At-Home Developmental Therapy
Updated May 5, 2003
Abigail is 5½ now. She is 36” tall and weighs 31 pounds.
Although her weight gain is still slow it has picked up in the last year.
She actually grew through a whole clothes size this year. She continues to
be a good eater. She eats like we don’t feed her. Lately Abby has favorite
things she wants to eat and will try to manipulate a situation to only have
to eat more of what she likes. Although she still doesn’t have the best
chewing and swallowing skills, her spoon and fork control has improved to
independence. She will drink out of an open mouth cup with no spilling and
thinks it is a special treat to drink from a bottled water container. She
does drool some but overall we have seen great improvements in her mouth
muscle control which we attribute to the oral motor program.
Abigail has continued to progress with her oral motor program. She is
learning to isolate different muscle to create particular letter sounds.
Most of her letter sounds are at the beginning of words but we are starting
to hear some second syllable sounds. Although she is no where near verbal
communication that is understandable to anyone, she continues to make
approximations and talks to us all the time.
With so much to say, we finally got her an augmentative communication device,
a SpringBoard, from the Prentke Romich company. Abigail pushes pictures on
a portable screen to create verbal output. We program the machine so that
things that she needs or things that are important to her are accessible.
Because she used PECS (picture exchange communication system) before the
device, she made a smooth transition. We encourage her to create sentences
as much as she is capable and she has produced up to 8 word sentences when
motivated (and expected to). She still will use her sign language and
vocalize because that is the way she has communicated for so long. She also
doesn’t realize that everyone doesn’t understand her or that there is so much
more to understand about what she is telling us verbally.
Since getting the device, she has really started to socialize with
her peers at school instead of always the adults. Her testing scores have
come up considerably too because she now has a way to express what she knows.
Abby is finishing her last year in a fully inclusive school program. She has
been in a public school program that collaborates with daycares. She is with
her regular 4-year-old peers, and the special ed teacher and assistant
co-teach with the daycare teacher and assistant. Abby has lived up to the
expectations of being able to participate within the school schedule. She
loves being with kids and loves school. We believe her peers have been her
teachers as much as the adults. Because of her age, Abigail has to move to
her home school campus next year. We plan to have her included with kinder
peers. She will be in a school summer program at the daycare where she is
now to help her retain all the social skills and time on task for routine
school activities she has accomplished this year.
Abigail has participated in several sports through an organization for
children with special needs. She got to try basketball, soccer, and baseball.
Baseball is her favorite and we decided to just concentrate on that this year.
We are fortunate to have two leagues for children with special needs available
to us. Abby has a buddy who is on the field with her, guiding her where she
need to go and pointing out opportunities to play. Running the bases (or
anywhere on the field) and hitting the ball off a tee are Abby’s favorite.
She is very motivated by the free soda at the end of the game.
Abby’s favorite things are Scooby Doo, Sea World, and the Jungle Book movie.
Her favorite things are very important to her learning. We try to relate all
kinds of things we are teaching her to one of these mainly to keep her
motivated and interested. She still loves the water, swinging, and music.
Her most recent outdoor favorite has been learning to ride her tricycle. She
can now steer and pedal at the same time, go up slight inclines and over bumps.
Mostly her stamina has improved and her attention span has increased so that
she enjoys riding for 10 minutes now.
Abigail still sees a physical therapist and occupational therapist once a week
and she sees a speech therapist twice a week (in addition to the oral motor
therapist she sees once a week). These therapies are outside the speech
therapy she gets at school. Abby has been working with the physical therapist
in the pool. Since Abby loves the water, the idea of having to get out of
the water if she doesn’t follow directions and participate keeps her very
motivated. Abby’s balance, strength, range of motion and relaxing are some
of the things she is building on but because she is in the pool Abby has also
had the opportunity to practice water safety skills. She holds her breath to
dive for things, is learning to wait and get someone’s attention before going
in (this is sooo hard), blows bubbles, pushes off the bottom and swims to the
side.
We have seen progress in every area, some more than others. Toilet training
has been one area where her progress has fluctuated. Sometimes she seems to
understand the urge to go but she has never been consistent from day to day,
therefore we still think some of it is coincidence. We continue to have her
go through the motions of toileting so we can reinforce the steps. Abby has
a special potty chair at home and school. The chair provides stability
through a smaller bowl, positioning close to the ground, a back and arm rests.
When we catch her using the potty, she is praised and gets one M&M.