I'm not sure what I've shared about Sweet Pea's fine motor goals, but we have been working on a few things at home in addition to writing her name. Writing her name is actually something that is a few steps ahead of where she is, but that's okay. One of her IEP annual OT goals is to imitate up to 3 pre-writing strokes (vertical line, horizontal line, approximated single closed circle) and imitate intersecting lines. She is making good progress towards that goal, but since practically right after we made that goal she stopped doing single closed circles and started doing circle after circle after circle. Her outside school OT couldn't believe that she started doing that so consistently, but we all knew that we could get her back to single closed circles eventually. It's still a work in progress, but I find that by using the phrase "start...stop" she does very well almost every time. The video was supposed to show you the circles she was making, but the crayon color was a very poor choice so unless you REALLY squint and put your nose up to the computer screen...you probably can't see them.
But the video also shows her accomplishing her second IEP OT goal...Using adaptive strategies as needed (including but not limited to: adaptive scissors, varied materials to cut) Sweet Pea will use scissors with her right hand to snip material (paper, play-doh) held in her left with no more than minumal assistance (Sweet Pea does at least 75% of the task) in 4 out of 5 trials as measured by observation/data and staff report. We purchased the Maped Koopy Spring Scissors, but we don't use the spring anymore. I think if the scissors were just a little bit smaller she would have an easier time, but she is doing pretty good as is. I am going to speak with her OT about increasing this goal as I believe that she might have met it. There could be some piece that I'm missing, but she seems to be meeting the goal if you look at the video below.
This gives you an idea of why we work on some of these skills at home...she really enjoys it! We don't push. When she is done we let her be done. Sometimes we have her finish what she is working on just to teach her to complete tasks, but if her mood isn't open to that we just let her be. We don't want to risk losing her love of learning!
Showing posts with label OT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OT. Show all posts
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
It's Writing Time!
Why am I constantly surprised by what Sweet Pea can do? I know that I shouldn't be as I should set my expectations high, but I find myself doing it over and over again. For some reason I can't seem to realize what she can do until it is practically shoved in my face.
The latest example of this is her ability to start writing simple letters. I mean, come on, simple letters are really just simple lines so why shouldn't she be able to do this? Her March 2013 writing goals didn't include any letter writing so I was imagining that she had to master her that goal before progressing onto letters. I told a friend just a few weeks ago that we weren't ready for the Handwriting Without Tears iPad app. Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong...yet again!
I wish I could show you her samples, but as she isn't learning to write Sweet Pea, I can't. Luckily, her real name is a pretty simple name in terms of the lack of complexity of the strokes involved. For some reason I seem to recall Grandma stating in the hospital that besides it just being a great name, it was a great name for her in terms of the simplicity of learning to write it. Writing it in all caps would probably be easiest, but her amazing inclusion specialist is working on teaching her to write it correctly with the first letter capital and the others lowercase. She has her name drawn out with dotted lines on the whiteboard and Sweet Pea has to trace it when she goes into the Learning Center. (Tip - Her teacher said to not let the kids see you write the dotted lines because then they start to mimic that instead of making the solid lines, but if you have it setup before hand then it's a good way to go.)
Her inclusion specialist sent home a writing sample and while it was still very unrefined, the first few letters of her name were written without any hand over hand assistance or tracing involved! I remember seeing my nephews names looking an awful lot like this writing sample and it makes me so darn proud of Sweet Pea! I made up a dotted template today and had her write over it a few times with different color crayons and she is really getting it. It's fascinating to watch her!
Looks like I can add writing activities to my ever growing list of fun things to play around with when I have some time with Sweet Pea. At least this is one activity that I can do when her sister is around as having both girls color at the table is simple enough.
And now a question for all of you...do you have any suggestions for how to work with Sweet Pea on a skill, such as reading, when Angel wants to be right in there doing it as well? I've been told, understandably so, to not allow Angel to do it with Sweet Pea, but there isn't much alone Sweet Pea time in our house (at least not at an hour when the sun is up and my brain is willing to start working). I want to work with Sweet Pea, but how do I keep Angel occupied and not just plopped down in front of the TV, as then Sweet Pea would want to join her? I don't think that they are ready to understand "Sweet Pea time" and "Angel time". Thoughts? Ideas? Please share!!!!
The latest example of this is her ability to start writing simple letters. I mean, come on, simple letters are really just simple lines so why shouldn't she be able to do this? Her March 2013 writing goals didn't include any letter writing so I was imagining that she had to master her that goal before progressing onto letters. I told a friend just a few weeks ago that we weren't ready for the Handwriting Without Tears iPad app. Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong...yet again!
I wish I could show you her samples, but as she isn't learning to write Sweet Pea, I can't. Luckily, her real name is a pretty simple name in terms of the lack of complexity of the strokes involved. For some reason I seem to recall Grandma stating in the hospital that besides it just being a great name, it was a great name for her in terms of the simplicity of learning to write it. Writing it in all caps would probably be easiest, but her amazing inclusion specialist is working on teaching her to write it correctly with the first letter capital and the others lowercase. She has her name drawn out with dotted lines on the whiteboard and Sweet Pea has to trace it when she goes into the Learning Center. (Tip - Her teacher said to not let the kids see you write the dotted lines because then they start to mimic that instead of making the solid lines, but if you have it setup before hand then it's a good way to go.)
Her inclusion specialist sent home a writing sample and while it was still very unrefined, the first few letters of her name were written without any hand over hand assistance or tracing involved! I remember seeing my nephews names looking an awful lot like this writing sample and it makes me so darn proud of Sweet Pea! I made up a dotted template today and had her write over it a few times with different color crayons and she is really getting it. It's fascinating to watch her!
Looks like I can add writing activities to my ever growing list of fun things to play around with when I have some time with Sweet Pea. At least this is one activity that I can do when her sister is around as having both girls color at the table is simple enough.
And now a question for all of you...do you have any suggestions for how to work with Sweet Pea on a skill, such as reading, when Angel wants to be right in there doing it as well? I've been told, understandably so, to not allow Angel to do it with Sweet Pea, but there isn't much alone Sweet Pea time in our house (at least not at an hour when the sun is up and my brain is willing to start working). I want to work with Sweet Pea, but how do I keep Angel occupied and not just plopped down in front of the TV, as then Sweet Pea would want to join her? I don't think that they are ready to understand "Sweet Pea time" and "Angel time". Thoughts? Ideas? Please share!!!!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Happy 18 Month Birthday!
Is it just me or can anyone else not believe that Sweet Pea is a year and a half old today! It seems like just a month or two ago that she was a newborn blob and now she is into everything, crawling everywhere and just a roaming disaster girl! Oh how I love her!!!! I was going through old photos today and I was amazed at her transformation! There were even some photos that I wasn't sure it was her or not because she has changed so much.
These past couple months have been amazing with Sweet Pea. She really is learning something new every day. I know that this explosion of new skills will eventually plateau, but boy am I enjoying every day of it while it lasts! The joy that emanates from her when she does something new is beyond words and her Mommy and Daddy are so very proud of every single accomplishment because we know how hard she has been working to achieve them! We love you Sweet Pea!!!!!
Gross Motor Milestones:
Crawling: Sweet Pea's crawling has definitely taken off. It's far from textbook, but she no longer uses her army crawl to get anywhere, it's all hands and knees...or in her case, hands, knee and foot. She uses her right foot to push off and then slides her left leg/knee forward and under her bum. It's an interesting technique, but it works to get her from point A to B to C to D. I love that she decides to go from one room to any other room whenever she feels like it. It's such huge progress!!!! It was just 2 months ago that we had to coax her into moving rooms and we were the only motivation that would make her do it. Now, we can be in one room and she will leave us to go play in another!
Standing: This is another area that has seen huge gains. She pulls to stand on just about anything that she can grab onto...my legs, couches, tables, etc. She is trying to do it against walls, but isn't quite there yet. We definitely need to work on the endurance with her, but I have a few ideas of things to try (thanks to Pat Winders Gross Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome
book) and will keep you all posted.
Cruising: For those that don't know, cruising is basically walking while holding on to furniture. We didn't really plan to start working on this milestone, Sweet Pea just started to do it. She only does it a tiny bit, but since she is doing it without any coaxing from me, I'm beyond thrilled! On Sunday she stood up at the couch, cruised the 12 inches to my legs and then cruised another 12 inches from my legs to the coffee table where the computer was. It was slow going, but she did it! One foot after the other and eventually she got to the computer keyboard which, unfortunately, I had to reward her and let her play with for a few seconds (this is a very dangerous thing as Sweet Pea finds keyboard combinations that we often don't know how to undo). Since she started to do this on her own I guess I will add it to the list of skills to work on.
Climbing: We live in a one story home with just one 6 inch step separating a room. Sweet Pea mastered that step all on her own. We have tried stairs on a play structure at a local park and I think they will work okay, not great because they are hard on the knees, but it is better than nothing. At home we used the couch to practice climbing and as you saw in this post, she has almost mastered it. She still doesn't always go far enough forward before trying to sit, but we will continue to work on that with her. She has also learned how to climb down! She doesn't always do it, but a couple different times I can tell her to come down and she will go from sitting down to her belly and scoot backwards off the couch! This little girl really picks things up quickly...when she wants to!
Walking: We have a stroller that we have weighed down and she is using that to take one or two steps. I am not focusing on this until we get a little better at the standing and cruising, but thought I would include it so we have a starting point.
Language: I don't want to sound like a broken record, but language is another area that she has really been growing quickly in. While her vocal expressive language isn't doing a lot (only new sound that I can think of is "va"), her signing is making some good strides. Just yesterday she started to do "more" with her fingers instead of just clapping. Sometimes it takes a little prompting, but it is so cute to see her do it because she looks at her hands and you can see the wheels turning in her head as she does it. And the smile that she gives when she does it and we are so proud of her...well that smile just melts my heart! We are also working on getting her "dog" sign to be down on her thigh instead of on her belly. She is getting better, but I think it will take a little longer as the practice sessions are much shorter for dog. The signs that she knows now are: more, all done, eat, please, thank you, bye, dog, book, and she is starting to do baby, up and open. She can identify her head and can get her mouth about half the time. In terms of receptive language, she continues to amaze us by what she understands. It's always amazing to see her comprehend something that we say and actually do what we say. Doesn't always happen since she can be stubborn, but that is okay.
Eating: This continues to be a challenging area for us as it seems to be for many parents. Sweet Pea REALLY wants to be eating what we are eating, but her chewing and swallowing aren't up to par yet. We have found that ground meat is definitely the easiest for her to manage so we can get enough quantity into her before she is too tired or bored. Noodles, breads, pancakes, waffles, chips...basically anything carbohydrate related...are huge successes. Soy yogurt is a fairly consistent hit. Bananas are hit or miss and we need to find more fruit that she will eat. Baby food is rarely successful for us, but daycare has pretty good luck so we can at least sneak in her fruit and veggies at daycare. We have recently brought back in cream cheese, pudding and cottage cheese in small quantities and those are working well so far. The biggest issue that we are afraid of is an increase in her reflux.
Weight: 22lbs 2.5oz
Height: 30.5 inches
Therapy: We are certainly in a transitional period in regards to her therapies. She started the center based therapy classes last week and will be attending them Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Speech will remain on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as we don't have any choices for that. We have cut PT and OT to once a week for the next couple of weeks and for right now, PT will be Tuesday afternoon and OT will be Thursday morning. We aren't ready to make a decision on asking for her services to be reduced to once a week for both PT and OT since we don't know how the center based therapy is going to work out yet.
Toys: The seahorse is still her favorite, but she also loves a book that has buttons that play sounds. It's a Thomas the Tank Engine book, but I think I will need to get a few more of these
as she absolutely loves it!
Sweat Pea-isms: Her latest adorable trait is her little cackle that she does instead of a full laugh. She doesn't always do it, but it's becoming more common. I do love her regular laugh though so I hope that it doesn't disappear, but the cackle is pretty funny.
Sleep: Knock on wood...this area has improved again. She has started to sleep through the night again and will often not even wake up for her twilight feedings. Daddy and Mommy are very, VERY, happy about this change and we hope that it continues! Mommy will take Sweet Pea for a sleep study in a couple of weeks to try to get an explanation for how restless she is when she sleeps. Let's hope it isn't anything to worry about.
Overall Health: She has had a cold or allergies or something since Labor Day weekend. She wakes up extremely congested and does not clear up completely throughout the day. She has even been coughing up phlegm (TMI...sorry) the past few days which is just lovely. Hopefully she will get over this soon. Daddy thinks it is from our mountain trip over Labor Day, but I think it is just coincidence and refuse to blame the gorgeous mountains for these many weeks of aggravation. The heat wave that we had this week (105 when the average temperature for this time of year is 76) gave Sweet Pea heat rash, but it is dissipating as the temperature drops. She isn't letting anything slow her down though!
These past couple months have been amazing with Sweet Pea. She really is learning something new every day. I know that this explosion of new skills will eventually plateau, but boy am I enjoying every day of it while it lasts! The joy that emanates from her when she does something new is beyond words and her Mommy and Daddy are so very proud of every single accomplishment because we know how hard she has been working to achieve them! We love you Sweet Pea!!!!!
Gross Motor Milestones:
Crawling: Sweet Pea's crawling has definitely taken off. It's far from textbook, but she no longer uses her army crawl to get anywhere, it's all hands and knees...or in her case, hands, knee and foot. She uses her right foot to push off and then slides her left leg/knee forward and under her bum. It's an interesting technique, but it works to get her from point A to B to C to D. I love that she decides to go from one room to any other room whenever she feels like it. It's such huge progress!!!! It was just 2 months ago that we had to coax her into moving rooms and we were the only motivation that would make her do it. Now, we can be in one room and she will leave us to go play in another!
Standing: This is another area that has seen huge gains. She pulls to stand on just about anything that she can grab onto...my legs, couches, tables, etc. She is trying to do it against walls, but isn't quite there yet. We definitely need to work on the endurance with her, but I have a few ideas of things to try (thanks to Pat Winders Gross Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome
book) and will keep you all posted.Cruising: For those that don't know, cruising is basically walking while holding on to furniture. We didn't really plan to start working on this milestone, Sweet Pea just started to do it. She only does it a tiny bit, but since she is doing it without any coaxing from me, I'm beyond thrilled! On Sunday she stood up at the couch, cruised the 12 inches to my legs and then cruised another 12 inches from my legs to the coffee table where the computer was. It was slow going, but she did it! One foot after the other and eventually she got to the computer keyboard which, unfortunately, I had to reward her and let her play with for a few seconds (this is a very dangerous thing as Sweet Pea finds keyboard combinations that we often don't know how to undo). Since she started to do this on her own I guess I will add it to the list of skills to work on.
Climbing: We live in a one story home with just one 6 inch step separating a room. Sweet Pea mastered that step all on her own. We have tried stairs on a play structure at a local park and I think they will work okay, not great because they are hard on the knees, but it is better than nothing. At home we used the couch to practice climbing and as you saw in this post, she has almost mastered it. She still doesn't always go far enough forward before trying to sit, but we will continue to work on that with her. She has also learned how to climb down! She doesn't always do it, but a couple different times I can tell her to come down and she will go from sitting down to her belly and scoot backwards off the couch! This little girl really picks things up quickly...when she wants to!
Walking: We have a stroller that we have weighed down and she is using that to take one or two steps. I am not focusing on this until we get a little better at the standing and cruising, but thought I would include it so we have a starting point.
Language: I don't want to sound like a broken record, but language is another area that she has really been growing quickly in. While her vocal expressive language isn't doing a lot (only new sound that I can think of is "va"), her signing is making some good strides. Just yesterday she started to do "more" with her fingers instead of just clapping. Sometimes it takes a little prompting, but it is so cute to see her do it because she looks at her hands and you can see the wheels turning in her head as she does it. And the smile that she gives when she does it and we are so proud of her...well that smile just melts my heart! We are also working on getting her "dog" sign to be down on her thigh instead of on her belly. She is getting better, but I think it will take a little longer as the practice sessions are much shorter for dog. The signs that she knows now are: more, all done, eat, please, thank you, bye, dog, book, and she is starting to do baby, up and open. She can identify her head and can get her mouth about half the time. In terms of receptive language, she continues to amaze us by what she understands. It's always amazing to see her comprehend something that we say and actually do what we say. Doesn't always happen since she can be stubborn, but that is okay.
Eating: This continues to be a challenging area for us as it seems to be for many parents. Sweet Pea REALLY wants to be eating what we are eating, but her chewing and swallowing aren't up to par yet. We have found that ground meat is definitely the easiest for her to manage so we can get enough quantity into her before she is too tired or bored. Noodles, breads, pancakes, waffles, chips...basically anything carbohydrate related...are huge successes. Soy yogurt is a fairly consistent hit. Bananas are hit or miss and we need to find more fruit that she will eat. Baby food is rarely successful for us, but daycare has pretty good luck so we can at least sneak in her fruit and veggies at daycare. We have recently brought back in cream cheese, pudding and cottage cheese in small quantities and those are working well so far. The biggest issue that we are afraid of is an increase in her reflux.
Weight: 22lbs 2.5oz
Height: 30.5 inches
Therapy: We are certainly in a transitional period in regards to her therapies. She started the center based therapy classes last week and will be attending them Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Speech will remain on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as we don't have any choices for that. We have cut PT and OT to once a week for the next couple of weeks and for right now, PT will be Tuesday afternoon and OT will be Thursday morning. We aren't ready to make a decision on asking for her services to be reduced to once a week for both PT and OT since we don't know how the center based therapy is going to work out yet.
Toys: The seahorse is still her favorite, but she also loves a book that has buttons that play sounds. It's a Thomas the Tank Engine book, but I think I will need to get a few more of these
as she absolutely loves it!Sweat Pea-isms: Her latest adorable trait is her little cackle that she does instead of a full laugh. She doesn't always do it, but it's becoming more common. I do love her regular laugh though so I hope that it doesn't disappear, but the cackle is pretty funny.
Sleep: Knock on wood...this area has improved again. She has started to sleep through the night again and will often not even wake up for her twilight feedings. Daddy and Mommy are very, VERY, happy about this change and we hope that it continues! Mommy will take Sweet Pea for a sleep study in a couple of weeks to try to get an explanation for how restless she is when she sleeps. Let's hope it isn't anything to worry about.
Overall Health: She has had a cold or allergies or something since Labor Day weekend. She wakes up extremely congested and does not clear up completely throughout the day. She has even been coughing up phlegm (TMI...sorry) the past few days which is just lovely. Hopefully she will get over this soon. Daddy thinks it is from our mountain trip over Labor Day, but I think it is just coincidence and refuse to blame the gorgeous mountains for these many weeks of aggravation. The heat wave that we had this week (105 when the average temperature for this time of year is 76) gave Sweet Pea heat rash, but it is dissipating as the temperature drops. She isn't letting anything slow her down though!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Center Based Therapy Started
Warning: Extremely long post...again!
We received the approval for Sweet Pea to start center based therapy on Tuesday and so she went to her very first class on Wednesday! She will be going Monday, Wednesday, Friday and her first two days went great! Wednesday she was fussy all morning so I was more than a little nervous about how it would go. We left home about 8:20, but not before Mommy attempted to get a first day of school photo of the little girl. She wasn't cooperating, but these didn't turn out too bad considering her mood.
We arrived around 8:40am, but she had fallen asleep in the car. I tried to get her out without waking her up, but managed to hit her head on the car trying to get her out so that was an utter failure. Poor girl not only got woken up, but rudely! She calmed down very quickly and so we headed in and she got right to playing. She played with blocks and a musical instrument
and everyone was coming over to introduce themselves and meet Sweet Pea.
After class officially started at 9am we went into the OT focused therapy group and played in the room with swings for the first 20 minutes. Sweet Pea was crawling around a bit and watching the other two kids in our group. She then got adventurous and crawled through a little tunnel they had created:
After that we attempted to put stickers onto the sheets of paper on the wall. Sweet Pea loved the stickers, but when she would put one on the wall, she would then peel it back off. That was working her fine motor skills so that was fine, but it was pretty funny. Then she decided that ripping the big pieces of paper on the wall was more fun so we ended that game after a few futile attempts at getting her to behave.
The second part of the hour long focused therapy group time was spent in the speech room where we worked on putting little animals in and out of bags. Then we moved onto playing with pegs in the pegboards
. A couple of her other therapists have this toy and so it wasn't new to Sweet Pea, but she had never before (that I'm aware of at least) stuck a peg into the hole without assistance. She did on Wednesday though!!!! Only one, but I was very proud of her and she was pretty darn proud too. I didn't capture it on film, but here are some of her playing with the toy anyway:
After focused therapy group time ended we had a nice little snack where Sweet Pea enjoyed some vanilla pudding and goldfish crackers. She is supposed to use a paper towel as her plate, but she insists that it is to be tossed onto the floor and the crackers are to be eaten off the table directly. That isn't a battle that I'm going to fight, but the teachers said that most kids do that so maybe eventually she will learn since the other kids all seem to.
When snack time ended we moved to circle time and sang a few songs and then split into the first of four 15 minute centers. Sweet Pea was directed to the ball pit
first and that was a good choice since she loves the ball pit
!
That is the end of the photos because the speech therapist pulled me aside to get a detailed history on Sweet Pea. I spent the next hour with her going through what we do for oral motor and speech and everything else even slightly related. Sweet Pea lasted about halfway through the four 15 minute sessions and then something set her off and it was touch and go from that point on. I let the therapists/teachers/aides try to calm her since they will need to be able to do it while I'm not here. It is really hard to sit and listen to your little girl cry, but I knew that she wasn't in pain or anything, she was just tired. I collected her about 11am and tried to feed her some milk as it seemed she might crash out on one of the gals and I really wanted to get some food in her before she took what I knew was going to be a long nap. She rallied after the milk and was able to join the group for closing circle time and was trying to climb and stand all over the place so she had definitely rallied. When class ended we gathered our things and left and not 2 minutes into the drive home, Sweet Pea had crashed out and remained that way for 90 minutes (don't worry, I transferred her into her crib when we got home). It was a very successful first day and I couldn't be more proud of Sweet Pea or happy with our decision to push to get approval for center based therapy. Some of our therapists put up some minor roadblocks during the approval process, but we got around them and I am so thankful that we have a great service coordinator (not everyone is as lucky in that department as we are) who helped fight for us.
Grandma took Sweet Pea today (thank you grandma...again!) and she had a funny story to share. Apparently the kids are supposed to come with shoes and socks and in the last portion of the class before closing circle time the therapists help teach the kids how to put them on. When they asked Grandma if Sweet Pea had shoes, she said no. When they thought that Sweet Pea just didn't have shoes with her today, Grandma had to let them know that no, it wasn't just today. This poor neglected child who has a severe addiction to people's shoes, doesn't actually own any shoes that fit her! Her feet are too chunky for the few pairs that might fit in length. Now that I have been shamed, I guess I need to take her shoe shopping this weekend so she at least has A pair of shoes!
Today they did a couple of evaluations to gauge where Sweet Pea was developmentally in OT and speech. In the OT evaluation session they watched how she crawls and plays with toys like the pop up ones
that Sweet Pea adores. Then they moved to a table and watched how she plays with small toys, putting objects into containers and something with pieces of playdough (need to get details from Grandma on that one since Sweet Pea normally just puts the playdough in her mouth). Sweet Pea performed really well during the evaluation and the OT commented on how she uses both her right and left hands when playing with toys and that she even does well crossing midline when she picks up pieces and puts them into something. This is great news because many kids (even typical kids) can have issues with crossing midline sometimes. (Here is a quick article that speaks to why crossing midline is important if you are curious.)
During her speech evaluation today (different therapist than is there on Wednesdays) they did some songs, bubbles with careful enunciation of "bubble" and "pop" since /b/ and /p/ sounds clearly show what the mouth is doing, they worked to get her sign for "more" to be more accurate instead of just clapping and during that worked on the /m/ sound, did a little work on learning "I want" and picking between two objects and ended with some work on the sign for "open". I am beyond thrilled that they are working on actual speech sounds with her since our current speech therapy that we get via insurance doesn't do hardly any speech sounds, they focus on the feeding...which is important, but I want Sweet Pea getting both so this is wonderful.
Apparently they do a bike "parade" the last week of the month out in the parking lot and since Sweet Pea didn't have shoes, nor can she ride a tricycle of any sort yet, she got a ride in the wagon. This will be yet another area that will be fun to watch how she progresses!
Looks like she made a friend today!
One final story from today's session...when the parents drop the child off in the morning they bring a toy from home with them and put it in the "sharing box". At the end of class, right before they wrap up circle time, the teacher picks out one toy at a time and the kids go up and get their toy. I thought a small sensory ball
would be a good idea because it was small and didn't make noise. Well, yet again I was wrong. Turns out that a ball is a bad toy to bring in because Sweet Pea knows that you are supposed to throw balls. That meant that she would throw the ball into the middle of the circle. I'm sure Sweet Pea was trying to go get the ball after she threw it too! I think the staff got a kick out of it today, but I don't think they would appreciate it on a regular basis since the kids are supposed to stay in their seat before/after they get their toy back. Live and learn.
That was Sweet Pea's first two days at center based therapy. I am so happy she is going and I know that this is going to be wonderful for her!
We received the approval for Sweet Pea to start center based therapy on Tuesday and so she went to her very first class on Wednesday! She will be going Monday, Wednesday, Friday and her first two days went great! Wednesday she was fussy all morning so I was more than a little nervous about how it would go. We left home about 8:20, but not before Mommy attempted to get a first day of school photo of the little girl. She wasn't cooperating, but these didn't turn out too bad considering her mood.
We arrived around 8:40am, but she had fallen asleep in the car. I tried to get her out without waking her up, but managed to hit her head on the car trying to get her out so that was an utter failure. Poor girl not only got woken up, but rudely! She calmed down very quickly and so we headed in and she got right to playing. She played with blocks and a musical instrument
and everyone was coming over to introduce themselves and meet Sweet Pea. After class officially started at 9am we went into the OT focused therapy group and played in the room with swings for the first 20 minutes. Sweet Pea was crawling around a bit and watching the other two kids in our group. She then got adventurous and crawled through a little tunnel they had created:
After that we attempted to put stickers onto the sheets of paper on the wall. Sweet Pea loved the stickers, but when she would put one on the wall, she would then peel it back off. That was working her fine motor skills so that was fine, but it was pretty funny. Then she decided that ripping the big pieces of paper on the wall was more fun so we ended that game after a few futile attempts at getting her to behave.
The second part of the hour long focused therapy group time was spent in the speech room where we worked on putting little animals in and out of bags. Then we moved onto playing with pegs in the pegboards
. A couple of her other therapists have this toy and so it wasn't new to Sweet Pea, but she had never before (that I'm aware of at least) stuck a peg into the hole without assistance. She did on Wednesday though!!!! Only one, but I was very proud of her and she was pretty darn proud too. I didn't capture it on film, but here are some of her playing with the toy anyway: After focused therapy group time ended we had a nice little snack where Sweet Pea enjoyed some vanilla pudding and goldfish crackers. She is supposed to use a paper towel as her plate, but she insists that it is to be tossed onto the floor and the crackers are to be eaten off the table directly. That isn't a battle that I'm going to fight, but the teachers said that most kids do that so maybe eventually she will learn since the other kids all seem to.
When snack time ended we moved to circle time and sang a few songs and then split into the first of four 15 minute centers. Sweet Pea was directed to the ball pit
first and that was a good choice since she loves the ball pit!That is the end of the photos because the speech therapist pulled me aside to get a detailed history on Sweet Pea. I spent the next hour with her going through what we do for oral motor and speech and everything else even slightly related. Sweet Pea lasted about halfway through the four 15 minute sessions and then something set her off and it was touch and go from that point on. I let the therapists/teachers/aides try to calm her since they will need to be able to do it while I'm not here. It is really hard to sit and listen to your little girl cry, but I knew that she wasn't in pain or anything, she was just tired. I collected her about 11am and tried to feed her some milk as it seemed she might crash out on one of the gals and I really wanted to get some food in her before she took what I knew was going to be a long nap. She rallied after the milk and was able to join the group for closing circle time and was trying to climb and stand all over the place so she had definitely rallied. When class ended we gathered our things and left and not 2 minutes into the drive home, Sweet Pea had crashed out and remained that way for 90 minutes (don't worry, I transferred her into her crib when we got home). It was a very successful first day and I couldn't be more proud of Sweet Pea or happy with our decision to push to get approval for center based therapy. Some of our therapists put up some minor roadblocks during the approval process, but we got around them and I am so thankful that we have a great service coordinator (not everyone is as lucky in that department as we are) who helped fight for us.
Grandma took Sweet Pea today (thank you grandma...again!) and she had a funny story to share. Apparently the kids are supposed to come with shoes and socks and in the last portion of the class before closing circle time the therapists help teach the kids how to put them on. When they asked Grandma if Sweet Pea had shoes, she said no. When they thought that Sweet Pea just didn't have shoes with her today, Grandma had to let them know that no, it wasn't just today. This poor neglected child who has a severe addiction to people's shoes, doesn't actually own any shoes that fit her! Her feet are too chunky for the few pairs that might fit in length. Now that I have been shamed, I guess I need to take her shoe shopping this weekend so she at least has A pair of shoes!
Today they did a couple of evaluations to gauge where Sweet Pea was developmentally in OT and speech. In the OT evaluation session they watched how she crawls and plays with toys like the pop up ones
that Sweet Pea adores. Then they moved to a table and watched how she plays with small toys, putting objects into containers and something with pieces of playdough (need to get details from Grandma on that one since Sweet Pea normally just puts the playdough in her mouth). Sweet Pea performed really well during the evaluation and the OT commented on how she uses both her right and left hands when playing with toys and that she even does well crossing midline when she picks up pieces and puts them into something. This is great news because many kids (even typical kids) can have issues with crossing midline sometimes. (Here is a quick article that speaks to why crossing midline is important if you are curious.)During her speech evaluation today (different therapist than is there on Wednesdays) they did some songs, bubbles with careful enunciation of "bubble" and "pop" since /b/ and /p/ sounds clearly show what the mouth is doing, they worked to get her sign for "more" to be more accurate instead of just clapping and during that worked on the /m/ sound, did a little work on learning "I want" and picking between two objects and ended with some work on the sign for "open". I am beyond thrilled that they are working on actual speech sounds with her since our current speech therapy that we get via insurance doesn't do hardly any speech sounds, they focus on the feeding...which is important, but I want Sweet Pea getting both so this is wonderful.
Apparently they do a bike "parade" the last week of the month out in the parking lot and since Sweet Pea didn't have shoes, nor can she ride a tricycle of any sort yet, she got a ride in the wagon. This will be yet another area that will be fun to watch how she progresses!
Looks like she made a friend today!
One final story from today's session...when the parents drop the child off in the morning they bring a toy from home with them and put it in the "sharing box". At the end of class, right before they wrap up circle time, the teacher picks out one toy at a time and the kids go up and get their toy. I thought a small sensory ball
would be a good idea because it was small and didn't make noise. Well, yet again I was wrong. Turns out that a ball is a bad toy to bring in because Sweet Pea knows that you are supposed to throw balls. That meant that she would throw the ball into the middle of the circle. I'm sure Sweet Pea was trying to go get the ball after she threw it too! I think the staff got a kick out of it today, but I don't think they would appreciate it on a regular basis since the kids are supposed to stay in their seat before/after they get their toy back. Live and learn.That was Sweet Pea's first two days at center based therapy. I am so happy she is going and I know that this is going to be wonderful for her!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Happy Happy Friday!
I attended the weekly OT session that happens at Sweet Pea's daycare today for the first time in a couple of months. Oh my goodness how things have changed! The last time I was there they were doing the therapy in the employee lunch room which was fairly cold (during winter) and just not an inviting place. Sweet Pea quickly realized that when she was brought into that room that she was there to work. It got so bad that she would start to cry the second she was brought into the room! I don't remember how it happened, but somehow they tried doing the session in the main infant room and it went so much better! Since then they have been doing it in the infant room each week and I've heard great reports of how she only has minor crying sessions, which I'm all too accustomed to.
Today was different and I'm not sure I believe what I witnessed! She didn't cry or fuss even once the entire 50 minutes! I loved it!!!! And even more importantly, Sweet Pea loved it! She played and played and rocked on all fours and played and played some more. She was all smiles and grins and waving her hands in excitement. Such a change! For those of you who know how much I've struggled with whether these therapies were worth the aggravation that they cause Sweet Pea, this helps confirm that we've been doing the right thing for her. Switching PTs was the first step and I think everything is falling into place behind that.
The therapist brought out her etch-a-sketch and I asked if she ever drew anything to which I was told "no, she just plays with the string and the pen and mainly just tries to put it in her mouth." Again, today was different! She actually drew on the screen! And not just once, but a number of times! I didn't get any pictures of it, but trust me, she did it and I couldn't be prouder. I'm going to have to call Daddy and share the news with him. Is it bad that I write the blog before I call him? Whoops!
We are celebrating Papa Bear's 90th birthday this weekend so I am very excited!
Happy Friday to all!
Today was different and I'm not sure I believe what I witnessed! She didn't cry or fuss even once the entire 50 minutes! I loved it!!!! And even more importantly, Sweet Pea loved it! She played and played and rocked on all fours and played and played some more. She was all smiles and grins and waving her hands in excitement. Such a change! For those of you who know how much I've struggled with whether these therapies were worth the aggravation that they cause Sweet Pea, this helps confirm that we've been doing the right thing for her. Switching PTs was the first step and I think everything is falling into place behind that.
The therapist brought out her etch-a-sketch and I asked if she ever drew anything to which I was told "no, she just plays with the string and the pen and mainly just tries to put it in her mouth." Again, today was different! She actually drew on the screen! And not just once, but a number of times! I didn't get any pictures of it, but trust me, she did it and I couldn't be prouder. I'm going to have to call Daddy and share the news with him. Is it bad that I write the blog before I call him? Whoops!
We are celebrating Papa Bear's 90th birthday this weekend so I am very excited!
Happy Friday to all!
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