C. showed up and had A., a new COTA with her today. I discussed the Sensation Station with them while we waited for M. the Speech Therapist to arrive. C. was pretty excited because one of her professors opened the Sensation Station. We discussed how my son is saying "go car" and how he is climbing now, by using me as a jungle gym. M. showed up shortly after C. and A. arrived and I told them all how my son was under the weather and that I wanted to at least try to see if we could do the hour session.
My son started crying when C. and A. went in the living room. This was new behavior and it concerned me. He shied away from C. when she sat on the floor to engage him. He was also wary of M. I could see him being shy with A. since he never met her before, but C. and M. he has seen multiple times.
My son has sensory balls, similar to the image below. M. started the session off by rolling the ball along the bottom of his feet and down his arms.
This calmed him down and M. and C. played with my son using his sensory box. Because he settled right down, M. suggested doing deep pressure massage, or the ball on his feet to settle him down when I need his attention. I think we will do this when we do ring bearer practice. He normally likes to just empty it, but he is learning what comes next, and he filled it back up.
Because my son was irritated due to teething and being a little sick, M. and C. let him play at his own pace a little bit today.
C. told me that there is going to be a sensory play group at the beach this summer. I am not sure if we will be able to attend, but I think that is an excellent idea.
Because my son was literally howling in pain over the weekend due to teething pain, I broke down and bought him some teething gel. C. said many parents don't use it because sometimes kids swallow it and it numbs their throats. She suggested in addition to massaging his cheeks, to give him popsicles. They make mini popsicles that would be perfect for him. I told her I have been freezing fruit, like mangos as well and he seems to enjoy that.
M. and I were talking and she mentioned my son paying attention to the world around him more. I asked if that is what she wants to hear more about. When she answered positively, I told her that we were walking and my son saw a big black ant cross in front of him. He wasn't sure how to respond, he just stood on the sidewalk with his arms raised wiggling his fingers. His eyes were wide and he wasn't moving. I told him it is just an ant and I bent down to point at it. My son also crouched down, eyes wide, staring. He also reacts more to sirens and especially motorcycles. Even if he doesn't look straight at them, he raises his arms and wiggles his fingers with his hands moving. Or he stands still and shakes a little bit. He really likes the sounds motorcycles make, he tries to find where it is coming from. Over the weekend, we went to a friends house. My son engaged in back and forth play with an 18 month toddler by passing stuffed robots back and forth to him. The two toddlers went on a little wagon ride around the house and my son maintained eye contact with him, and did back and forth play the whole time. For my son, this is big. There were four boys in total ranging in age from 18 months to 12 years old. My son didn't really play with any of them more than the back and forth play with the baby, but he did watch them. In the past, he would not acknowledge other children. At one point, the 18 month old and an eight year old were on a trampoline and my son wanted to join them. He was fine until he realized I was too big for the children's trampoline and could not join him, at which point he started crying. But he wanted to be near other children. Later in the evening, my son wanted something the 18 month old was holding so he walked over to him and grabbed it out of his hands. M. said she likes bad behavior. She said my son was aware that he wanted the object, he was aware someone else had it, and was aware of how to get it. That is three levels of awareness. She was really happy that he is progressing.
This was a really good session as always. Looking forward to next week.
