Week 2: Entry 1

Today I was introduced to the concept of global developmental delay in children. This means that not only are their gross motor skills delayed but also are fine motor, speech, language and cognitive skills are delayed to a pretty similar point. If their assessed to have a development age less than 70% of actual age assessed by a Griffiths score then the child is classified with an intellectual disability. This assessment is carried out by a paediatrician, rather than the physio who will mainly assess gross motor skills, commonly using the AIMS score (i.e. Alberta Infant Motor Scale).

I met an 11mth old girl today who was suspected to have a global delay but has not yet been seen by a paediatrician (but is on waitlist). She is recieving treatment currently by both physio and OT with the physio predominantly focusing on lack of strength in upper and lower limbs and a hesitation to WB through her lower limbs. This is evident in supporting the child in pull to stand as she flexes her knees quickly when her feet touch the ground.

The exercises done with a peanut ball and bolster in 4 point kneeling and lying prone over peanut ball and just rocking the baby so that herr limbs are forced to take weight. To sit her up, another challenge, the hip key point was stabilised as she rolled onto her side and she given assistance as required at the opposite shoulder so she had to work her core muscles to move into a sitting position.

At the moment this little girl is at roughly an 8mth gross motor level and is thought to be at roughly this point in all skills. A factor that is contributing to her gross motor delay especially is the reduced motivation to move and play which may also be linked to cognitive delay. The poor motivation means that she is not trying to explore her surroundings and is quite content to just sit and play with whats available as well as being very hesitant and slow to pivot in prone even though she would physically be able to do it.