My aim is to work with parents to enhance the abilities of all children who have developmental problems. I believe that every child has the right to the opportunity to fulfill his / her potential. I see children who have been completely written off, whose parents have been told to expect little or no progress, but more often than not, between us we manage to defy those predictions and progress is indeed made! Some children make remarkable progress, some make steady progress and some make a little progress. Occasionally (and fortunately, rarely), a child makes no progress at all. This is because we do not yet know fully everything there is to know about brain function and plasticity. My desire for all the children I see is for them to achieve the highest possible level of functioning in each area of development. In the future as our knowledge and consequently our treatment methods improve, I believe that this 'highest possible level of functioning' will indeed become 'developmental normality.'
I accept all children who have developmental disabilities, no matter how slight or severe those disabilities are. I then attempt to assist them in making the maximum possible degree of progress in all areas. There are three factors which influence how much progress a child can make, they are as follows.
- The knowledge possessed by Snowdrop. - I am continually updating my knowledge base and remain 'research friendly.' I refuse to be locked in to one ideology, remaining sufficiently eclectic to incorporate new techniques, which are derived from academic research and incorporate them into my programme
- The ambition and commitment of the parents to the programme. Most parents realise that if a child is suffering from a developmental disability, then it is going to take an approach which is a little more radical than say, an hour a week of physiotherapy to change their child's situation. To effect a change, parents must be prepared to commit to a programme of two hours per day, six days per week. I am however, still prepared to work with children whose parents cannot commit to this amount of time, because I believe that even a little correct stimulation is better than none, but parents must realise that progress might be slower in such circumstances.T
- The nature of the brain injury itself. If the injury is highly focussed on one particular area of the brain, or a brain structure is totally missing, (for example in 'agenesis of the corpus callosum'), then it is obvious that no amount of stimulation is going to bring back that structure. However, what I can do is to work towards the goal of ensuring that the neurology which is present, functions as efficiently as possible.
