Weekly Update -- 28 June - 4 July 2010

Yay, I'm 182 weeks old today!!

Masinja had an eventful week. At Speech he practiced his pretend play skills again with a tea party and caring for baby dolls. He also played with blocks. Masinja -- read two books this week: Polar Bear, Polar Bear and Catch the ball both by Eric Carle. He really enjoyed Polar Bear, Polar Bear and has been quoting parts of it all week! Masinja's therapist tried something new. She used cards that had pictures on them and attempted to get Mason to use yes and no correctly by asking him if there was a particular object pictured on the card. After about a dozen tries he finally caught on!!

During OT Masinja once again practiced climbing the ladder and it was a little easier for him to do so. He was rewarded for all of his hard work by getting to go down the slide afterwards. He really enjoyed it because he get to let the bean bag turtles slide down before him. He also rode the horsey swing. His therapist has been swinging higher each week and he has been tolerating it quite well. Masinja used - scooter boards for the first time this week. His therapist had him lay on his tummy and pull himself across the floor with his hands. Her main objective is to try to improve his upper body strength in an attempt to help with his fine motor skills. She attempted to do a 6-month re-evaluation this week as well so she can assess what progress he has made. Masinja did well with stringing beads and unscrewing and screwing a tip back on. He's still struggling with scissors though and has regressed some with drawing horizontal lines; however, he now draws vertical lines very well. He wasn't able to stack very many blocks but I believe that was due to his distractibility.

Masinja had his 37th ECI session this week. His teacher and I discussed the use of the picture schedules as well as potty training. We also discussed various activities that I can do with him at home to help with the sensory processing issues such as finger painting with shaving cream and pudding as well as making homemade playdoe with cornstarch, water and food coloring. Lastly we discussed which type of scissors would be best for Masinja. His teacher was going to check with the OT on his team and have her take a few different pair to parent connections so he can practice.

Last but not least, Masinja went to Parent Connections this week. He did get to try several different kinds of scissors with the OT and it was decided that he works best with spring-loaded loop scissors. His OT have us a pair to practice with at home.

That's all for now.

Peace,
T.M.M.