Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Therapies

This is for Brittany, mother of the beautiful Lily, whose pictures remind me so very much of Olivia during her first year. Brittany asked in the comments a few posts back about O's therapies in the beginning.



In the beginning, we didn't have a diagnosis. In the beginning, O's doctors insisted that we just wait and let her 'catch up.' They, we saw several doctors in a single practice and each one of them,didn't believe anything was wrong with Olivia.

Finally, when Olivia was nine months old, I asked for an MRI because, hello, she wasn't even hold her head steady, let alone sitting up or even trying to crawl.

At this point, we weren't doing any organized therapies.

The MRI came back normal. Her brain was 'perfect', declared the doctor and neurologist. If nothing else, this ruled out CP.

When she was eleven months old, I requested an evaluation by First Steps. At this point, O still wasn't sitting up but she was gaining control of her head.

The doctor shrugged and wrote the referral.

Olivia was evaluated by a team of therapists, one was a physical therapist and the other was a developmental therapist.

I was told right there at the evaluation that though they weren't supposed to say so, Olivia absolutely qualified for services. She rolled but didn't sit up, didn't crawl, was nowhere near standing.

She showed a definite preference for her left hand, with significant weakness on her right side. She has since proven to be right handed, with no weakness in that side at all. I firmly believe the PT and OT worked that out.

We still didn't have a diagnosis so the therapists wrote down that she was physically delayed.

Just before Olivia's first birthday, she began receiving physical therapy for her gross motor skills, to get her sitting, crawling and eventually walking. She received occupational therapy for her fine motor skills so she could play, feed herself, eventually color/write.

She also received speech therapy and developmental therapy. The developmental therapy was mostly playing.

She actually sat up on her own at her very first occupational therapy session. It was my birthday. The best present EVER.

Her speech therapy was a lot like her developmental therapy. The therapist worked to get Olivia to communicate with her by giving her a choice of toys and urging her to indicate which one she wanted to play with. The indication could be anything, a point, a look and grunt, reaching. She just wanted Olivia to 'get' that she could interact with those around her.



But every one of these therapists told us the same thing upon meeting our family.

They each said that the very best therapist Olivia is ever going to have is her big sister. They insisted that siblings are huge in helping special needs kids come that much further in their development.

Olivia has a cousin who is a year younger. He's played a big part in her therapies too. Watching him learn to walk pushed Olivia to try. Listening to him talk and make mistakes gives her the confidence to try too.

Olivia dropped developmental therapy after only a year because we all decided that she wasn't getting much out of it. Even the DT agreed that we were doing as much for her at home as she, the therapist was doing once a week.

She continued ST, PT and OT until she was three years old and aged out of the First Steps program.

Last year, she attended a special ed preschool and received PT there. Honestly, we didn't feel like it helped at all. she liked being around the kids but the PT just wasn't what we wanted for her.

So she started gymnastics classes last summer and the improvement in her strength and coordination in just under a year is astounding. I highly recommend a class like this to anyone with a kid with low muscle tone.

Olivia crawled at 17 months. She walked at 29 months. She started talking in full sentences when she was about 35 months. She's amazed every single therapist and doctor she's met since getting her diagnosis.

Of course, we think she's pretty awesome too. But we might be a little biased.

3 comments:

Brittany said...

Thank you for the post! It really is helpful to see how far these little ones have come and far they can go! Olivia is an inspiration!

Tiffany said...

She is awesome!! I have a post coming up about therapies too. :)

McKinley {Haolepinos} said...

SHE IS AWSOME!!! What darling photos. I can't believe how wonderful therapies are. What a blessing for Olivia to have such a supportive family. I heard too that older siblings can really make a difference. Thanks for thinking of my sister!!