A day in "Gan" Shalva

About a month ago, I enrolled Nissim in an early childhood development program at Shalva- an organization that has many programs and services for children with special needs.  This program was developed primarily for children with Down's Syndrome, but once a week they run it for children who were born premature or who had extended hospital stays and therefore have developmental delay.  The program offers a variety of different therapies to help the children develop and maximize their potential- physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, hydrotherapy, and massage therapy.

One of my favorite parts of the program is what they call the "white room". It is a special room that is completely white, with a cushiony floor (part of it is even a waterbed!) and there are different light stimuli in the room.  This type of room (invented in the 70's in Sweden) helps minimize distraction and therefore allows the "patient" to focus on the senses of vision and touch. 

In one corner of the room are two columns filled with water- there are lights shining in the water that change color, and bubbles which float upwards through the tube.  The therapist can turn on and off the lights and bubbles, and Nissim really watches them intently....he's even learned that when the bubbles dissappear, he should look at the bottom of the tube because that's where they start!

Nissim's FAVORITE part of the white room (and mine as well!) is the "spaghetti" - fiber optic strands that have a light shining through them (which changes colors).  He loves to grab the strands and watches them as he moves them around- and when he finds the pile where all the strands are, its very hard to distract him to do something else!

(the picture didn't come out NEARLY as good as the real thing..its hard to capture it!)

B"H Nissim has really started to develop nicely recently...and we hope that IY"H it should continue!