CB – Almost 5
So, it has been a year since I wrote the original bio for CB. How is he doing now? What progress has he seen? Well, I thought it would be good for me to explore these ideas. CB has worked so hard this year and has progressed beautifully. He is still our happy, silly little boy. He remains just as curious as before and can find humor in just about any situation. Making funny sounds, screaming, and saying words that he finds humorous entertains him to no end. Asking questions every few minutes (if not more often) is still one of his traits. If he is not playing with his cars, you can often find him playing outside either digging in the dirt or exploring our backyard. He loves water, whether it be swimming in it or splashing it in swim class, playing with it while washing hands, pouring it out of his drink, pouring it from one container to another, or just pouring it out of anything.
His speech has improved tremendously. He can express himself in complete, short sentences, although he will still resort to phrases a good bit of the time. His speech therapists are primarily working on articulation, vocabulary expansion, and usage, sentence length expansion, and focus. CB continues to spit or hit when he doesn’t want to do something. Fortunately, he uses his words more often though. A huge step has been to expand his automatic response of “No” to just about any question to include “Ok”, “Yes”, silence, and sometimes a longer reply. He was in the habit of responding No to anything asked of him. It was his default response. If you waited a few seconds, he would many times comply or say another response. I think changing this has helped him also change his viewpoint a little. CB has gone through a stuttering phase. This came about when he started speaking in longer phrases. His speech therapists mention that they think this is due his desire to say something before having it planned out how to say it. He still does it some and I just ask him to take a deep breathe or to slow down. This usually works and he can start getting his thoughts out.
Fine and gross motor tasks still remain a big challenge for CB. He is currently working on writing his letters in pre-k and has started the “Handwriting without Tears” curriculum at OT. It only takes up about 5-8 minutes of OT. Sitting still, holding the pencil correctly, understanding where to start writing, understanding where to hold his body and head in relation to the work he is doing, planning the next stroke, and understanding where he should put his visual focus adds up to a very challenging set of tasks for CB. The hope is that by practicing now will help him achieve more success once he is in kindergarten. CB’s strength has noticeably improved. This has enabled him to endure and enjoy activities in OT like swinging in prone position/superman pose while playing games for 8+ minutes. I haven’t seen this translate into longer endurance during activities like running around and chase or increase his running speed. CB is still the slowest runner of his peers and just not often play games involving chase outside. He can climb higher, jump 1-2 ft down to another surface, peddle a trike, and jump over a low object. He is starting to catch a ball a little better. His visual tracking is definitely improving. You will notice above that I mention him swinging. For the swings at the park, he will now tolerate sitting in the swing with a little movement for about 30 seconds – 2 minutes. He is still not comfortable with that specific movement. (more…)