Early Intervention for an At-Risk 16-Month Old Using Visual Communication Analysis (VCA) Leads to Gifted Performance

Abstract

Many developmental screeners focus heavily on receptive and expressive language skills, and the extent to which an infant can maneuver their environment. Research with young children typically involve motor skills, language, and occasionally simple procedural or problem solving tasks. The current study explores skills infants are expected to attain, and other skills that have never been tested in an infant who is considered “at-risk” due to moderate developmental delays.  Researchers collected data via specialized VCA software, video recordings, and the Vineland-3 pre- and post-study. The participant improved in all areas measured by the Vineland-3. Additionally, despite the participant being introduced to novel and progressively more difficult tasks, his average attention span throughout the entirety of the study was significantly longer than previous research suggests for infants. Researchers also implemented the detour box as a gross measure of frontal function. The participant successfully completed the detour task and multi-step problem solving.