Sunday, October 26, 2008

Weekly Update -- 6 - 12 October 2008

Yay, I'm 92 weeks old today!

Masinja had his first ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) session this week. It went pretty well. His teacher gave us a few goals to work with to help Masinja start using his words more often. Right now we are focusing on getting him to indicate when he wants more of something. We started by working with one of his favorite toys, a toy I'm sure everyone remembers playing with as a child. It's a peg that has 5 rings of varying sizes on it. Basically we had Masinja take the rings off and then gave them back to him one at a time to put back on the peg. My job was to be in control of the pieces, mainly so Masinja wouldn't throw them across the room :O) Once Masinja had put a ring on the peg, I would ask him "want more?" His teacher said to keep it to one or two word questions and commands because it's easier for him to comprehend right now. We also have to work with him at meal times to get him to say more. His taacher will be back next week to see how much progress we have made and to add to the goals.

Masinja also had his second OT appointment this week. His therapist gave us a few tools to work with to get Masinja to eat and drink more efficiently. She gave us something called a Nuk brush to help him learn to chew better. She also gave us another tool to use as well to encourage proper chewing. Masinja doesn't seem to be too thrilled with either one at the moment but we have a few weeks to work with him. He prefers to keep everything in the middle of his mouth and use his tongue to smush it against the roof of his mouth :O) His therapist suggested using beef jerky since it is a bit tougher and it has a strong taste. We haven't ventured there yet but I am certainly curious to see how he does with it! We were also given a neat cup that has a small section cut out on the back part of the cup to allow Masinja to drink without smushing his nose. He loves the cup. He likes to make slirping noises when he takes a sip and then he giggles :O) We certainly have a lot of things to work on but we have a month in which to do it before he has to go back again.

That's all for now.

Peace,
T.M.M.

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