Princess is in Occupational Therapy and one of the things we are working with her is teaching her safety. Simple common sense things like- Look before you jump! For some reason she lacks the ability to pick up on things that would usually teach other children life experiences. I can't tell you how many times she's climbed on top of the kitchen table, fallen off and hurt her head/arm/leg etc on our tile floor. Yet, she STILL climbs up on top of the table at every chance she gets. (This is an older picture of her standing in the middle of the kitchen table after breakfast one day. Apparently, she wanted a few more bites and climbed right up to help herself)
Now, don't confuse this strange inability to learn common sense with her intelligence. She's one smart cookie!! You see, one of the other things the OT wants to teach her is her phone number. My first thoughts about this were..."She's barely 3, barely out of diapers lady and you want her to learn her phone number!? You're expecting way to much."
Well, apparently not so. After 2 weeks of casually mentioning her phone number here and there, (Literally in passing as we did other things. I just wanted to be able to tell the OT that we'd worked on it for our homework) the kid knows her phone number!!! I have no idea when she picked it up. I casually asked her while we were sitting at the Doctors office yesterday what her phone number was. I was just looking for something to talk about with her. I certainly wasn't expecting her to answer me! She nonchalantly spit the numbers out, in order, perfectly and ran off to play. I about fell out of my chair!!! Just to be sure, we called Daddy on the cell phone and I asked her to tell Daddy our phone number. Once again, she cited the number without so much as a blink.
Wow. I'm one proud mama!!!!!!!!!!
'The Princess' qualifies for Speech Therapy(ST) and Occupational Therapy(OT). As a parent, I have certain expectations. I expect her to receive those services from a licensed therapist trained in his/her specified field. I do not expect a ST to provide OT and vice versa. Seriously, am I asking to much??
It seems that in our area, with the local Early Childhood Education program, this is common practice. I was appalled when we moved here and they expected me to agree to such a thing. Instead, we signed a contract that they would only provide her Speech Services and we would take her to a Private OT elsewhere.
Well, last week when her ST came to our home for our usual appointment he informed me that it would be his last day. Their Occupational Therapist was back from maternity leave and would now be coming instead. (To provide both OT and ST) I was stunned. Our daughter has been getting wonderful OT services through a licensed therapist for 9 months now. We are very happy with her. They think I suddenly want to change things around? And with no notice whatsoever! I was livid.
Needless to say, we have now pulled out of our local ECE program entirely.
My thoughts for them: Try and save your money and someone else's child. Mine deserves better than that!! So, now we're on the lookout for a good Pediatric Speech Therapist. Wish us luck!
Many people don’t understand what it is, and what it’s for. Especially when it’s for a small child. I thought it might be fun to go over what The Princess does in OT each week.
Occupational Therapy: “The use of adaptive, work, and play activities to increase independent function, enhance development, and prevent disability; the task or the environment may be adapted to achieve maximum independence and to enhance the quality of life.”
Let’s start with Tactile Processing. The tactile system interprets touch and the perception of touch. In some children, tactile processing is “off”. The touch, or feeling of certain everyday objects can be very uncomfortable (like sand for instance) while very painful situations (like ripping a fingernail off) are not painful at all. When tactile processing isn’t working quite right it can inhibit a child to develop properly.
Today we’ll talk about Hands. The Princess has very weak hands. This is thought to be because she avoids texture. Rough objects or sticky foods for example. Touching sand is excruciating for her.
In OT we work to strengthen her hands. Her therapist will put little objects inside a ball of play dough. She has to pull the play dough apart and get all of the objects out. Play dough toys are excellent as well. Pulling and pushing the dough through the holes, squeezing the apparatus that creates play dough “hair”. Rolling, cutting, pounding play dough… it’s all fun! We also play with pop beads. Pulling them apart and pushing them together. Squeezing and pulling are some of the best ways we can strengthen her hand muscles.
See? These are typically things we don’t even think about!
We also work on tactile defensiveness. Because The Princess avoids texture, we have to encourage her to get her hands dirty! We play with large buckets of dry rice, beans or pasta. Immersing her hands into the material. Digging, pouring, burying… all to help her get used to the sensation. We don’t want her to avoid touching or the muscles in her hands will continue to be weak. Weak hands= difficultly using pencils in school. If we don’t strengthen her hands now, once she gets into school, writing will be very difficult for her.
We’ve made great progress! Rice and Beans are a-okay with The Princess now. She has no problem sticking her hand down into the mixture. Pasta is still a bit too much. We will eventually address the sand. It’s very uncomfortable for her, perhaps even painful. Now that summer is coming, it’s something we’ll need to address.
Tomorrow I will talk about Tactile Processing and it’s relation to foods. Eating has been an issue for The Princess since she was a newborn.
Our Princess has been in Speech Therapy since 9 months old. I know, I know, most of you are thinking, 9 months old!? Trust me, “I” didn’t even know they could start that early.
At one of her well baby checkups, the Doctor became concerned that she wasn’t making appropriate baby noises. She was evaluated and found to be delayed so they started Speech Therapy. Despite ST on a weekly basis, she barely had any sounds and certainly did not speak. Her first word finally came at 18 months. At 22 months, she had a mere 26 words. While we were very excited about that number, the Therapist told us she should have 150-300 words by age 2. That number seemed unreachable in such a short time frame, but we pressed on.
I am happy to announce her word count is now around 100!! Still not where it needs to be, but she’s made HUGE progress in just two months. Every day she says something new. This weekend she said her first sentence….”Daddy go bye” (she didn’t quite have bye-bye down, but has since mastered that word too!)
We are thrilled. Words cannot express the feeling we have about her progress. For a while there, I thought she might never talk. Now, I think we’ll never get her to be quiet.…and that’s okay with us. J
Our little Princess will be 2 next month. She’s a handful, testing every limit and boundary we have in place. I know it’s normal and to be expected, but I find myself scrambling to figure out what works for her. You’d think by the fourth child I would be a pro at this stuff- and I thought I was… she proved me wrong!
A dear friend of mine, (who’s also adopted from the foster care system) reminded me of a few things to keep in mind. While the Princess is nearly 2 years old, emotionally she’s still much younger. When I step back and think of things that way, it helps me to understand why the Princess doesn’t seem to “get it”. She will, but it might not be for awhile. It helps me cope.
Still, I am frustrated. I’ve never been one to baby proof all of the kitchen cabinets or place pads on the side of the coffee table. Instead, we like to teach our children to respect boundaries. Unfortunately, The Princess has other plans in mind. [IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/tnajk/AshleyCereal3.jpg[/IMG]
I find myself needing to get creative. I can’t just let her walk all over us after all. No, that would be disastrous. (You’ve seen them, the out of control families on Super Nanny?) I’ve gotten a few suggestions in the past few weeks...
1. She just needs a good spanking…. Um, no. While we aren’t anti- spanking, this isn’t the solution. Emotionally, the Princess is still a baby. What would she take away from that? Fear! Most importantly, we cannot spank her. She is after all, still in limbo and technically still a Foster Child. (Although it pains to be think of her that way) Big no-no!
2. Use an Egg Timer….. Ah, yeah….right! This comment came from her Speech Therapist. Honestly, she’s much too young for this. I understand his logic, but she certainly wouldn’t. The Egg Timer would become a “Yellow?” (A phone. She holds things up to her ear and says Yellow aka Hello. Even the shoes on her feet are Yellows!)
3. Redirection ……. It sounds good, in theory. Our Princess has a one track mind. When she has a goal, there’s no changing it!! She’s stubborn as all get out.
4. She needs a time out…...Yes, yes she does. Are you going to hold her there? I’ve never met an early 2 yr old that would sit for a time out. That’s something you use closer to 2 ½ or 3. Let’s see, at 2 yrs old, she’s supposed to be in time out for 2 minutes right? Well, I can get her to sit for about 20 seconds. IF you’re lucky! Hmmm, wonder if DHS would allow this kind of Time Out: [IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/tnajk/timeout.jpg[/IMG] Ha, just kidding.
Ahhh, the joys of motherhood. I guess for now, I am stepping down as Queen of the household. Alas, the Princess will take over… have no fear. (No really….RUN!!!)
Super Nanny, you should be hearing from me very soon.
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