Hi, My daughter has down syndrome and is 2 years old. I have read many of the Doman books about reading and math. Recently I was reading How to Help Your Brain Injured Child. I was wondering if any of you used some of the patterning methods and if you noticed change?
Sandy
Sandy,
I read the book awhile ago so my recollection is sketchy. I think you are talking about the cross pattern crawling, etc. I didn’t try to go back to crawling because my son was older age 7. However I did get swim lesson for my son which is a cross pattern exercise. I couldn’t see any tremendous difference in brain functioning afterwards but I’m still glad I did it. I’m not sure that he got enough of it to make a difference. I’ve been thinking of getting more swim lessons this summer. On his own, my son plays in the pool and doesn’t swim properly with the cross pattern. Our only pool access is a public pool with our condo so it isn’t peaceful enough for him to focus on his pattern. At swim lessons, the pool is calm and my son listens to the instructor and uses a cross pattern. It makes sense to me that it should help synchronize the left and right brain hemisphere. It is hard to reinforce cross pattern exercise at my son’s age (8 yrs old). What were you planning on doing? I thought I remembered he had some kids that could walk go back to crawling. I’m not sure how I feel about that. My son is quite delayed but I’ve never gotten a satisfactory explanation for all of his problems. He is dx’d with ADHD inattentive type, a motor tic disorder, and learning disabilities.
Lori
Hi Sandy,
I tried various patterning execises. she is already 3 but i got her to do crawling and creeping- honestly was a little difficult so i had to crawl together with her . I also do brachiating-swinging on monkey bars, walking on the balance beam- this can be any beam having similar fucntion- i just get her to walk on the park at our apartment which has the raised beams along the walking path. basically u can do any exercises that reinforce the cross patterning - the objective is to activate the right and left brain.
u can also try brain gym activity whr the child is told to lift up legs in crossed pattern to opposide sides adain for the same objective.i get her to climb stair case up and down daily. also walking on various surfaces. weekends : she does forward and backward rolling & summersault.
i have seen remarkable changes in her mobility by doing various physical activities with her.
Thanks for your input. My daughter is two and is doing the bear crawl and scoot on her bottom. She can crawl she just chooses NOT to. I think some of the cross patterning would be very good for her I am just trying to figure out what would be best.
Sandy
hi sandy,
if she does not like crawling, get her to swim or any other activities that uses the same principles.
I’m interested in doing this, but not sure how…my daughter is 9 months old and not yet crawling. She does love to be in the pool, but does not use a cross pattern when she “swims” and I don’t know how I could encourage it at her age. What activities would you folks try to encourage the cross patterning for non-mobile babies?
I’m thinking that you mean patterning where the child is a passive participant & several people “pattern” her by putting her body through a patterning pattern? We have done this a little bit, but not in the true, 3 person team method that is supposed to be used. There are a videos floating around on the net, & some better descriptions. I’m up way too late already, so met me know if you can’t find anything & I’ll do some digging.
If you do find some links, could you please post them here so others can see what I’m talking about? Thanks
Thanks ayusmom! That’s exactly what I meant:)
Yes, Thanks for the video. Sometimes I feel like we should have done this but it looks very intense. We have been making Adeline crawl back and forth a few times a day. I think that the crawling is also helpful since she wants to scoot.
Sandy
That’s what we did Sandy. We used a crawling track to encourage crawling, then encourage as much crawling as possible. I’m sure some people were horrified when we allowed our dd to crawl through museums & parks when on holidays:)! Then, when she was almost walking, we discouraged cruising by not placing furniture in ways that encouraged it.