Movement & Brain Development

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An experiential applications workshop series on developmental movement, sensori-motor integration and whole child development.

Goal of workshop series
Introduce early childhood staff to principles and best practices of sensori-motor integration through developmental movement that forms the brain, emerging sense of self and physicality of babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers.

Tummy time:  Newborn to 6 months


Practices to help babies who are reluctant to spend time on their tummies. Helping babies who are delayed or skipping early developmental movements. Tummy Time workshop provides an introduction to the developmental movement patterns and their long term impacts.

Additional information:

Tummy Time workshop

Benefits of Tummy Time

 

Coming up in the world:  Babies, 6 to 12 months old

Applications to help babies who are delayed, skip movement stages or are reluctant in developmental activity. Principles of developmental movement and how they affect brain development and sensori-motor integration.

        Additional information:  Baby's Development

Challenges and Delays in Early Childhood:  Children, ages 1-5 years   

Practices and strategies to help young children, ages 1-5 years, with developmental delay,  early learning challenges and behavioral problems. Facilitate movements and activities that enable toddlers and preschoolers  to naturally self organize.   Principles of developmental movement and sensori-motor integration. How early movement affects brain development and learning readiness.

Additional information:  Dynamic Core of the Mind

Early intervention for

Risk factors and issues of early childhood

• Inconsolable crying
• Difficulties with sleeping
• Difficult to calm
• High need for attention
• Frequent tantrums
• Hyperactive
• Passive or withdrawn
• Hyper-sensitive (touchy)
• Hypo-sensitive (low response to touch)
• Did not like being placed on tummy
• Did not crawl on belly
• Delayed in sitting up/down on his/her own
• Did not crawl on hands and knees, or crawled very little
• Unusual crawling (one legged; on feet and hands, scooted on bottom, etc.)
• Late at learning to walk (later than 18 months)
• Late at learning to talk (later than 18 months)
• Speech problems
• Difficulty learning to dress (buttoning, tying shoelaces, etc)
• Thumb sucking up to age 5 years or more

Full checklist of early childhood risk factors

Principles & Practices

While we often focus on developmental milestones and delight in babies reaching them, we are better able to help babies if we understand the incremental self-organization of body and mind underlying transitions from one stage to the next.

The developmental sequence builds from specific, early baseline experiences to the later, more complex patterns. When a child has difficulty arriving at some developmental milestone, the most valuable support we can provide is to facilitate the early developmental movement patterns. By early assessment and intervention with age and stage appropriate adaptations, we can help the child self-organize for natural development.

Movement & Brain Development

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