Therapy Thursday: Day to Day Existence

One of the most intimidating things when parenting a child with special needs is therapy.  Whether, speech, physical, or occupational it is difficult to figure out quality time to devote to working on new tasks.  As a mom of six, finding consistent time to perfect the developmental skills that come naturally to most, is close to impossible.  

I remember the pint sized treadmill that camped out in our living room for months waiting for someone to hold Jillie above it so her feet would learn to walk.  Let me tell you, that was a bicep builder.  That exercise apparatus did not get used as much as it should have, partially because Jillie would just lift her feet and dangle in our extended arms. Mostly, it was because our time to devote to it was not abundant.  I realized, therapy needed to be tied into our day to day existence.  We needed to use the resources we had on hand, brothers and sisters.  We set them on the task of encouraging Jillie to walk, by them holding her hands while her feet were on the floor. Wouldn't you know it, she walked and still does.  One night she stood right up and took four or five steps, all at once.  Did she do it for me, nope, she walked between the Biggles, Eric and Emily.

I love Jillie's therapists!  They do an amazing job with her and encourage me weekly.  When we set goals for my daughter I look for ways to achieve our objective while making my job a little easier, if possible.  For speech therapy, for example, Jillie needed to strengthen her tongue and lips.  So, no more cutting up spaghetti noodles.  She would need to use her verbal muscles to work that pasta into her mouth.  I also would turn her string cheese into threads and feed her peanut butter sandwiches on soft white bread, anything to get those muscles working out.

Our big goals now have more to do with occupational therapy, more fine motor skills to help her be successful in kindergarten.  We have special pencils to aid in her grip.  I have apps to help her count and write numbers.  We play with play dough to strengthen her hand muscles.  Our latest OT tool is, Box Tops.  Yes, the ones for education. Who'd have thought the little money makers would benefit my daughter in a totally different way.  I set her up with a tray, paper, big glue stick and pre-cut Box Tops and she had a blast.  We practiced counting objects, each page needed 10.  She then had to glue the tiny rectangles in specific places on the paper, not just any random place, she needed to follow directions, which she did.  Paired with the fine motor skills she was strengthening, it was quite the task. After five pages, she was done, but we have plenty more to take up this project again.  Tomorrow, she will hand her endeavours over to her teacher so she can play the Box Tops game of the month.  I am pretty sure it has to something do with pumpkins.