Easter Seal Program Helps Disabled Tots

About 16 tykes, none older than 3 and all born with a learning disability, laid siege to a playroom last week, scooting through tunnels, rambling over jungle gyms and swinging on inner tubes.

But where others might see chaos, Judy Freeman saw a plan.

“In all this madness are goals and objectives,” Freeman said.

Freeman, an occupational therapist, is founder of the infant development program at the Ventura headquarters of the Easter Seal Society of Ventura County. In the past 20 years, the program has served about 1,200 youngsters, including 45 who will “graduate” Saturday.

“We try to find the strengths in a child and work with those,” Freeman said. “The child has to learn to be in a group without being overstimulated and focus on the task in a group setting.”

The year-round program is offered free to parents, who often participate with their children during the 90-minute, twice-a-week session. Children can enter the program shortly after birth and attend until they turn 3.

“It teaches me a lot of things to do with Thomas at home,” said Bea Swanks of Ventura, whose 2-year-old son has Down’s syndrome and has been in the program since he was 6 weeks old.

The 26 full- and part-time staff members help develop behavioral, physical, emotional and motor skills in the infants. Games are fun but also are designed to be instructional and therapeutic.

A popular game features a circular, multicolored parachute. Sitting around the parachute, the children, parents and instructors raise it up and down. A child’s name is called out and he or she has to crawl under the billowy parachute toward a designated person waiting underneath.

“The child has to learn to listen to the name and go to that person without getting lost,” Freeman said. “That’s a big task for these little guys.”

According to an Easter Seal spokeswoman, a majority of the children in the program go on to public school, with some taking special education and others able to attend regular classes.