Monthly Archive: October 2016

I haven’t felt inspired lately to post anything so I was just thinking about what would help me in the future when I look back. One thing that is always helpful is to have an update on how CB is growing, changing, and learning. So, this is a post dedicated to CB here and now.

So far, this school year is going really well for CB. He had one tough week from Oct 12th-Oct 19th where he was physically acting out and physically responding to his friends and teachers. Then on Oct 20th, CB woke up and seemed different. He seemed calmer. From that point on, he has interacted appropriately with peers (excluding using inappropriate words with teachers and occasionally with peers). His peers seem to treat him appropriately and enjoy his company. He looks forward to going to school and from observations enjoys his time there. He is even enjoying journal time, which at this point is CB deciding what sentence to write, the teacher writing the sentence out with dotted letters, and CB tracing the letters with hand-over-hand assistance.

CB’s vocabulary and sentence structure are continuing to grow in depth and length. He can verbally express so much more. He still has difficulty saying some sounds like “l”, “w”, “f” and possibly “th”. His biggest issues are with sentence structure and motor planning to organize his thoughts. The therapists are working on asking questions and making sure he is using pronouns, articles, and correct verb structure. He still receives speech 4x a week, which really helps.

For PT, he seems physically stronger and can run longer distances than he was able to do just a couple of months ago and he can jump from higher distances. He still has problems with staying in motion while running. He normally stops after running a short distance. We are currently evaluating why this is happening (i.e., just tired, vision issues, motor-planning issues, etc.). He has an appt with a behavior optometrist in less than 2 weeks to evaluate whether the issue is vision-related (issues other than myopia or astigmatism, which are treated with his glasses).

For OT, he is slowly improving. He wore a weighted vest for the entire session today. His ability to trace letters seems to have improved. He will start a different handwriting without tears book soon in OT.

At home, we are still seeing tantrums and self-regulation issues resulting in either failed or successful attempts at hitting, kicking, spitting at, and verbally exploding at Olem, HB or me. Most can be easily mitigated but we had one on Wednesday that lasted for 20-30 minutes at home. Currently, we are exploring the technique where we remove him from the situation, briefly explain the situation, take him to a place to calm down, and ask him to let Olem or me know when he is calm enough to chat. When he says he is calm, we go back to that place where he was calming down and discuss the situation and appropriate next steps for him to be able to rejoin in the previous activity. So far, this is working pretty well. CB targets anyone around when he is upset so we leave him alone until he is calmer. This technique only works if we can remain calm during it.

On another note, he and HB play together so much and for the most part quite well. They go on so many adventures outside, build different flying contraptions and rolling vehicles out of legos, make up chasing games, and really enjoy playing with each other.

Updated blood work is just a few weeks away so I will have more results to evaluate. This lab work request also contains some stool and urine samples and additional blood work (compared to normal). This is due to a pediatric gastro we are considering and these are tests he requires his patients to get before seeing him.

CB loves most of his therapists and wishes he could see his proportionate share speech therapist every day.