EARLY INTERVENTION
Early intervention (from ages 3 to 5) is the cornerstone of our intervention. It is renowned for its potential to reduce the effects of disabilities on the young child’s development. It demands a high degree of specialisation and an intensity of 15 to 20 hours a week. A child entering the programme is followed by our team as early as possible. Initially, it is fundamental to work on a one-on-one basis, in order to reduce maladaptive behaviours, correct impaired learning modes and stimulate the cognitive functions essential to learning. This highly specialised level of intervention is generally implemented over the course of 2 years. The intensity varies according to the child and is adapted as the child progresses. Group activities with other children, disabled or not, can also be worked into the programme.
Intensive early intervention benefits from the child’s brain plasticity and from the still limited existence of additional disabilities. The goal is three-fold: to increase the prospects and to limit the disorganising effects of the disability on development, to stimulate the acquisition of adaptive processes and to prevent the onset of secondary disabilities. We have noted that, at different levels, the difficulty in grasping and understanding the outside world – stemming from disorders related to the integration of information from the senses, disruptions between perception and emotional structures, difficulties in establishing functional communicative exchanges and in understanding and responding to external demands – directs the child towards impaired learning and knowledge that is ill-suited to the social and physical environment.
With an intensive early intervention programme, we want the child to benefit from a specific educational intervention from the onset of the first observable symptoms. The number of sessions and the quality of support is high during the first years of childhood in order to allow qualitative changes in communication, in reciprocal social exchanges and in the building of a relevant repertoire. Considering the earliness of the intervention, our programme takes the child into account as a whole, including the family environment.
PROGRAMME CONTENT
Development of expressive and receptive communication
Relational and exchange therapy and play
Learning to regulate behaviours according to defined goals
Regulation of behaviour and expression of emotions
Meaning and invariants extraction
Instrumentation of the body and improvement of visuo-motor executions/operations