Thursday, May 13, 2010

Weekly Update -- 10 - 16 May 2010

Yay, I'm 175 weeks old today!

Masinja had an interesting week. I would like to report on Speech and OT but due to the events of the week and the fact that I have fallen behind on updating the blog, I honestly don't remember what activities he did this week. About the only thing I can report on is that Masinja had his 36th ECI session. His teacher, services coordinator and I discussed the differences between an IFSP and an IEP because Masinja will be transitioning to an IEP in August. We also discussed preschool placement. Masinja will start prechool in September and will go 3 days a week. He will be going in the morning from 9 to 11:30. We have the option of having him ride the bus but T.M. and I decided to drive him ourselves. He will also be eating lunch at home instead of at school because he still has feeding issues.

Masinja got to fly on an airplane for the first time this week. My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April and started having complications this week. We flew to NY bright and early Saturday morning to spend time with him and to be there when he has surgery next week. We were planning on going to NY for a visit next month but the circumstances speeded things up a bit! We'll be heading back to Nebraska next Sunday.

That's all for now.

Peace,
T.M.M.

Weekly Update -- 3 - 9 May 2010

Yay, I'm 174 weeks old today!

Masinja had his first appointment with his new OT this week. His original OT went on maternity leave so he was transferred to another clinic for the summer. The new clinic is set up a bit differently and has some pretty neat equipment that the clinic at the hospital doesn't have. One of the pieces of equipment is an Activity Center. It's located in the treatment room and is made up of a variety of fine motor activities. Masinja was fascinated with it. His new OT worked on some of the sensory issues that were identified by the sensory profile that we filled out a few months ago. She started by putting him on a balance ball which he was not impressed with to say the least! He kept saying, "Do you want to get down!" He started crying after a few minutes and broke my heart because he was looking at me as if to say, "Why are you letting her do this Mommy?" He most definitely has gravitational insecurity!! The OT also introduced Masinja to shaving cream. She put a few dabs of it on the mirror and then had him rub it around. He wasn't very impressed with that either and kept saying, "Wipe it off!" Once he calmed down Masinja worked on stringing large and small beads and played with Mr. Potato Head. Neither T.M. nor I had even thought about getting Masinja a Mr. Potato Head but he loved it so much that we will be going to the store this weekend to get him one!

During Speech we had another tea party with cupcakes. While Masinja enjoys making the cupcakes he still hasn't gotten the hang of the tea party concept. He tends to get distracted and would rather play with the spoons or take the top off the sugar bowl. Masinja also worked with the boy and girl identification cards. He was 100% correct in his identification for the first time!!

I met with Mason's ECI team this week to go over the results of the school psychologist and vision consultants' evaluations. The school psychologist was not able to attend the meeting but Masinja's teacher explained the results to me. The psychologist does not feel that Masinja has any form of autism, but rather that all of the behaviors in question can be attributed to the damage caused by his brain bleed. She said that based on the copies of his medical records that I provided, the area of the brain that was affected would have an impact on language development, attention span and time management.

The vision consultant confirmed that Masinja has depth perception issues. She explained that it was due to his right eye being lazy. She also said that at this time he doesn't meet the criteria to be classified as visually impaired. I was shocked when she mentioned that because I wasn't even aware that they were considering that classification. I was under the impression that the reason for the evaluation was to get her input on strategies to use with Masinja. It was decided at the end of the meeting to add the vision consultant to Masinaja's team and for him to be re-evaluated by her when he has his 3 year evaluation next fall. I guess we'll see how things go with that evaluation.

That's all for now.

Peace,
T.M.M.