We have been consistently at therapy appointments since my last sensory post, including occupational therapy, speech therapy, and vision therapy. Counseling has been less consistent, but it has begun and can hopefully be more regular once vision therapy is over (2 more weeks!) He didn't play soccer this fall, but did get much time on the trampoline at home, as well as a couple of days of free play at the gym with our homeschool group.
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| Some pet therapy in the hammock swing - I recommend both the swing and the cat! |
OT and speech are weekly -OT for an hour, followed by 30 minutes of ST. His OT is still working him through Minds in Motion, and he only has a couple of weeks of that left. He also work on food school and handwriting during that time slow. When the MIM work is done, he will move on to making more of his own obstacle courses using those skills, and she will work him harder on touching more textures, specifically papers, and sweeping a broom, and continuing working on handwriting and food school. In speech, he has almost met his initial goals, so I keep making suggestions on what they can work on. His biggest need is social - how to hold a conversation with kids his age, appropriate eye contact, greetings and general politeness. He doesn't do badly when he is comfortable, but when pressure of any sort is applied, he still tends to lock-up (freeze, refuse to look at the speaker, etc.)
He did a few weeks of a Minecraft social skills group that was run by Western Kentucky University. This was a trial to see if using Minecraft to teach such skills would work for kids with asperger's, and results should be forthcoming. Here is a video with a brief glimpse of my son. The child that they focus on in the article and video is the son of the lady who diagnosed my son. Cool, huh?
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| VT homework |
As for Vision Therapy (VT), he has two more sessions before his re-evaluation. If he passes all the goals, we will be done with that long drive twice a week. (If he doesn't pass, I'm going to ask about going down to weekly, as weather in the next few months will make travel more treacherous.) He did make significant progress at the mid-way evaluation (after 16 visits), so I am hopeful. I asked if he could tell a difference in his reading, and he says he can. Unfortunately, it was so hard for so long that his interest in reading for pleasure is nil, but I'm taking that slow and easy and not giving up hope!
We also made progress on the genetic front, getting a referral to a geneticist and having that meeting just last week. Now we wait for the genetic testing kit to arrive after insurance approves, and test his father and myself. He has a rare gene deletion affecting a very small part of one chromosome. There is little known about it yet, but the one study that has been done shows 'statistically significant' increased ASD diagnosis in those with this particular deletion when compared with a control group.
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Sounds like a very full plate!
ReplyDeleteGood luck!