Emily Update

My God where did the past month and a half go? Its been a blur, simple as that. Its been a bunch of ups and downs too (and no Renee, unfortunately none of them were in my marital bed).

On the one hand, I had the blessing to teach the best bunch of students I've ever had, period. Who knew that bringing coffee to class was like winning the golden ticket? Note to self: there is no reason to ever teach non-caffieinated persons again. Conversely, it has been hard dealing with the death of both my grandparents in such a short span of time. There's so much to say about that, but considering this blog is supposed to be about not taking life so seriously, I'm going to skip that subject for the time being to give you all a long overdue update on Emily's therapy progress.

As the days and months have ticked by, Emily has been attending therapy regularly, three sessions per week. Her schedule has changed slightly; she now has speech and OT on Wednesday and group/music/developmental therapy on Thursdays. To say her speech therapy is going well is the understatement of the year. Emily just loves Miss Shelly, and will do anything and everything to please her. Just the mention of Shelly's name leads to smiles and claps, and when Shelly enters the room, Miss Em does somersaults! Its just too much cuteness for one kid, really. Thinking about it makes my smile muscles hurt.

We hardly even need the PECS book anymore; only when Emily is tired (like first thing in the morning) or if she needs something that she doesn't ask for all of the time. I'm still using PECS to teach her new words, although the toilet picture isn't working yet. Nonetheless I think its one of the best things to ever happen to Em. I would highly recommend this type of tool for anyone with a child who has a speech delay.

Her language is really beginning to flourish. Its not uncommon for Emily to use small sentences throughout the day. We have been working on verbs for the past two weeks, and she can say things like, "Shoes off!" and "Swing!" and "Go night-night". She has mastered many animal names and sounds, and can verbally identify the primary and secondary colors. The most exciting thing is the fact she has started using those little language words that make all the difference in the world, things such as "the", "a", and even the pronoun "I". The icing on the cake: she is learning to say "Please". Once she starts talking, I'm going to have another mini-me on my hands!

Occupational therapy is also fantastic. Miss Sue has so many wonderful things for Emily to do. OT is conducted in a gym like environment, so there's swings, a slide, a mini-basketball game, a bike, even a climbing wall! When exposed to a lot of the large, gross motor activities, Emily still has the tendency to freak out and become very disorganized. Sometimes as a parent its really hard to watch, because the disorder in her brain is apparent on her face. However, as the weeks have gone on and she's become familiar with the environment, she is able to better handle the situation. We have also discovered through these sessions that, when placed in an unfamiliar environment, there are a few things that calm Emily down in less than a minute: a silky blanket, a bottle to suck on, tight hugs that imitate swaddling, and (surprisingly) small toys, especially matchbox cars. She loves them! To think I used to kick her out of Nora's room for playing with all of the small toy sets in there, simply because they weren't age appropriate. I was taking away the one thing she needed to feel at peace! Thank goodness for Sue. Otherwise I would still live in tantrum central.

Finally (yes this long post is almost done but geez I have a months worth of stuff to say!), music therapy rocks. Pun intended. Emily is my little singing superstar. Everyday she and Nora sing all of their favorite hits, including the ABC song and Jingle Bells. She also sings the songs with Miss Angie, and when she strums the guitar, she strums in time to the beat. I couldn't be happier for her. Part of the reason she has this group therapy is to help prepare her for school, and I am quite sure she will do well in an academic environment. I also hope when she gets a little older she will be able to take some kind of music or voice lessons. The kid has soul.

PECS

Once again its been awhile since I've written, and as always, its because there are just more things to do around here than there is time in a day. Nora and her Brownie troop are keeping me busy, my new online class and its 15 students are keeping me busy, and of course Emily's therapy is keeping both Emily and I busy.

In the last two weeks, Emily and I have started using a tool called PECS both in Speech Therapy and at home. PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System. It was developed as a means for autistic children to communicate their wants and needs by handing pictures of different items to an adult or other caregiver. A side effect of using this system is that many children start to learn the words associated with the pictures, thus leading to verbal communication. Since Emily is a visual learner, we are hoping that by using PECS we will be able to cut down on the tantrums associated with her lack of verbal skills, as well as teach her some important vocabulary.

At first, as mentioned in a prior posts, Emily was not very keen on using this system. She has been pointing and grunting at the things she wants for over a year, and she didn't want to change her routine. When learning the system in Ms. Shelly's office, she had several major meltdowns, and I suffered the loss of a tuft of hair that she yanked out of my head. When I introduced the pictures at home, the look she gave me was one of pure disgust. She hated the PECS book, and she kept throwing it and its pictures right back at me.

Of course I probably should have watched the DVD video explaining PECS before trying to use it. After Ryan and I watched the show, I realized I was approaching the whole thing wrong. I needed a secret weapon: Root Beer. So the root beer picture went into the book. Then I showed Emily that if she handed the picture of root beer to me, she would get her tiny mug filled to the brim with brown foamy goodness. It only took her about 20 minutes to figure out the whole system. Now she is able to "tell" me what she wants to eat when she's hungry and what toy she wants to play with simply by handing me a card. I love PECS. She has learned several new words including book, root beer, raisins, animal crackers, and fish (for gold fish).

This has lead to a new set of issues, however. Now that Emily has a means of expressing her wants, she thinks she will automatically get them. I'd tell her "no" or "all done", and then I'd put the picture back in the book. The problem was that she would retrieve the picture, and hand it to Nora or the dog! Of course I had a good belly laugh when I realized she was trying to get root beer from Lacey, but then Em got angry when the dog didn't deliver. I've taken to hiding the PECS pictures of things she can't have too much of, like fruit snacks. She doesn't take no for an answer. I am thinking we need an "all done" bin to get the idea across that the PECS book isn't her personal all you can eat buffet. Until then, I suppose she can keep asking the dog for a snack, and who knows? Maybe Lacey will help her out after all.

Therapy update

Changes are headed this way in terms of Emily's therapy. I am so happy to see that she's progressing, but like any good teacher (or therapist), the time has come to push Emily to the next level. So far she's not too keen on what she sees.

For the past two weeks, Emily's music therapy has been ok. She wasn't talking as much as she had been, although she is still playing her instruments and singing with a lot of gusto. She is getting better on the guitar, which is just plain cool. However, it's hard for me to sit, unseen, in the other room and listen to the other kids speak up. She does ask for crackers and juice, but she hasn't learned many new words to share in a social context since. She certainly doesn't speak up for herself when asked who wants to go first, but since the last shall be first and the first shall be last, I'm hoping she's practicing a spirtiual path. Maybe?

Speech last week was just a diaster. Oh my tantrum time. In order to get Em to communicate a little more one on one, Miss Shelly introuduced a picture card system. Instead of having Emily resort to pointing and grunting at things she wants, like the cabinet with the snacks inside, she is going to learn to hand me a picture of what it is she wants to eat. This is going to help her learn to express what she wants and pay attention to the person she is communicating with, rather than focusing soley on the object of her desire. We tried this in the office with some Fritos. To say she hated it is an understatement. She pulled out all of her tricks, the hair pulling, the hitting and scratching my face, throwing herself on the ground in a fit. Luckily the floor was softer than I had anticapted.

She didn't like it, but that doesn't mean we are going to stop trying. She was frustrated by the extra step, the step involoving the other person. Miss Shelly decided we are going to make a book with the picture cards inside of it, and we are going to have pictures for food, toys, people, and places. Once this system catches on, she will be able to both "talk" to everyone through the pictures, and I will be able to "tell" her about her daily schedule and activites so there isn't such an element of surprise. That should help with some of the transition issues we've been having as well. (Transistion issue is code for throwing tantrums whenever we have to leave one place to go to another place).

I'm in the process now of taking photos of family and friends and homes to create the pictures in the book. I am hopeful, but I have a feeling this might be a bit of a challenge.

Emily's Speech Therapy

After a number of evaluations and a ton of paperwork, Emily began her weekly speech therapy in mid-January. I really didn't know what to expect, let alone understand how someone has the ability to make a mute person talk. After the last five weeks, however, I've learned that there are miracle performing angels walking amongst us. They are called therapists. Emily is not only talking but also making eye contact. The changes are nothing short of amazing. Thank you Ms. Shelly!

We have gotten into a nice little routine, Emily and I, on speech therapy days. When its time to leave, I tell her its time to go and see Ms. Shelly. For the past two weeks, she has clapped her hands and said, "Shelly!" in her funny high pitched voice. She even babbles at the various horses and cows that we pass on the way. Once at the office, there are toys she likes to play with, although she does get really mad if, in her opinion, Ms. Shelly is taking to long getting everything started. (And to Emily, 2 seconds is too long).

At their first meeting, Ms. Shelly agreed with the other assessments that Emily is really very focused on visual things. She also noted that she's a very fast learner, so fast, that in the ensuing weeks its been hard to "trick" Emily into talking. Ms. Shelly won her over, however, with her bubble machines. One looks like Nemo, the other is Buzz from Toy Story. They are automated, and when Emily would say more or bubble, the machine "magically" started working. She was jumping up and down, totally beaming, and she learned to say "BUBBLE!!!" with much enthusiasm. I've been out of breath blowing bubbles ever since...not a problem since the bubbles also function to clean up the kitchen floor. :)

In the following weeks, she has learned a number of new words including again, all done, I like, cars, blast-off, barn, open, up, and down. She has also started repeating some of the words I've been saying to her all along, like ice-cream and strawberry, and repeating the animal sounds from her farm books. While this list might not seem totally impressive to some, for us it represents the fact that Emily's spoken language vocabulary has nearly doubled in the span of a month. I really think its a good sign for the future; she has the ability to communicate and she will. All in good time.