Communicating With Play : Learning disorders: More than 400 youngsters--from infants to age 5--are enrolled in home-based or special education classes offered through county schools.

Vicky Dillin is worried. Her 2 1/2-year-old daughter speaks only a few words, while most youngsters her age can rattle off 50.

“She can make sounds, but she can’t express herself,” Dillin said. “You can tell she is frustrated.”

But Dillin is getting help for the toddler.

Each week, Kimberly attends a special class for youngsters who have delayed speech and motor skills or more severe handicaps, such as Down’s syndrome and spina bifida.

The special education classes--funded by state and federal grants--are available to infants and children up to 5 years old. About 413 children are enrolled in the home-based infant program or in special preschool classes, offered through the school districts in the county. Nearly two dozen preschool children are on waiting lists for the programs.

Five years ago, Ventura County was one of the first in California to offer special education for infants and preschool children with learning disorders, and so far the results have been good, officials say.

The Assistance League School, which contracts with the Oxnard Elementary School District to provide special education for 3- to 5-year-olds, reports that 18 of 21 students who attended last year have since entered kindergarten or first grade as regular students.

The premise of the program, officials say, is to get to children as soon as possible so they do not fall behind in kindergarten or elementary school.

“We feel the majority of a child’s development happens before he or she is 5 years old,” said Lisa Franklin, infant program specialist with the Simi Valley and Moorpark unified school districts. “That’s the best time to develop the kinds of skills they need to be successful.”

Initially, children are given a battery of physical and verbal tests to see if they qualify for the program.

With an increase in the number of low-birth-weight infants nationally, there also has been a dramatic rise in the number of children who have difficulty paying attention, specialists say.

Once admitted to the program, parents can have a special teacher visit their home or can sign up their children in the special classes.

The tools the teachers use might seem unusual: stacks of magazines, a few colored index cards, a sack full of toys, birdseed, feathers, nursery rhymes.

The key, according to program officials, is to communicate with the children by playing with them.

Once a week, Dillin and her daughter attend a class at Simi Elementary School and a specialist comes to their house.

During a recent class, Kimberly and her classmates painted jack-o-lanterns on white paper, an exercise designed to help children develop better motor skills and to teach them the parts of the face.

Franklin said teachers also help the children strengthen their lip, cheek and mouth muscles to make it easier for them to speak.

“Sometimes we have them suck applesauce through a straw,” Franklin said.

Within the past few weeks Kimberly, who suffers from a delayed speech disorder, has started to communicate because of the program, her mother said.

“It’s really been a big help,” Dillin said. “But we are still worried about her. She can say ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ . . . but she doesn’t have a name for herself.”

Also, assistance is given to the family members who might be unprepared to cope with developmental handicaps.

“Parents never dream they will have a ‘problem’ baby,” said Diane Petrovich, an infant program specialist with the Oxnard Elementary School District.

When they realize their child is different, parents can be devastated.

“When we first visit a home, we have to establish where the parents are in the grieving process,” Petrovich said. “The parents are often still mourning the death of the perfect child, and learning to accept a less-than-perfect child.”

Dillin said she and her husband struggled to accept Kimberly’s problems.

“It was really difficult to accept that something was wrong with our child,” Dillin said. “Once we got past that point . . . we have been really happy she is in the program.”

Patti Wabu, whose 3-year-old son Tyler attends class with Kimberly, said she found herself searching through an old calendar listing of doctor’s appointments to try to figure out what had robbed her boy of his speech.

Before a series of ear infections, Tyler was developing a normal vocabulary, she said.

Then the words stopped. Now he hardly talks.

Officials say severe ear infections can cause speech loss in children.

“Now it’s a matter of catching him back up,” Wabu said.

The results of the special education program have encouraged administrators.

“They respond quicker than if you were to bring the services in at high school,” said Gaye Kubat, director of special education for the Oxnard Elementary School District.

More than half of the children who participate in Oxnard’s preschool program are able to enter the mainstream by the time they attend kindergarten or first grade, Kubat said.

And as news of the program’s success has spread, school districts have started to receive referrals from unexpected sources, Kubat said.

“I sometimes get calls from the neonatal unit at Ventura County Medical Center to advise me that a child is leaving there who will (someday) need special education,” she said.

Petrovich said she encourages parents to get their children into the program as soon as they realize there might be a problem.

“Having a child with a learning disorder is still a private thing,” she said. “But families learn that the child will benefit from special education, and no longer need to hide their child.”

Times correspondent Patrick McCartney contributed to this story.