ASI intervention at an early age enhances the developmental progress of premature infants.

ABSTRACT

Background: This study investigated the impact of an intensive early-intervention programme, the Developmental Resource Stimulation Programme (DRSP), on Down syndrome (DS) children younger than 42 months in the South African context. The DRSP is a unique, child-parent specific, one-on-one, integrated developmental programme for children with Down syndrome from birth to 42 months.Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the DRSP on Down syndrome children younger than 42 months in the South African context.Methodology: A non-randomised control group pre-test-post-test design was followed. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, 3 rd edition was used. Thirty children with the general characteristics of DS, specifically Trisomy 21, were included in the study. There were two groups, namely the intervention group (n = 16) and the control group (n = 14) which were studied over a period of six months.Results: This study showed that a specifically designed programme, with participation of a parent, has a positive impact on the development of the child with Down syndrome.Conclusion: Contrary to the existing literature, there were positive changes in the fine-motor development and language of the intervention group overall and in the gross-motor development of children older than 9-months with Down syndrome.

Introduction:The Developmental Test of Visual Perception second Edition (DTVP-2) is frequently used by South African (SA) occupational therapists, despite the suitability of its US-based norms for SA children being questioned, and the 2014 release of the updated DTVP-3. This study investigated the suitability of the DTVP-2 norms for SA English-speaking children aged 5y 6mo-5y 11mo. SA sample scores were compared to American norms. Motor-reduced subtest scores were compared with and without the stop rule. Gender differences were tested. Methods: A quantitative, descriptive study used 134 English speaking children. Motor-enhanced subtests were administered as prescribed, but motor-reduced subtests were administered without the prescribed stop rule, allowing prescribed and adapted scores to be computed. Results: Scores of SA children varied from American norms, especially in visual closure, visual-motor speed and form constancy. Better visual closure scores were obtained when the stop rule was excluded. Boys and girls differed only on figure-ground, where girls scored higher. Conclusion: The DTVP-2 is valuable, but caution is recommended when measuring visual perceptual skills for this age band. Alternative instruments should be used, or local norms, or even more contextually relevant instruments, must be developed locally. At least, occupational therapists should apply US norms with care.

INTRODUCTIONAccording to the literature there are few effective early-intervention programmes for children with developmental problems in South Africa [1][2][3][4] . There is a need to ascertain, not only the effectiveness of an intervention programme, but also, at what age intervention should start, what the duration of the intervention should be, and what the frequency of intervention sessions should be 5 . This study, investigated the impact of the Developmental Resource Stimulation Programme (DRSP) on children with Down syndrome and provided the opportunity to establish the specific duration and frequency of intervention required by children with DS to achieve an occupational performance activity.The DRSP is a unique, child-parent-specific, one-on-one integrated programme for children with DS from birth to 42 months and spans seven age bands 6,7 . It was developed in order for both the parent and child to be actively involved during activity participation at home. The DRSP activities manual is easy to understand and/or read and consists of 85 activities. The activities cover cognitive, language, fine-motor and gross-motor development. The activities also utilise occupations such as play and social participation of the child. The manual consists of detailed sketches, descriptions of occupational activities for participation and clearly stipulates the outcomes (goals) of the programme. The materials used are everyday household objects such as three plastic mugs, four teaspoons and a facecloth. These objects are durable, inexpensive and they do not exclude any socio-economic group 8,9 . It is a systematic programme consisting of exercises and activities designed to address developmental delays experienced by children with DS in different age bands [10][11][12] . It was developed to assist parents of children with DS in developing countries. The development of the programme is described in more detail in the article "The impact of the "Development Resource Stimulation Programme on children with Down syndrome" published in this journal 13 . Background: The duration of an intervention session for an intensive early-intervention programme, the Developmental Resource Stimulation Programme (DRSP), for Down syndrome (DS) children younger than 42 months, was investigated as part of a larger research