Therapy

WARNING:  This post is long!  I considered  breaking it into five shorter posts, but it seemed fitting that the long, labor intensive task of therapy be summarized in one long post.

One of our greatest blessings and most time consuming tasks since Wesley's birth has been therapy. Currently, Wesley has therapy five times a week, seeing a speech therapist, feeding therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, and developmental therapist. In addition, we work with him each day on the things the therapists have shown us in their sessions.

Most of our therapies are in the home, but in September we switched to a feeding therapist at Easter Seals. Although we drive 45 minutes each way to see Judy, we are so grateful for her help. Wesley has low tone in his mouth, a very weak jaw, a poor suck, and a disinterest in trying new foods. He also dislikes it when we put our hands on his face to provide jaw support. So, things that we're working on are chewing, helping him to move his tongue without also moving his jaw, drinking from a cup, getting used to having our hands under his jaw, and transitioning from baby food to table food.

Since we've only been seeing Judy for a few months now, we are excited to be seeing significant improvements.  With all her hard work, he has gone from drinking only out of his sippy cup, to drinking thickened liquids out of an open cup (Gerber 2nd peaches or applesauce), to learning how to drink rice milk and apple juice from an open cup.  He is letting us put our hands under his chin to support him as he drinks, which is amazing given how much he used to hate us touching his face.

He has also gone from not sucking well at all, to sucking Gogurt out of  container, to learning how to suck from a straw.  He still has a long way to go with straw drinking, but with Judy's persistence she's helping him learn to keep his tongue in his mouth, put his lips around the straw, and strengthen his suck.

As I shared here, after eating Spaghetti-O's in therapy sessions in December, he also started eating them for us at home last week! This is a huge step for him.  We would love your prayers that Wesley would continue to allow Judy and I to introduce him to new foods and textures and help him with jaw support. In the past, this has been the area of therapy where he has fought us the most.

Wesley's other therapy sessions are usually much more enjoyable. Wesley loves his physical therapist, Becky. Because of his sensory issues, Wesley always wants to be moving. So, working with him on rolling, scooting, crawling, and walking has been fairly easy. On the other hand, Becky is always trying to find ways to work on stability with him. (He's usually not a big fan of stability exercises!) Because he over pronates and walks with his ankles turned out, Becky recommended that we get Sure Step orthotics for him. They have made such a big difference!  His balance has significantly improved with the orthotics, although he still does fall regularly.

Right now our big goals for Wesley are to teach him how to balance on one foot, play in a squatting position without falling over, stand up by himself without support, walk up the stairs with support, and crawl down the stairs by himself.

Becky has found such enjoyable ways for us to practice these things.  We play with his launch rocket, helping him to balance on one foot while he lifts his other foot to stomp on the launcher.  We also lay out a board and have him practice stepping over it - he thinks it's so funny to go back and forth, back and forth, and I love watching his concentrated expressions as he carefully lifts one leg over the board while using us or a chair for balance.  And of course, we regularly practice going up and down the stairs, which Wesley thinks is such a fun game!  He comes running every time he even hears the word "stairs" mentioned.

Christi used to be Wesley's speech and feeding therapist in the home, but recently switched to just providing speech therapy. That has made such a big difference.  Now Wesley looks forward to seeing her and enjoys their sessions rather than watching her with dread while waiting to see whether it will be a speech or feeding session.

Christi has done a fantastic job of helping us to teach Wesley to communicate, despite his lack of interest in speaking or signing. With her help we have created a picture board with pictures of his favorite toys, along with his sippy cup and several foods he eats. Now when we give him a choice of two different cards he is able to let us know which toy/food he wants.  He loves being able to communicate with us and always has a big smile on his face as he hands us his preferred card.

She also works with him on saying and signing "more" and "all done" along with playing games with him in hopes of helping him to start saying more consonants and words.  We play with bubbles while saying "pop, pop, pop"; we wind up wind-up toys and say "ready, set...." and wait for him to make an attempt at saying "go"; we play with farm animals, working on animal names and sounds they make; we put balls into a popper and say "in"; etc....  So far Wesley's only consistent words are "daddy" and "in", but we have heard him say "mama" a few times and "bubble" once.  So, we will keep working.

He still seems to have a disconnect, where he doesn't realize that he can use his mouth and hands to vocalize and communicate.  So, we would love your prayers that Wesley would understand the power of speech and start attempting to communicate with us.

Wesley's old occupational therapist, Donna, was a spectacular resource for us.  Her expertise and years of experience were such a blessing to us as she has helped us in so many areas.  Before we started seeing Judy, Donna helped us teach Wesley how to close his lips over his spoon rather than keeping his tongue out as we fed him baby food.  She also taught him how to hold his bottle by himself and how to drink out of a sippy cup.  For those things alone, we can never thank her enough!

Another thing Donna noticed was that Wesley's constant need for motion seemed to be a sensory issue.  So, she recommended a SPIO vest to provide him with proprioceptive input.  What a difference that has made!  While he still walks and runs around the house constantly, the vest has calmed him down significantly.  He is now able to sit still for longer periods of time and concentrate on other things rather than just his need for motion.  Since getting the vest, we have seen him make great strides in fine motor skills, feeding, and speech now that he is able to focus better.

Right now, the biggest things we are working on with Wesley are putting shapes into his shape sorter and coins into his piggy bank, working on the concepts of in & out and up & down, and learning to use his pointer and his pincer grasp on a consistent basis.

Wesley's newest therapist is Kiya, who provides him with developmental therapy.  Wesley ADORES Kiya.  The moment she arrives, he runs behind me and stands behind me while peeking around my legs to smile at her and giggle.  As she says hi to him, he starts laughing and will just laugh and laugh with her. Sometimes it is hard for her to get him to participate in activities, because all he wants to do is flirt with her and enjoy her presence.  It is such a joy for me to see the bond they have formed and watch the fun that they have together.

Kiya works with Wesley to help him grow developmentally in how he plays and interacts with others.  Right now our goals are to help him grow in participating in non-preferred activities rather than throwing temper tantrums.  As well, we're working on helping him learn to follow commands (which we - especially Zach - hope will help with learning to share too!),  learn how to imitate us, use his eyes and his hands together when interacting with people and toys rather than looking off elsewhere, and begin to communicate more (whether that be with signs, picture cards, verbal imitation, or words).

Kiya uses a lot of the same activities that we use for occupational therapy and speech therapy, seeking to incorporate the language, fine motor skills, and appropriate play skills all together into the activities we do.

We are so thankful for all of our therapists and for the ways they help us.  God has very clearly hand picked the perfect ladies to help Wesley to learn to the best of his abilities.  They have become a part of our family, and we will miss them greatly when Wesley ages out of Early Intervention.