Early stimulation of the child with Down syndrome
What is early intervention?
It is the set of stimulation exercises that are performed with the child, to reduce the maturational delay associated with Down syndrome.
It can start days after birth, up to about six years old.
The areas of development that are favored with stimulation are: psychomotor, cognitive and linguistic, social and affective areas.
What is the important?
The family is a key element in early stimulation, since it is the main support in the progress and achievements of the child.
For this reason, in addition to performing the stimulation exercises, it is VERY IMPORTANT to maintain good relationships in the family environment with support, patience and the enjoyment of leisure time and simple day-to-day activities for the whole family.
How do we work early stimulation from home?
The exercises described below can be performed on children from birth to the first year of life.
For the psychomotor area, we will reinforce fine and gross motor skills as follows:
1- With the child lying down, take him by his hands and rock him from side to side counting to ten. Do it 3 times.
2- With the child lying down or sitting, show him a striking object or toy so that he follows it with his hands and eyes, getting him to change position.
3- Give him several safe toys and objects of different types of textures, so that he can manipulate each one for about 2 minutes. They can also pass through your body.
4- Sit the child on a ball or a large roller, support him from the back and very carefully move from side to side and from back to front.
For the cognitive and linguistic area:
1- Sing the child nursery rhymes, looking him straight in the eyes, calling his full attention as much as possible and motivating him to clap his hands or wave his hands.
2- Read children's stories to the child, actively, imitating voices. It is preferable that the book has colorful drawings, to show them to the child.
3- Perform massage on the child's face: on his lips from right to left, on the cheeks in circles.
For the social and affective area:
The child with Down syndrome must interact with other children.
However, for our children from the PROMESA Project, given their heart condition, it is not recommended that they visit common places, such as shopping centers, parks, etc. For this reason, the family must be the most beautiful company for our children, to make them happy, protect them and take care of them, carrying out practices such as good hand washing before caressing them, pampering them or helping them with feeding and bathing.
