OT Dom's Email 30th June 2005

Image is a shot of Faith enjoying a live music concert at the Esplanade. That story here.

This is an email from Faith's OT Dominque.

Thursday 30th June 2005 from OT Dominique

thanks for the mail.

it's not just that she knows how to get what she wants but her receptive language skills are improving a lot. that is the beginnings of speech. understanding before expressing.

The information about her oralmotor skills is helpful. As a result of her weak oralmotor skills, it's probably not helping to support her to produce speech.

Today, i noticed that Faith is babbling a lot more than usual. It was great to see her. She had the headphones on for about 10 min. She went to get a big air mattress which I have never taken out for her cos she has been afraid of movement.

Today, she went up to it, and tried to get it down. She was up there, standing, bouncing on it. Tumbling off onto the cushions and laughing. Just climbed back up again.

Posturally, she's much more organised. Able to use her body much better to help with her exploration. Hardly any drooling today but she was stimming at times and doing that thing with her tongue.

Faith has come a long way. She never used to be comfortable with movement and now she's doing headstands? I saw her do one this morning as well - she was on the air mattress. The movement sense is important for many things. The sense of gravity, detecting changes of head position, alertness level, muscle tone, postural control. it also influences the visual and auditory sense. That she is now going and seeking it, exploring her body in different ways is very helpful and 'nourishing' for her system. It's time for catch up basically. She's been deprived of movement for so long that you'll find her doing more crazy things.

How long is she listening to the cd for? The music has been specially recorded and Faith gets a lot of vestibular input from that as well via the auditory system. It also helps with attention and awareness and posture.


How to help her oralmotor skills along.

1. Stop the bottle. She can drink from a cup and she should. Drinking from the bottle does not help to facilitate proper speech patterns or dental health. She is old enough and really shouldn't still be drinking from the bottle. It may take some time to wean her off and it is a change in her routine. Does she drink from the bottle lying down before she goes to sleep at night?

2. Wonderful that she's getting more interested in other foods. Have to be careful about the sweet stuff. Do look at what she's eating to see if they can be used to encourage more chewing. Does she eat crunchy food? Can the meat she eats be cut in bite sized pieces and placed on the molars to encourage more chewing?

3. Blowing and sucking - Is there any sensitivity in her mouth? Does she tolerate brushing her teeth? Is that a problem? Might have to build first on her jaw stablity before working specifically on blowing.

to suck from a straw, how have you tried to teach her?

Many more questions.

Hope all is well.

Regards

Dominique