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its a home based early intervention programme. it will look at all areas of development and do a basic baseline assessemtn first, then from that baseline look at areas to work on. you get 'homework', so maybe three or four areas of development to do specific activities to help promote development in that area. everything is broken down into small steps to make it acheivable and its a very child led process. when I was a portage home visitor (in the long and distant past!) I would look at (with the aprent) what areas were of particular importance to that child at that time, and then choose activities to do with that child (and the parent) over the hour of the home visit, and then leave 'homework' for the aprent to do with the child on a daily basis. the majority of activities can be fitted into a normal daily routine and many of them are simply play based and things you may already be doing, but it gives you the opportunity to see that you are actually doing more than you think you are sometimes to help your child. it does help to have a programme of sorts becoz it helps (or did me with my son) to see the progress he was making rathet than just hope he was making progress. the targets for the child will always be 'SMART' (which if I remember right) is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time limited. so a following instructions target might be can make teddy jump with 75% accuracy (or 3 out of 4 times or what ever).ANyway, it was immensely useful to my son and myself (before I became a PHV myself), even though I was already doing a lot of the same activities at home anyway as it gave me some structure to follow on a daily basis.

HiMy little boy has portage, one hour every other week. The lady come in our house and play with him for an hour.It's play but she pushes him doing things he struggles with, like motor skills, he should be able to stack 5 little cubes on top of the other, so they do that every week. They do lots of things in one hour, like sensory things as well: finger writing in the sand or shaving foam (messy play).She's currently working on communication with him, playing with cards with object on it. Very simple things but very hard for my boy. And it's always achievable, she does it in a way he can't get it wrong, so he's very pleased. It's very very good, I learnt so much thanks to her, I know what he's able to do, how to do things with him to help him in his development. It's great. She's got a sheet in her file about what children should be doing at what age and what my boy is doing. So she works from this.

Thank you both thats really helpful.By total coincidence they rang me back this afternoon so had quite a helpful conversation, but she didn't give me as much detail as you have.Its sounds positive; I suspect Kipper is falling behind with some fine motor skills. But can't imagine him playing with anyone as he always "scripts" who does what and won't be shown what to do.Still I expect they are used to tackling all sorts of funny behaviour!Many thanks.

Yes they should be used to different behaviours. My boy was defiant and kept throwing things everywhere. And I don't know how but he doesn't do it with her, when I try to do the things she does with him, he doesn't want to and doesn't listen to me, but he does what she wants him to do and doesn't protest that much! She's got clear boundaries of what is acceptable, he listens to her and keep on trying to do things. Mind you, the first sessions were hard for him as he had to concentrate for a full hour, trying to do challenging things, which is very difficult for him, and he was totally shattered after her visits. He's now getting better so he's ok, he's used to it.