Cerebral Palsy Case Study: Play And Development

1367 Words3 Pages

Case Study: Play and Development Kim Doe is almost three years old. She has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a neurological disorder that is oftentimes found in early childhood. It affects muscle coordination by voluntary movements, exaggerated reflexes, and tight or stiff muscles. Cerebral palsy also affects one’s body movements (“What is Cerebral Palsy,” 2015). Mrs. Doe would like to get Kim special education. After reading the case study, I would provide recommendations for using play to attain the developmental goals that were expressed in the study. According to Kennedy (2008, p. 15), “years of research has confirmed the value of play”. Even though Kim has been in early intervention and her mother is looking …show more content…

Dramatic play allows someone to pretend and dramatize actions and situations that are parallel to what they are playing (Cecchini, 2008). During dramatic play, there is no right or wrong answers. Hopefully by using this type of play, it will allow Kim to express herself with her actions and not get upset if she cannot express herself verbally. Some ways to provide Kim with this type of play would be to provide her with the appropriate play equipment. This can include a play kitchen set with play dishes, cashier for a grocery store and plastic foods, or different clothes for dress up. Since Kim has a hard time dressing and cannot dress herself yet, I would recommend clothes that are big and can easily slip on without having to take her other clothes …show more content…

First, since Kim likes to play in the water, I would use water to help with sound recognition by playing a game called “Plop it in the water” (Hill-Patterson, 2010). To do this, fill a bowl half full of water and get toys that start with the letter sounds in the alphabet. Since this is something new, I would start out with only a handful first and do little by little until Kim learns all of the sounds. I would then say a sound and have Kim match it with the correct toy. If she is right, she gets to “plop” it in the water. Another play idea would be to put toys that Kim knows inside of a box and describe the toy to her and have her guess what toy is it. When she gets used to this type of play and gets better in her language development, she can be the one to describe the toy to you. Lastly, I would play a game of following directions. Since Kim is already good at following 2-3 step directions and we are working on her language development, I would have Kim repeat every direction I say to her while she is following through on the direction. This will allow her to make the language connection to the direction. For instance, I might tell her to put the doll behind her back. Not only would Kim have to follow the direction, but she would also have to say the direction back to me which would work on her language

Open Document