infant development program
Infant Development has been serving Clinton County since 1974. We offer many services including, early intervention, parent education and preschool. We are honored to assist the children and families of our community reach their full potential. Infant Development serves approximately 380 families per year through the support of the Clinton County United Way.
Below is a report from one of the teachers at Infant Development show casing the care, concern and success that take place daily at our center.
During my years of teaching I have had several success stories; however, there is one in particular that truly touched my heart. I was in my second year of teaching in the Autistic Support classroom when I had the sweetest child join my class. This child lacked language skills, had behavior concerns, and was previously diagnosed with autism. The young child would become so upset because they did not know how to express their needs that they would injure themselves or others. This child’s extreme behavior sent me on a mission, a mission to find ways to help them not only communicate, but to safely calm themselves when something did upset them.
While testing various ways to help the child communicate, I found that signing and using the iPad seemed to make the biggest impact. As for helping finding strategies for self-calming, I found that deep pressure therapy was the answer. Through hard work and determination, I taught this child to come to me and sign when they started feeling overwhelmed and needed deep pressure therapy. After finding successful strategies to communicate their wants and needs, the behaviors of injuring themselves and others greatly diminished.
This child showed me how much I truly love my line of work and can make a difference.