Parents As Teachers

Parents as Teachers is a program in Missouri where an employee from the early education program from the school district that we live in comes and visits Nathan and does age-appropriate activities with him, observes him to make sure he is developmentally in the right place, offers workshops for parents and sometimes for children (once they get a little older), and does screenings (hearing, health, and vision). They come 4 times a year, and their year runs from May 1st-April 30th, so before April 30th, 2009 we will get to see our representative 4 times! It is a really nice program!

Stephanie (our person) came on December 14th. We had a great visit! Luckily Nathan was awake when she came, so we got to actually do stuff on the first visit. (She said on the first newborn visit most babies are sleeping so she usually just talks with the mother.) She couldn't believe how alert Nathan is! She had black and white picture of faces that she put out for Nathan to look at (apparently babies like black and white and focus on eyes and noses more than mouths-so some of the pictures didn't even have mouths!) He enjoyed that part (he spent the most time looking at the dog). Then she started assessing him developmentally. Here is was she found out:

1. He is able to lift and turn his head while on his tummy on the floor. (he is ahead here-this usually doesn't occur until 3 1/2 months of age!)
2. He was able to track an object across his midline (this is a big deal developmentally-or so my mom says-apparently this is really good because his brain is developing wonderfully)
3. He was able to focus on pictures for 2+ minutes. This is a long time for his age she said. She said he should only be able to focus for a few seconds.
4. He makes crawling movements while on his tummy (he won't be crawling anytime soon thankfully she said).
5. He turned his head when he heard my voice (I think most babies do this??)

One thing she taught me about that we always just thought was something funny Nathan that does is the tonic reflex. The tonic reflex is when the baby turns his or her head to one side. Everyone at first told me he was "rooting" but really, it is just a reflex. (We can now tell the difference between rooting and his tonic reflex-thankfully!)

Our next appointment with Stephanie is in February!