Therapy Updates

Over the past few weeks Ryder's therapists have been doing his 6 month re-evaluations. With the Infants & Toddlers program they write up goals on his IFSP which the therapists work towards accomplishing in a 6 month window. Sometimes along with the goals there is a specific outcome we are hoping ti achieve. As of right now his current goals/outcomes and therapy include:

Occupational Therapy (OT):

Goal 1: To be more coordinated with movement during play & transition to reduce falls.

Outcome 1: Walk up stairs at home using handrail.

Goal 2: To participate in meals and chew food.

Outcome 2: Chew and swallow small pieces of meat.

Therapy every other week for 60 minutes.

Speech Therapy (ST):

Goal 1: Use signs to communicate needs

Goal 2: Completing word & phrase imitation

Goal 3: Using words and phrases to request, protest, label, greet, ask, and answer

Goal 4: Practicing oral motor skills

Therapy every other week for 45 minutes.

Toddler Group:

Goal 1: To communicate with other children during community group.

Outcome 1: Communicate during playtime while with peers.

Toddler group is every week for 60 minutes.

Special Instruction (Special Educator):

I have not gotten a copy of her most recent evaluation since she just completed it. So I don't know what his exact goals and outcomes are yet.

Therapy every other week for 60 minutes.

Physical Therapy (PT):

She is coming to evaluate Ryder in the next few weeks. We will probably not have a set schedule for therapy since he is not delayed (just having issues with controlling movements) and the OT will be working on similar skills.

Aqua Therapy:

We have our initial evaluation and session on February 3. After that I will know how often this will be scheduled for.

After I finished typing all of this out I went back through to re-read it and realized that looks and sounds like a lot for a 2.5 year old boy who "seems normal" to everybody. Ryder is normal for Ryder. Ryder is sweet, caring, funny, outgoing with family, and so on. He is a very different child when you look at his results on all of the developmental tests though. All of this therapy is to help him get to his highest potential. Many of the things the therapists work on with him are not things the average person would notice him doing incorrectly or correctly. But if even one of those little un-noticed skills is missing it can cause major delays down the road. All of the therapy is fun and playtime to Ryder so he doesn't even realize this is not how all kids play each day. The therapists are great about including Zak in all of the activities as well. Yes, there are times Ryder doesn't want to do certain things or gets upset and frustrated, but that is life for everybody. For the average person that sees Ryder periodically it doesn't seem like he is delayed or have social issues, but for those of us who do see him everyday there are obvious delays and concerns that we are working on.