Learning, Physical Development, Positive

Professional workers can assist parents of retarded infants by (1) helping them to recognize and cope with their feelings of guilt and despair, and (2) establishing a home program of exercises to allay the infant's inertia. Such exercises have been demonstrated by numerous investigators to be of positive value in improvement of motor performance. This paper gives the interventionist and parent a tool for determining the infant's functional level, using the principle that maturation proceeds in a cephalocaudal direction. The child is to be rated on a list of motor skills related to head control and to locomotion. Using this assessment as a basis, and with the physician's approval, the interventionist can suggest stimulation exercises for the child which will help him to learn to perform physical tasks, in sequence and over a period of time. Detailed instructions and diagrams are given for helping the child to attain 18 motor skills, which range from raising the head to walking unaided. The verbal response of the parent, both in providing direction and in showing pleasure and praise, is of crucial importance to the success of the retarded child in performing these programmed exercises. (NH