OT: Day 20/30

Today's plan included a barrel, a trapeze, "Animal Planet" and charades; not all together at once.

To begin with, Turbo and Ms. Renee set up the safe area with pillows, the barrel and the trapeze. This activity was fun for him because it gave him the vestibular input, but was designed to strengthen his core muscles. Playing on monkey bars, and things that give him the resistive pull is a great source for him to build strength in his hands to help with his writing.



The next swing was a game of saving the animals by bringing them to different planets. The swing allowed him to wrap his arms and legs around which helped with muscle core strengthening (sitting still muscles), but also a vestibular input which he loves. By adding a cognitive element it helped him to focus more and learning is more likely to take place. Ms. Renee sat behind him and showed him the beanbags with letters on them. This way, Turbo had to turn his head and use his peripheral vision to see the letters, and to focus his eyes on something while his body was moving. What surprised and didn't surprise us at the same time was how "smart" he was. The task was to say a name of an animal that begun with the letter on the bean bag. He pretty much got it right each time. We both looked at each other and agreed that we think he is smarter than he lets on. She again encouraged a gifted program.



We discussed how this could be used at home. Using a ordinary playground swing is a way to do this, but the core strengthening is lost. Another option is to use the rope swing at my paren'ts house, but to add a disc seat to it. That way he could sit down on it while I pull him and help him with his "learning". She said that there are some places in town which sell circular disc seats, but I suggested that maybe at Home Depot there is a disc seat for playground sets.

We moved on to a game of Charades. This game is boring in of itself for a 5-year-old, so adding an obstacle course to go through before having to act it out intensifies the game. Using charades helps Turbo, who likes to go fast, to stop to read and understand verbal cues which he would otherwise miss because of his speedy impulsivness. Having him act out emotions as well is something that would benefit him.



As I walked away from this session, I realized more and more that our "school time" will not really consist of pencil and paper as much it as I initially thought. Our "school time" needs to look more and more like OT until Turbo and I figure things out together. My next task is to look into a gifted program that will suit our family.

Any suggestions out there?

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!)

OT: Day 7/30

I'm a day late...and a dollar short...but what are ya gonna do?


Yesterday at therapy, Ms. Renee worked a lot of visual stimulation. We have all noticed that Turbo blinks excessively, but we could never figure out the reason. Her thought is that his occular movement isn't strong enough and that he gets fatigued easily.

We began the session with some hardwork to create a safe environment for him to "work" in. She suggests that any time that he can do "hard work" is good for him because it allows him to receive a lot of input on so many different levels. He was to drag HUGE pillows that were very large to the area where he would be playing. He did this excessively and drug 5 of this pillows to the play area...but whatever.

Next, he hung in a hammock but she inserted what to me looked like a diaper changing pad that goes on a table. Guess I have baby on the brain; or at the very least, dirty diapers...but I digress.

She gave him a TheraBand to use to help him swing while he was equipped with is music (which I have forgotten to mention that not only does it play music at certain decible levels, but it also vibrates on the top of his head stimulating that vestibral lobe...bunch of guru talk I know but somehow it makes a difference :) ), while sitting on his belly. She asked me to pull on the rope while he swung back and forth (proprioceptive/vestibular input) while she stood behind me with a dry erase board writing letters. He was to say the letters/sounds while moving. This was to help him keep his eyes locked on an object while his body was moving. It was to help strengthen his occular movement while helping him to stay focused while his body was moving. Something he struggles with. He did really well, but you could tell that after 5 or 10 minutes of it, he was becoming fatigued and began blinking, then he politely asked if we could stop.



Our next task was to strengthen his upper body and hands. I don't think that Turbo intentionally puts up a fight when it comes to writing, coloring, cutting or pasting, it is just that he gets tired and fatigue sets into his hands so he gives up. The obstacle course that she set up was to help strengthen his upper body and hands and to give me ideas on how to do some more work with him at home.

She gave him a small trampoline to use to jump on to jump up and hang onto a trapez bar (Hand strength/Proprioceptive). He was to swing 3 times (Vestibular) and then fall into the pile of pillows that he made (Proprioceptive). He was to crawl on his belly to a scooter board (Upper body strength) and climb onto the board. Then using only his arms (Upper body strength) he was to collect puzzle pieces and put them into a pile (Upper body strength/congitive/visual). Then he was to do it all over again.

Check out the video of him doing the course.




Afterwards, he continued lying on his belly on the scooter board and put the puzzle together. Again, he was conditioning his upper body as well as focusing on the puzzle in a position that wasn't the "W" leg position. He wanted so badly to get up but was encouraged to lie on his belly. He successfully finished the puzzle while on his belly...Good job! (This whole activity was so that he could come back down from a TOO FAST activity to a JUST RIGHT activity - he did great in the transition).

When he saw the ramp and the scooter boards, the plan when out the window to use the climbing wall. So they altered their plans in the book, and set to work building a wall of cushion blocks for him to ride the scooter board down and crash into the blocks. See for yourself the video.



This was a really good session, and I walked away with a couple of things to do at home:

1.) Have Turbo hang from the monkey bars, hubby's arms, or have him do pushups with daddy at night to continue to build his upper arm strength.

2.) Consider having a different range of activites for school that has to do with the floor.

3.) Ask really, really nicely if hubby can make a scooter board for us, or swallow the 12 bucks it costs to buy one at a specialty store.