Kevin turned 9 years old last month and we have returned from our eighth visit at The Family Hope Center in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Kevin made 1 chart change on the Integrative and Developmental Progression Chart in Hearing and Understanding in Level 1: Display immediate, yet controlled, startle reflex response to a repeated loud and sudden noise. He also made 4 qualitative changes on the chart. Again, this is still not enough change to increase his neurological growth on the chart despite the fact that we do see changes in our day to day life.
There are many questions on the revisit report that I have to answer before our visit. One question is “Has your child’s quality of life improved?” YES. “Please describe.” Sometimes it feels difficult to answer this question when I know there will not be many changes on the Integrative and Developmental Progression Chart and the fact that there has not been much change on the chart for several years. But when I stop and think “quality of life” which can not always be measured by a chart I do know that there have been improvements. I realized this after our trip to Myrtle Beach this past summer. I wrote about some of those improvements in my blog post “Vacation Appreciation” in June. But having said that, I desperately want to see some chart changes for Kevin. After all, this is ultimately why we do the program day in and day out, year after year. Of course, FHC understands and shares my thoughts. Overall, I was very pleased with our revisit. I feel recharged and motivated again by our new program that I feel is more specific to the task of getting Kevin to make some changes on the chart in level six in the sensory category of reading; understanding; and tactility.
Another question on the revisit report is “What is your child’s greatest neurological problem in life?” Normally I state two long standing problems here, digestion and communication, in that order. But this time, I put communication as the greatest problem and digestion as the second greatest. We have seen improvement this period in Kevin’s digestion, which I will discuss further in the next part of our visit summary. Even though digestion is a physiological problem it is basic to developing growth neurologically, and when the body has been trying to grow in the physiological area it can slow down development in the neurological areas. Kevin’s communication through sign language and verbal sounds continues to fluctuate and we don’t seem to have any long lasting results.
Another question on the revisit report is “In your own words please tell us how you feel your child has progressed since your last two day visit at The Family Hope Center:” This is always the lengthiest part of my report. And this is where my blog becomes helpful because I can basically copy and paste many of my posts to show Kevin’s progression. I often get teased about how long my revisit report is…but I think it is my way of overcompensating for the lack of improvement on the chart to prove the improvement that we are seeing despite the slow progression on the chart, and plus I just like to write…no surprise there, right!?
The last question I will share here is “Best thing that has happened to your child”. Kevin’s observation of others and learning from them has been significant this period. My favorite example of this is when Kevin’s cousins (ages 12, 10, and 7) came to visit over the summer. They helped with Kevin’s program and I asked them to spend some time playing with toys…with Kevin and also to give Kevin time just to observe them playing. I believe it was about a week after their visit that Kevin was playing with a pop up dinosaur toy that he had yet to figure out how to manipulate all the controls and finally mastered it after watching his cousins playing with the same toy. Another favorite example is when a new volunteer, a lovely young girl, spends a little time playing the piano for Kevin during her visit. Since she began doing this, Kevin has begun spending some of his free time at the piano, which is more productive than watching ceiling fans and playing with lights and water. In fact, he now has to play a few notes on the piano before he gets on the program table, which is located right next to it. So this is where despite not having many chart changes I can find many quality improvements with Kevin.
No comments:
Post a Comment