Infant Developmental Movement

The greatest gifts we can give a child are a sense of physical and emotional well-being, a sense of comfort and bonding, the joy of being, curiosity, confidence, the ability to relate to others, and organization and problem solving skills. These are greatly influenced by the child’s early movement and touch learning experiences. Through play and handling, teachers, parents and caregivers have the opportunity to make a difference in a child’s life. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of skillful training available on basic skills, including proper handling and a deep understanding of developmental movement patterns. We facilitate children in learning to speak and read, but passively assume that their movement will develop to its full potential without any kind of understanding or direction on our part.

The first year of life is crucial in the development of the child and of the adult the child will become. During this time, the infant is forming the patterns of movement, perception, and organization of information on which it will build its relationships to itself, to others and to the world. Facilitating development during this period can greatly enhance the child's physical, emotional and intellectual abilities.

Touch and movement are the earliest ways in which the child comes to know itself and its world. They form the base for more complex learning processes. They are the first modalities of learning and form the foundation for bonding, relationships, perception, learning, emotional well-being, physical agility, cognitive functioning and the general ease with which a child can grow and develop.

The nervous system is developing rapidly in infancy. While this neurological development has an effect on movement, the child's movement also has an affects the nervous system. Neurological organization is greatly influenced by the emergence and integration of the child's movement patterns. Patterns that do not emerge or do not become integrated can have a serious affect on the child's functioning. However, because the nervous system has great plasticity during this period, it is easier to facilitate optimal movement.

The Infant Developmental Movement Education Program (IDME)

This program is a highly sophisticated and subtle approach to the observation and facilitation of normal movement patterns in infants. The approach incorporates the child’s curiosity, interest and individuality into the relationship with the educator. It is child centered and relationship centered, and child oriented rather than task oriented.

It trains people to recognize early movement patterns and to interact effectively with infants in gentle, enticing ways that will have a positive effect on their growth and development. The goal in movement education with infants is to help set a foundation that supports pathways of ease, strength, agility and adaptability and to help avoid restrictive patterns of movement that inhibit the development of the full potential of the child.

The approach is gentle, non-intrusive, and enticing rather than demanding. It is direct and highly specific to the individual child. It It does not force or impose, but focuses, engages, interacts, entices and seeks to engage the child’s inherent curiosity and interest. It always looks at the whole child and fully embraces each child and their parents and family. It includes and educates the family in the interactive process.

In this training, students will learn to:

• Observe how normal movement develops in infancy.
• Identify and analyze normal movement patterns.
• Facilitate normal movement development in a child.
• Facilitate basic perception in relation to movement.
• Work with infants developing within the normal range.
• Educate parents about ways to facilitate normal movement development in their child.
• Identify and analyze basic movement difficulties and to facilitate normal movement development.
• Recognize problems in infants at risk for developing physical problems, learning disabilities, and emotional limitations.
• Recognize indications for referral to an appropriate therapist.

Program Participants

This program is designed to train people to evaluate and facilitate normal development in infants using an embracing, child-centered approach. It is suited for those who are new to working with infants and those who are already working with them. We especially invite:

Early childhood educators and day-care professionals.

• People working in the fields of movement, bodywork, massage or somatic education who want to expand their skills to include infants.
• Parents and caregivers.
• Medical and other professionals interacting with children, parents and caregivers, including occupational, physical, speech, and auditory therapists and social workers.

Curriculum

The key to change is engaging the child rather than making the problem the focus. Extraordinary change is possible when the person the child is, is met. This program is an exploration of how to meet and engage that person and how to facilitate change. The program is composed of two parts:

• Core developmental movement courses in which students experientially explore key patterns of movement development: Basic Neurological Patterns; Primitive Reflexes, Righting Reactions and Equilibrium Responses; Senses and Perception 1; and Ontogenetic Development. These are the same in-depth courses taken by students in our longer Somatic Movement Education program and Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner certification program. They cover the experiential exploration of developmental movement.
• Two courses on the application of developmental movement in working with infants: Infant Developmental Movement Education 1 and Infant Developmental Movement Education 2.

The core developmental movement courses and the IDME 1 and 2 courses are being planned in the U.S. for North Carolina.  If you are interested in the IDME program, please contact Maryska Bigos, North Carolina Program Coordinator at

maryska@nc.rr.com  or 919-286-7688 ext 7#

Your inquiry will help us plan dates and formats for these courses.
 

Course Descriptions

 Senses and Perception 1

Our senses begin as potential and develop in response to stimulation and experience. The senses of touch and movement are located throughout the body -- in every cell. The senses of vision, hearing, taste and smell are located in the head. It is through our senses that we receive information from our internal environment (ourselves) and the external environment (others and the world).

How we filter, modify, distort, accept, reject, and use that information is part of the act of perceiving. Perception is a global experience. It is the psychophysical process of interpreting information based on past experience, present circumstances and future expectations.

When we choose to absorb information, we bond to that aspect of our environment. When we block out information, we defend against that aspect. Learning is the process by which we vary our responses to information based on the context of each situation. This course will include:

• Exploration of the six senses (movement, touch, taste, smell, hearing and vision).
• Analysis of the perceptual-response cycle as the process of perception.
• Bonding, defending and learning as psychophysical processes based on our perceptions.

4 days; 28 contact hours

 Basic Neurological Patterns (BNP)

The development of these patterns in humans parallels the evolutionary development of movement through the animal kingdom. The Basic Neurological Patterns are the words of our movement. They are the building blocks for the phrases and sentences of our activities. They also establish a base for our perceptual relationships (including body image and spatial orientation) and for our learning and communication.

The BNP are one of the foundations of Body-Mind Centering®. The BNP have extensive application in the areas of movement and psychophysical expression. Done in sequences, the BNP can also form the basis for a deep and ongoing personal movement practice. This course will include:

• Exploration of the prevertebrate patterns: vibration, cellular, sponging, pulsation, mouthing, and prespinal.
• Exploration of the vertebrate patterns: spinal, homologous, homolateral, and contralateral.
• Distinguishing and integrating the actions of yield, push, reach and pull.
• Combinations of the vertebrate patterns that facilitate their integration.
• Facilitating developmental repatterning in yourself and others.

7 days; 49 contact hours

 Primitive Reflexes, Righting Reactions and Equilibrium Responses (RRR)

If the Basic Neurological Patterns are the words, the Primitive Reflexes, Righting Reactions and Equilibrium Responses are the fundamental elements, the alphabet, of our movement. Underneath all successful, effortless movement are integrated reflexes, righting reactions and equilibrium responses. The reflexes are the most primitive patterns that occur in response to specific stimuli, and they establish basic survival patterns of function. The righting reactions are important in establishing a vertical or upright posture against gravity and a continuous head-torso axis. The equilibrium responses are patterns which maintain balance of the whole body in the dynamic relationship between the shifting of one's center of gravity through space and one's base of support. This course will include:

• Fundamental building blocks of human movement (the alphabet of movement).
• Postural tone and physiological flexion and extension.
• Differentiating the RRR in relation to the three planes of movement (horizontal, vertical, sagittal).
• The roles of the RRR in readiness for relating, relating to earth and heaven, gathering and reaching, taking hold and letting go, weight bearing, rolling, vertical uprightness, locomotion and equilibrium.

6 days; 42 contact hours

 Ontogenetic Development

The period from intrauterine life through approximately 12 months of age is an extraordinarily formative time for humans. Our basic movement patterns emerge in utero, are present at birth, and develop through the first year of life. It is during this time that we build the groundwork for our movement and perceptual skills and pass through the milestones by which we mark our development. This course will include:

• Developmental milestones including: fetal movement, nursing, head control, eye-hand coordination, rolling, circumduction, belly crawling, quadrupedal creeping, sitting, kneel-sitting, kneel-standing, half kneel-sitting, half kneel-standing, squatting, standing, cruising, and 4walking.
• The sequence of development that allows the infant to progress through each and all skill levels during its development process.
• Patterns of movement that inhibit more integrated skills from developing.
• Facilitating integrated movement skills and inhibiting patterns which limit full development.

3 days; 21 contact hours

The focus of the Infant Developmental Movement Education 1 and 2 courses is on learning a non-invasive, playful and heartful approach to interacting with infants and their families and on applying the developmental movement material specifically in facilitating normal movement in infants.

 Infant Developmental Movement Education 1

• Developmental assessment of children from birth to 12 months.
• Applications of developmental movement repatterning in working with infants.
• Safe and appropriate handling of infants.
• Educational play and toys.
• Professional issues in working with infants, parents and caregivers.
• Indications, contraindications, scope of practice and referrals.

10 days; 70 contact hours

 Infant Developmental Movement Education 2

• Developmental assessment and movement repatterning skills in working with infants in relation to their parents, caregivers and other family members.
• Developmental assessment and movement repatterning skills in working with infants in relation to daily activities and environment.
• Educational play and toys.
• Professional issues in working with infants, parents and caregivers.
• Professional issues in working as an infant developmental movement educator.

10 days; 70 contact hours