that we knew better the second time around. I hope this information might be helpful to anyone who is in a similar situation, unsure of whether or not to pursue further intervention. If you notice a flat spot or limited range of motion in the neck at all, I would definitely recommend purusing intervention… cranial banding is non-invasive and very effective, but can be expensive (depending on your insurance) and time-consuming, so all the more reason to pursue early intervention to possibly eliminate the need for a band at all!
How can you can help?
A recent research study reveals significant differences in brain development in high-risk infants who are eventually diagnosed with autism- the differences are present as early as 6-months of age. The study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry reports that even before the symptoms of autism are present, differences in brain development can be detected through brain scans.
These findings can be important for early diagnosis, and early diagnosis can lead to early intervention, which is key in the treatment of autism. The earlier treatment is initiated, the more progress is typically made in many skill areas.
The study followed 92 infants from 6 months up to two years of age. The infants were considered high-risk because they had an older sibling diagnosed with autism. By age two, 30% of the infants involved in the study were diagnosed with autism.
Autism is a term that describes a group of complex developmental brain disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Parents and professionals refer to these diagnoses as Autism Spectrum Disorders. Recent research suggests that one child in every 88 will be diagnosed with autism, with the diagnosis being 3 to 4 times more common in boys than girls.
Resource: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/247179.php
