"Baby Steps" is an 8 week long Early Intervention Bridge Program for infants birth - 12 months old. Parents will receive periodic consultation from a physical therapist, an occupational therapist professional. Play-based activities focus on enhancing sensory-motor development, stimulating growth in all areas – including gross motor, fine motor, feeding, visual development, sensory processing, cognition, adaptive, social emotional and communication. Parent education and support is integrated into play sessions. This program provides the opportunity to bridge services for children who may continue to need added support in multiple areas of development.

Sensory Babies

Sensory processing refers to the way the nervous system receives messages from the senses and turns them into responses. For those with Sensory Processing Disorder, sensory information goes into the brain but does not get organized into appropriate responses. Those with SPD perceive and/or respond to sensory information differently than most other people. Unlike people who have impaired sight or hearing, those with Sensory Processing Disorder do detect the sensory information; however, the sensory information gets “mixed up” in their brain and therefore the responses are inappropriate in the context in which they find themselves.
 

Baby Moves

Play is how infants understand the world around them, and Tummy Time is the best way to build the strength and coordination needed to roll over, crawl, and reach. Since it is advised that babies lay on their backs to sleep and spend so much time in this position, parents are encouraged to work Tummy Time into their baby’s routine to help develop the neck and back muscles.

Baby Talk

 Babies listen from day one. They learn to associate sounds with their sources, like barking with the family dog. The first communication will be crying, but she'll soon begin to use her tongue, lips, and palate to make gurgles and long vowel sounds like "oo," "aa," and "ee"—precursors to baby's first words.

Babies as young as 4 weeks can distinguish between similar syllables like "ma" and "na." As young as 2 months, they begin to associate certain sounds with certain lip movements.