Since she sees 3 therapists almost weekly, I thought it would be good to keep track of them here.
Her latest was Friday...Lisa....she is GREAT! Such a wealth of information. She is fun and Livvy loves her. She still building trust (2nd meeting) then the "work" sets in. ;)
She gave her some feathers to teach her how to blow and since with feathers it doesn't take much effort to blow, it would be a successful tool. Livvy didn't want to blow the feathers so Lisa did and she laughed and laughed. We'll work on that here as well.
Lisa also described her diagnosis of apraxia/dyspraxia in greater detail. It seems Livvy only has a mild version of it (speech/language vs. entire body) which is great! The basic version is she hears the correct word spoken (DOG), wants to say it, but her mouth can't produce it since the signal from the brain to the mouth gets interrupted. Researchers don't know why or how yet. She explained it's better to just repeat a word you want her to say rather than ask her to say it. It puts a huge amount of pressure on her and since she knows she can't say it correctly, she gets very frustrated.
The other observation (which the Occupational Therapist witnessed as well) is she jumps up and down often, spins around in one direction sometimes, and crashes into the couch. These activities imply a sensory need; her brain is telling her body to do these things to gain sensory input that is necessary to concentrate on a given task. Lisa recommended 3-4 times a day to rough her up by jumping high and hard, spinning in BOTH directions to turn the brain "off" instead of getting dizzy by spinning in one direction, and squeezing her arms, trunk, and legs somewhat hard. She LOVES it! The more the better. It was interesting to see how after those are done for about 10 minutes or so, she is able to sit and do a puzzle or blocks without interruption.
This is all so facinating to Kenny and I - the more we know, the better. Lisa said her speech would be normal (didn't give a time frame yet) and worse-case scenario she might be asked where she's from because of a slight "accent" with certain words. She also mentioned that since this program we're in ends when she's 3 yrs old, the school district would pick her up and further her treatment while in school starting with her preschool years. We meet with the District in January for an eval.
She is babbling up a STORM and ending her "sentences" with a question mark at the appropriate times with a word she knows...example..."(babbling, babbling, babbling, toes?" Which means "where are your toes?" :)
She also just started a MyGym class once a week for 1 hr. She loved it - except sitting in the circle for a few minutes to sing a song and do introductions! It's still good for her to sit there even when she doesn't want to and the main point is socialization and physical activity since she's so active. So far so good! When the MyGym class ends (8 sessions) we'll enroll her in our local community center tumbling class.
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