OT and Speech Therapy June 24, 2015

This was not the most productive visit by a long shot,  but we got to talk a bit about the two year checkup. You can read about Monday's checkup here.

C. the COTA and M. the Speech Therapist came by and my son came to the door with me to greet them. The last few times he has an been very upset to see them. When I opened the door,  he smiled broadly at C. and grabbed her hand. He was babbling to her and was super happy, until we came into the living room.  As soon as we all sat down, he started crying and clutching at me. I got him some Annie's White Cheddar Bunnies and water as a snack and M. and C. observed him eating.  He picked up his little snack bowl and tipped it into his mouth.  M. stopped him from choking. My son countered by sticking his hand into the bowl and grabbing literally a fistful of bunnies and tried unsuccessfully to mash them all in his mouth.  C. started rationing his bunnies one at a time.

As he ate, I told them about the Pediatrician's concerns about his weight.  They both looked surprised and said he looks propionate and he has a pot belly. M. said both me and my husband are a compact little couple so we probably aren't going to have a large child.  C.  suggested giving my son Ensure as well as increasing the amount of milk he drinks from two cups to four, or more cups per day. M. suggested ranch dressing made with whole milk as a tasty condiment that also gives calories. C. suggested to use condiments and have him learn how to dip food in them so he slows down a bit while eating.  M. said that the same thing happened with her child and she gave them a scoop of ice cream after lunch. She said kids this young don't have cholesterol issues so it isn't that bad to do. I told hem I bought sour cream and I was stirring that into his food, only about a spoonful, and also I add olive oil to most of his food as well.  C. said we can use snack time as a way to connect.  We can work on eye contact, and fine motor skills, as well as language skills.  For example, I can make him ask for more using either sign language, or eventually words. 

I also told them about the Autism screening. M. looked surprised and asked why I think that is a good thing.  I told her if my son has Autism, it would be good to know so then we can start focus helping him instead of just giving general help for a delayed child, and if he doesn't have it, that is good to know too.  C. said that I should not be very surprised if it takes more than one visit to the CNDC to get a diagnosis, or to confirm he doesn't have Autism. 

When I told them about his potential upcoming surgery, M. said to let them know so all services can suspend until he is healed which takes about 2 days.  They both said it is pretty routine, and more than likely it would be laproscopic.

By this time my son was done eating/mashing bunnies into the rug and was drinking his water.  We took a quick time out for me to vacuum and finally, halfway through the visit his actual therapy could begin.

But my son was still not feeling it today.  They used the sensory ball which he usually likes.  Finally they were able to use the Melissa and Doug Peek a Boo Farm puzzle to get his attention.  

We had some actual success today.  My son usually just bounces on his legs but today he held my hands and actually jumped on the floor. He lifted his feet clear off the ground.  They are going to tell T. the Physical Therapist about this.

My son showed C. and M. how his climbing is getting better by climbing up on the couch all the way up so he could look out the window.

I told M. that my son said "hug I love hug" to me and then hugged me Monday night. It melted my heart to hear that.  I told C. how he paralleled played with three little girls that we know over the weekend. The girls range in age from 3 to 7 and they had a stuffed pig. My son watched them play with the pig and the four kids picked dandelions and shared them with each other.  That went so well, we are going to try to make with the parents so the kids can play again.

I think that is all that happened this visit.

June 4, 2015 PT/EI plus something exciting for my son.

This visit was supposed to be at the park, but me and my son had a rough morning. He discovered his nose and has been enjoying picking it.  When I woke up, his face was covered in caked up blood and he was having trouble breathing, like he was congested.  After I cleaned him up, I discovered he had given himself a nosebleed, and a bad one at that.  By the time we were done sitting together, it was about twenty minutes before the PT visit was going to start and I realized he hadn't eaten breakfast yet. So we had the visit at home.

It was supposed to be just PT with T., but A. the EI service coordinator called and said she had a cancellation and asked if she could come by as well. I told her that it would be fine for her to come by.

When T. and A. showed up, I had some cool news. My son has started saying "go car" a lot. Like all the time. More words are a good thing even if only the speaker understands them.  My son has also started climbing!  He uses me to climb on to the back of the couch to perch up there and look out the window. He worked with T. to climb from the floor to an ottoman to the couch  and then up the back.  I was standing behind T. just being quiet and watching them when my son got very nervous and started looking anxiously behind him.  He has become more aware of his surroundings which is also good development.  When he finally saw me, he calmed down.

He was very apprehensious of A. and T. this week for some reason. He usually hugs A. and smiles at her, this visit he screamed and cried.  He is getting his molars in and he grew about five inches last week, no lie he had a major growth spurt, so we were thinking he was just in pain.

T. said not to keep the ottoman static, but to move it from one side of the couch to the other so my son can practice climbing on both sides, using both legs.

We discussed potty training again, but a little more seriously this time. My son does not like to dirty a diaper he already soiled. He will hold his bladder until you change the diaper.  Also, he has started taking his diaper off more.  We discussed how this could be hard because he is non-verbal.  The hints they gave me was to give him a plastic "bubble" book that can be washed off to look at on the potty and then he will eventually relax and go.  Also, T. said to take a picture of his potty and put it somewhere visible in the living room/his bedroom/the kitchen, just somewhere visible, and when it is time to go on the potty to tap the picture and say "Time to go to the bathroom." Eventually he will make an association and should be able to point to the picture of his potty when he needs to go.

The other thing we discussed was my son joining a play group for non-verbal children aged two to five or four at the Sensation Station. (http://sensationstationus.com/).  The playgroup will do sensory play and use musical instruments.  T. and A. are both pretty excited about this. The playgroup will run for 8 weeks and I think it will greatly benefit my son.  I should be meeting with the director of Sensation Station June 9 , and I will definitely blog about it.  A. filled out a disclosure agreement so she can reach out to the Sensation Station to help chart my son's growth.

That was pretty much it this week, but there has been some progress so like always, I am looking forward to next week's therapy.  It continues to help both me and my son.

My son just made more progress!

As I have posted,  my son is in Speech Therapy.  He used to have about 10 or 12 words until last August when he lost them all after an ear infection.

Well, lately he has been taking to saying "gotta go". He says this when he is tired of whatever is going on. Saturday night I hung out with some friends and I guess we were boring because he would say "gotta go" and then leave the room.

I am so happy.  He is saying a phrase with actual meaning, he knows what it means,  and he knows the appropriate action to go with it.  It is only one phrase, but this is pretty much the only thing he is saying.  Well he says "dog", but it doesn't always mean dog.

My son turned 2 on 4/19. This is such a huge leap forward.

Physical Therapy 3/16/15 as well as another positive development.

The last time T. the Physical Therapist was here, she gave me some things to work on.
     1. My son "W-sits". He has low muscle tone so he sits like this : 

     (This is not my son. This is just a Google image)
I was told to correct this.

     2. My son doesn't like to feed himself. This is another developmental issue we are working on. I don't mean feeding himself with utensils, I mean he doesn't like feeding himself with his hands. I am to encourage self-feeding.

     3. My son has low muscle tone so I was to think of ways to encourage him to use his muscles by making him move in unexpected ways. The example she used was having him sit on pillows and then he would have to use his leg muscles to balance.


When T. came today we had lots to talk about. Since her last visit, we visited friends who have a sunken living room. My son learned that by putting his hands on the step in front of him, he could climb up the stairs. This used problem solving and helped used muscles.  He has been eating the majority of his lunches by himself. Today I made him chicken nuggets, celery bites, avocado and tomato slices for lunch. He usually picks out the chicken and makes me feed him the veggies, but today he ate it all by himself. To work on balance and muscle tone, last week I took him outside and held his hands and had him walk over our slushy, icy backyard. She had only positive feedback and agreed it is hard to think of a lot of outside winter activities for a toddler for pt purposes but soon we will be going to playgrounds for pt.

T. then played with my son. I got him this Melissa & Doug puzzle at a yardsale:

This puzzle is great for him because it develops fine motor skills and language.  They played with the puzzle and then she pointed to the cat and asked him what it was. His response? "meeo". Like "meow". This is the first time ever my son made an association. We both stared at him, then I started clapping. Then he kind of looked at T. and said it again like she should totally know that its a cat.

Then T. and my son read a Bob the Builder counting book. She is really pleased with his progress.

We discussed how we only have a year left of early intervention and then she planned a visit for April. I will share how that visit goes as well.

Proud Moment

With my son having developmental delays,  he reaches milestones after children his age. He will be 23 months on March 19th.

Dressing him has never been fun. Every morning I put a shirt on him and if it goes over his head, he fights and screams. He likes to suck his fingers so he cries when you take his fingers out of his mouth to put his arm in the sleeve. He tries to twist away fron you and pull back his arm.

There has been a recent development to putting on shirts. For the past month,  he has tried to push his arms through the sleeves himself.  He was having some success until it came to his thumb.  He could get most of his hand through,  but he splayed his fingers so the thumb always got stuck in the sleeve. He would panic and cry then try to push his hand out so he could suck his fingers,  but his hand stayed stuck which made him panic more. It made for a very stressful 5 seconds.

A week ago, he figured out  by accident how to get his hand all the way through his sleeve.  He smiles when he sees his hand come through and he knows he did it. I am so glad for this little bit of progress.  It isn't about when he catches up to me, but that he is making progress.