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Sunday 5 September 2010

Since the Northampton NHS professionals (distinct from other professionals such as Speech & Language therapists from Milton Keynes :)) have stated that Seth's cognitive development is only that of a 3 months old I've been pretty confused by what 'cognitive development' actually is. The other development terms are 'physical' and 'speech and language' so surely cognitive surely means intelligence - Seth's understanding of the world around him. Certainly this seems far beyond a 3 month old. So I've finally googled the term and come across a Wikipedia entry for Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development. Now I remember this from my psychology A level and I do now better understand how they are meaning it. If you follow Piaget's model then Seth would appear to be in the 4-8 month banding (still better than they said!!). However, this model really relies on vision and Seth has visual difficulties so surely you need another model? I have found a site with some interesting research. If I am going to help Seth understand and interact with his world I'm going to need understand how his visual difficulties may be impeding this and then what I can do to bridge that gap. Of course not really understanding what he does and doesn't see doesn't really help!!

2 comments:

  1. :)
    We went to our Orthoptists in Manchester and they used 2 tests to examine Ashley's vision.

    One involved putting drops in his eyes which opened his pupils. They then closely examined his retinas and found them malformed. They could then give us a description of the limitation of his vision - left right up down.

    They then did a test with cards which had marks at one end. They watched him for turning toward the marked end. As the cards progressed the marks became less distinct and at a point they said that they knew the strength of his vision (which improved over time).

    From this we knew he couldnt and still cant see much below his nose and his peripheral vision is pants too. We also tailored his toys because babies and kids with poorly developed eyesight see black and white things better than coloured ones (like Lamaze do with zebra stripes and panda markings but cheaper if you keep your eyes open, Lamaze are bloody expensive) This grabbed his attention and really brought him on.

    As for the Cognitive Development, it was explained to us that Ashley's development was tied into his physical skills and mobility. Babies explore through touch and taste etc and immobile kids naturally develop more slowly. That's why your physio work with him is so vital. Rolling over and crawling give him a bigger world, more to explore, tadaa better cognitive development. It's only at the end of this exploratory phase that children become to develop memory, object pemanence and early speech skills - that's where Ashley is, using certain noises or signs to represent real things like Nong for a drink, Nana for banana etc

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  2. Hi Dave
    At what age did Ashley have this test? We go once a year and they give Seth the eyes drops but the guy only looks at his eyes - they've never used any cards. We've just been told that it will be years before we'll know what he can/can't see.
    I tried the black and white toys but didn't get any more reaction. He does really like black rectangle frames though - like picture frames!

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