Individual Child

Work towards child-chosen goals and develop strategies for life-long learning

  • When using individualized interventions, be sure to involve the child to determine relevant and meaningful goals for intervention (see Planning Interventions and Goals)
  • Include Evidence-Based Practice Principles in your intervention. Focus beyond the remediation of primary impairments and incorporate best approaches to foster activity and participation. For example, working on lower extremity strengthening or the performance of ‘Jumping Jacks’ may improve strength and the ability to do Jumping Jacks, but these activities in isolation are unlikely to increase a child’s ability to transfer or generalize these capacities to other activities
  • Transfer knowledge about Evidence-Based Practice to significant others involved in a child's life: family members, educators, and community/sport group leaders. Specific targeted resources are available for each of these groups of individuals (for a summary of the resources in this module, as well as for other additional resources, see the Resource section).
Question for Reflection
Isn't it better to use the time I have with the child to support him directly instead of working with adults in his environment?
Click here for some thoughts on this question
Isn't it better to use the time I have with the child to support him directly instead of working with adults in his environment?

As a PT, you have unique skills. You might need to work with the child to help him/her to acquire specific skills or to be able to participate in particular activities. However, due to limited resources, you often have very limited time with each child. You do, however, also have the expertise to transfer your knowledge to supportive adults (parents, educators, coaches) effectively increasing the number of hours in a day and the environments in which a child may be encouraged to use problem-solving strategies. Building capacity in the adults in a child’s life is likely to be the most effective and efficient way to help the child with DCD and his/her family to manage the difficulties that will arise in the future, each time a child must learn a new skill. In other words, your intervention will be effective for the long-term, with the goal that the child and family will be empowered to independently address difficulties with new motor skills.

So what about Max?
You decide to work one-on-one with Max to help him learn skipping. You use best approaches to design your intervention (see the videos in the section "Are some Approaches Better?" to see what your intervention would look like!).