Speech Therapy, 2/24

Garrett session this afternoon was great. He decided to sit on his trampoline for the entire hour, which was just fine with us. Every once and a while, he would stand up and jump, then sit back down with a toy.

He gave us a lot of eye contact today. We were trying to get him to sign "more" by withholding toys that he needed. He could see them and would try to grab the therapist's hand to show her that was what he wanted, but she stopped him. He eventually would hold out his hands for us to manipulate, but still resisted us trying to make his hands touch. About twenty minutes into his session, he did sign "more" once. He wouldn't do it again.

He is making a lot more vowel sounds now. My favorite is "oo yee". Mostly because it sounds awesome.

ABA progress and a new speech therapist

The report from ABA this week is that Garrett is no longer head banging. He still gets frustrated and rocks, but isn't getting to the point where he is hurting himself. He was very resistant to signing last week. I've been trying to get him to sign for the past year with no luck. The past two days, he has let the therapists sign hand over hand with him. Today, I tried it with him during out afternoon snack and saw it in action. I showed him some cereal and he put his hand up for me to manipulate. I put his other fingers down and said "cereal". He then looked at me and nodded.

We met Garrett's new speech therapist today. We went over the program and Garrett's goals. We talked about using pictures of people and objects that Garrett knows and getting him to point. We'll see her again next week.

Garrett started ABA today!

His therapists are great!

I stuck around for the first 20 minutes or so. He was fine when we arrived, but once the other kids started coming in, he freaked out. He started banging his head on the floor. They asked what I usually do to stop him, and I told them that I usually just slide my hand under his head. They just wanted to make sure that they're doing it the same way. I took some rice cakes in for his snack. He saw them on the table and instead of getting the attention of the therapist that was sitting at the table, he came across the room and tried to take my hand. I folded my arms, which he didn't like. But he did go and stand next to the table and wait for the therapist to pick up the baggie. Then he gave her eye contact and was rewarded with praise and a rice cake.

When I picked him up after the two hours, they said he did great. He slammed his head into the floor a few more times and now has rug burn on his forehead. He didn't show any warning signs that he was going to bang his head (like throwing a tantrum, or going on all fours), so they didn't have time to slide their hand under before he'd already hit the carpet once. The carpet in the playroom is not soft. Hopefully that will deter him from banging his head after a few days.

One of the therapists did some hand over hand signing with him. He didn't object, so she said that she'll keep trying and see how he does with it. They are going to write up his plan this week. I was told that he showed some interest in an insect puzzle and a shape sorter. Those are the lowest level toys that are, so he's literally starting from the beginning. It really does show his developmental levels. I say it all the time, but he's a 10 month old in a two year old's body.

We'll see how he does tomorrow.

Jumping through hoops

I feel like I have neglected this poor blog because there hasn't been much to report. Garrett has been without therapy for over two months. He is going back to a lot of his behaviors (head banging, spitting, not eating). It's been very depressing to see all of the progress we were making disappear.

But this week, we finally have some news!

We got our notification that Garrett's records had been transferred for ECHO and we were given two options for ABA therapy. I called and spoke to the one out of Suffolk, and they have a center that's local. They have openings Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings for two hours each. I told her to go ahead and sign Garrett up. We both contacted our ECHO coordinator and if we've jumped through all of the right hoops, Garrett should be starting ABA on Tuesday.

We also got a visit from the early intervention coordinator this week. I signed all of the paperwork and they'll be writing up a new IFSP for him. Our coordinator will be coming back this Wednesday with some other forms for me to sign, and Garrett will begin Speech and OT before the end of the month.

Yesterday was a HARD day.

Tuesday night, Garrett was having tummy troubles again and there was nothing I could do to comfort him. He threw up three times and was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep. He was trying but he would just wake up screaming a few minutes later. It was horrible. I finally brought him into bed with me to see if I could do something to make him feel better. I tried to rub his back, but he didn't want to be touched. He took my hand, placed it on his tummy, and then rolled over. Neither of us slept that night.

He was finally starting to drift off around 6:30, when Bronson came in and woke him up. We all got up and changed clothes. I fixed breakfast. Garrett only ate two bites of his toast. He started falling asleep on the stairs around 10, so I carried him up and put him in his crib. I usually change him back into his pajamas before he takes a nap, I made the mistake of not doing that.

When he woke up before 2, I went into his room and saw poop on the wall.

Yeah. Yesterday SUCKED.

After two baths, more laundry and disinfecting everything upstairs, I came down to feed a now starving Garrett. I made him a protein shake (hemp milk, rice protein, strawberries and bananas) and that was sufficient to fill his little tummy.

He went to bed at 7 pm and woke up at 8 this morning. Today is already a million times better than yesterday.

New routines

With Garrett's communication difficulties, even something as simple as a drink of water requires a routine. It has taken almost the entire six weeks that we've been here to get this down. He still has trouble with it sometimes, but if I give him a cue, he knows what he is supposed to do next.

I leave a cup on the edge of the bar by the fridge where Garrett can see it. If he wants a drink, he guides me to it and I'm hoping he will eventually point to it. I pick up the cup and hand it to him, giving him another opportunity to communicate with me.



Garrett hands me the cup and I fill it with a half inch of water.





When he is done drinking, he has to hand it back to me to indicate that he wants more. If he doesn't hand it back to me, he's done. It has taken a LONG time to get this part down. Even now, sometimes he'll forget and he'll throw the cup down and scream at me. If he does that, I'll wait until he picks it up again (which has only happened once), or he guides my hand down to pick it up, and we start over again.




Note: Did anyone notice all the eye contact in these photos? Crazy! Because he's looking at the camera. He's not looking at me.

He's been approved!

We got our referral authorizations this week for Garrett's therapy. He's authorized to receive services for Speech and OT. And it's at least twice what he was getting through Montgomery County.

We're still waiting on approval for ABA and that will hopefully come through next week.