Stories of Progress!
by Mary E. Scholer, OT/L,
Executive Director
A 17 year old boy:
"...came in today, saying that he is riding a bike for the first time in
his life. Over the weekend rode all around Lake Cunningham. This boy
is not SPD or spectrum child, but lower functioning in school performance
and significant motor problems (gross and fine).
He has left side weakness and very poor tongue control, never being able to
pucker his lips, many articulation error, never could move his tongue around
in his mouth. Very limited diet as can't chew or swallow so many foods.
Told the mom tonight that I have hope all this will change.
Since I have been working on tongue and lip control, he is now able to
pucker his lips to blow, can move his tongue to the weak side, put the
tongue tip on the roof of his mouth (so can now say his own name and words
starting with "T" and "Th". He has never been able to do this before.
He is such a hard worker and the mouth work is more exhausting for him than
running the mile at school in 13 minutes (which is very hard for him). He
sweats bullets every time we work in his mouth, but not from anxiety, just
sheer hard work. This boy is such a pleasure to work with, so highly
motivated. The first session I met him (a few months back) I wasn't
sure if I'd be able to help him much given his age and that he's already had
several years of school based OT.
His handwriting is now legible for the first time in his life!"
8 year old Boy (a twin),
with autism: "They were in a Russian orphanage until 2 and 1/2 years.
I have seen him for 3 years. He's a spectrum child who had no desire for
interaction with others and would tend to be aggressive if children
approached him.
I suspected a problem with his vision contributing to his resistance
for closeness with parents and contributing to handwriting difficulties. His
Mom got him tested for vision therapy. He had problems with convergence.
With corrective lenses, not vision therapy, he started wanting to be
cuddled. With much work at Simoneon Center his motor skills are now
just about one year behind, but not more. His motor planning ability
has skyrocketed!
His postural control is so good now, he no longer squirms around in his
chair nor in constant motion when standing. His writing is gorgeous.
He used to take 3 hours to work on his homework. Now he can't wait to
get home to do it, enjoying it so much. His mom called chuckling,
saying she would have never believed it, but he's highly motivated to write
stories now and can't get enough of this either.
This child couldn't put a thought together to save his life last year. His
strength is maintaining (unusual for spectrum kids without regular, rigorous
input from PT or OT or family). He's doing all of the right stuff
everyday now for himself.
He wants friends now for the first time and is seeking them out, even
understanding much of others perspective. He is only seeing me 1x
per month now for monitoring since November. He's 8 years old."
