Early Intervention Program (EIP)

Working hard and staying strong

The Early Intervention Program is a federal program where each state has been given a budget to offer therapy to children from birth to the age of Three years old who have a qualifying condition.  If you are curious to look into this in your state and not sure where to start google "early intervention, (insert your states name)".

We started our early intervention with Noah at 3 months old and wish we would have started earlier.  However, he qualified for three different types of therapies (therapists).

Physical Therapy- Twice a month to help him develop strength since he is severely hypo-tonic (low muscle tone).

• many tummy time therapy tricks (on the floor, on a yoga ball, on his side, ect)
• sitting therapies to help him lift his head
• rolling over
• pushing up on his arms and knees

Vision Therapy- twice a month (this is through the PIP organization in Utah)-

• help him focus on objects
•  to track with both of his eyes
•  to see and respond to different shapes or colors
• Use a light box or Ipad
• Use black and white sensory pictures (which I downloaded free off the interne and taped all over our house).  
• sound objects
• bright colored objects

Occupational Therapy - 2-3 times a month -originally to help Noah get off the feeding tube and now that he is off of that we are working on strengthening his throat and upper back muscles by doing many of the same therapies as we do in Physical Therapy.

****in 2012 the federal government cut the budget for this program (of all the stupid things).  So the state of Utah had $700,000 cut from their budget.  This made it so that all of the therapists had to cut the number of times they got to see each patient.  I hate this.  To pay for private therapy is something you should do if you can afford to do so (the more therapy you can get the better-starting from birth).  We unfortunately cannot afford to do this so we take about 10-20 hours a week between myself, my husband, and Noah's sitter (his aunt) to work on his therapy ourselves.  We attend every single therapy appointment to educate ourselves on how to do the practices.  This is a lot of time working Noah but honestly it is all fun and games and makes for some really good bonding time.  Every aspect of his day has some form of therapy element.  Even changing his diapers we work on head lifts and vision by having him focus on different pictures or sounds.