Fast forward a few months and here we are. Sami still will not roll over. (She is six months now.) She will not sit up with support. She won't even reach for a toy. All these milestones I was looking forward to...Where are they? I filled out her 6 month questionnaire that I received from the heakth department and she failed the physical development. (Whereas, she had passed her 3 month.) I began to discuss it with Children 1st, a county program that I will discuss later.) And they helped me get her into Babies Can't Wait, another county program I will discuss later. For her to be in the Babies Can't Wait Program, she had to have an initial evaluation. They came into the home and circled my daughter and watch her like she was prey. They tested her to see if her cognitive development was right on, which it was. And then they began to test her physical abilities. Their many attempts were futile. They couldn't even get her to reach for a toy. She just stared at it. The tried to assist her in rolling over, but she didn't budge. We went over some paperwork and talked about the program some more and they placed her in therapy a few weeks after.
She began to do therapy for 1 hour once a week. They formulated an IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) for her so that they could work with her at school and at home. Her therapist's name was Natalie. She visited every Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. She worked with Sami using toys. She had a bag full of toys-many of which I went out and bought later on just because I liked them and so did Samantha. The one thing she had that Sami really enjoyed was the exercise ball. It was a big green ball, made for adults. She would lay Sami on top of it and sing Wheels on the Bus as she rolled it from side to side. She explained that she was trying to build strength in Samantha's trunk muscles because that is where she was mostly lacking. She had a stacker that you could snap together to make several little balls. (That is what is in the picture. She was a year old there.) Samantha enjoyed therapy at first, until she started progressing. Natalie started having her to do more and more on her and Sami would get frustrated and start screaming. Some days she would scream for the whole hour and some days she would scream for just thirty minutes, but Natalie began to realize that she wasn't going to stop and she would have to leave early. We had to try bubbles and other bribes, but most days they just didn't work. Towards the end of her therapy, she also brought her a Rifton Chair to borrow. (It is also in the picture.) A Rifton Chair is a chair meant for children with special needs. It helps to support them when they sit up more so than a high chair of some sort. This way they can eat and do other things without an adult having to hold them up. Sami didn't need it so much for that reason, but Natalie felt that Samantha would benefit more from it because the big tray that was on the front would help during therapy because Sami would sit in the seat (at eye level) and not on the floor and they could work on fine motor activities such as stacking. She was sort of scared at first, and then she wanted to be in it ALL the time! She would take off the tray, crawl in, and say, "Buckle!"
Her Progression? She rolled over for the first time at almost one year old, but since then she hasn't even really wanted to, even now. She is able to, but she has something that Natalie called a mid-line aversion. She said Samantha would do anything to avoid her mid-line. Most of her problems were in that area, including her swallowing disorder. Natalie worried about that the most, so that is where they spent most of their time. She would even try to make Samantha bang her toys together in the center of her body, but she wouldn't do it. She began crawling after she turned a year and then progress toward walking by cruising and using her push toy. She was walking at sixteen months, with assistance from her braces. I was so proud of her. I almost cried. She had tried so hard for so long and she finally did it! She has made it through so much since the beginning. After a year of therapy, they finally released her with possibility that she may fall behind again and in that case, she could start back. But-she hasn't! She has been doing well.
She still has problems keeping her balance while sitting up sometimes or her ankle turns out like it used to, but those are just minor kinks she will learn to work out for herself. Therapy,for her, was not a pleasant experience, but the rewards she got from it-rolling, walking-they were. I don't know what I would have done without it. Without early intervention, I am not sure where we would be.
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