OT: Day 8/30

One of our goals for Turbo is to get him to do self-care items without a fight or meltdown. Two self-care items that we struggle with are the use of chap stick and lotion.

In order to do this, Ms. Renee used different items to help desensitize his lips so that when chap stick was applied, he was able to "handle" it and not wipe it off. Although he did wipe it off, he was able to handle it being on his lips for a good amount of time.


Her recommendations are to just keep making this part of self care fun and to rewire his brain so that it isn't an event that has a bad feeling or bad memory attached to it. (Which I am quite sure that I was a part of...insert bad mommy guilt feeling here).





**NOTE: SUCCESS!!**
As of this entry, tonight at bath, Turbo put on lotion all over his body as well as let me put it on his face! At first he didn't want to because he didn't want to "GET MESSY", but he let me put it on because I used a little bit for a his leg, then while he was rubbing it in, I proceeded to add more, and more, and more without him shying away!

Our next stop was an obstacle course. The goal was for him to receive a lot of different input while coupling it with a cognitive activity. We set up bolster pillows and equipped him with a "car". Which I am not sure what it is, but the picture shows it. He was to maneuver his way through the course, pick up an alphabet pillow, take it to the end, (without crashing into things - which was to help him with his impulsivity of needing to hit something (proprioceptive) while or after a swaying motion (vestibular). Then he was to write with a wax crayon on the mirror, what the letter was that he picked up.



Moving into the next room, Ms. Renee worked on slowing his engine down to a BLUE or a GREEN level by having him sit on a spinning board. This allowed his energy level to calm down so that he can moving into a learning mode, if you will. They played catch an alien and flew to different planets. Although to Turbo it was a game, to Ms. Renee, it was a test. She wanted to see if how is tracking was. She would move the alien in all directions and asked Turbo to watch it with his eyes without moving his head. This was a struggle for Turbo as he doesn't move his eyes, he moves his whole body/head. She also was looking for how smooth his tracking was. In the video she talks about what she was looking for. She also told me that by lying down on his side, moves the fluid in his brain around that will affect his tracking abilities, thus making them stronger.




After ALL that spinning, Turbo NEEDED some deep pressure to balance him out. Usually he would seek it out on my furniture, his brother, the walls, me, friends, ANYTHING that would give him that feedback that he so intensely needed. So, Ms. Renee loaded up the "Jedi" game and had him track the lights while banging them out with a ball. See, for yourself...it is such a cool game and with the lights off too!


After all the movement, Ms. Renee took him into an enclosed "cave" (really just underneath a slide area), gave him some bubbles to blow (a calming activity - BLUE activity and read him a book). His weighted lizard was on his lap to help with the deep pressure and she spoke in a calm, slow voice. By being in an enclosed environment or tent, it closed out any visual activity that was going on (because he is so visual any and all stimulation while trying to be calmed would just override each other) as well as sound. (So I have actually found a USEFUL activity for his tents - you know - other than to annoy me!)