Oscar Goes to Therapy
Oscar has been going to his new therapists for about three months now, and it’s been fabulous. His therapists are amazing women who are very tuned into his needs. They’re flexible and very creative about finding the best ways to draw him out and get the most out of our sessions. More importantly, they’re very optimistic about his future and see how bright he is.
The first twelve sessions or so that we had with our speech therapist, and maybe the first four with the occupational therapist, were really focused on assessing Oscar’s skills. Since establishing a baseline, we’ve moved to treatment, where we have a list of goals to work towards.
Right now, in speech, one thing we’re working on is building up a set of stock phrases for Oscar that will enable him to communicate with the outside world. In the past two and a half years, we’ve developed a special language at home that has allowed Oscar to get his point across fairly effectively. Sadly, that language, which is composed of a mixture of American sign language, gestures and single nouns that Oscar speaks, is not spoken by anyone other than Nanny Norma and myself.
Our first phrase is “I want _____”. We’ve been working on this phrase for weeks. Weeks. It’s been agony for everyone involved. Why this is so difficult is still a mystery. Oscar appears to have a processing disorder that makes it difficult for him to comprehend what people are actually saying. When asked to repeat the words “I want the car,” Oscar initially would say something to the effect of “pinkabunkacar”. When we’d break it into distinct words, with visual cues for each word, he’d be able to repeat it one word at a time, but could not put it into a sentence.
- ST – I
- O – I
- ST – want
- O – want
- ST – the
- O – the
- ST – car
- O – car
- ST – I. want. the. car.
- O – Pinkabunka car.
Today, though, we had our first co-treat session (with speech and OT combined) and he got it. He wanted to spin on the trapeze and said “psin.” This, by the way, is a huge accomplishment. Three months ago Oscar would have grunted and leaned towards the trapeze and become frustrated when we didn’t know what he wanted. He understands now that words are more effective, so when Miss M opened her mouth to say “I want to spin”, Oscar beat her to it and said “I want pins”. Not the greatest grammar or articulation, but we can work on that next. Even better was that the next time he wanted something, he went to her and said – “I want climb, I want climb, I want climb,” which is kind of funny because Miss M usually makes him repeat things three times, so he’s clearly getting this stuff.
One phrase down, what, a bizillion more to go? Baby steps.
This was the other major breakthrough of the session. Oscar got messy. Really messy.
Oscar hates to be messy. Loves to make a mess, but the world comes to an end if he gets something on him. As you can see from the pictures above, he isn’t really sure that he likes to have a mixture of shaving cream and paint on his hands, but he loved smearing it around on the table. When we got into the car, after he’d been cleaned up, I asked him if he wanted to do that at home and he yelled “paint fun!” Take that Sensory Processing Disorder.
-
Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
