It’s been a few months since I’ve given an update on our speech therapy/occupational therapy and any progress for Cameron.
At this point Cameron has now been in speech therapy and occupational therapy for 6 months, give or take a week or two. She sees her occupational therapist once a week in home. Her speech sessions have moved online since the beginning of Covid. Because her therapists were considered essential, they stayed open, continued seeing patients, and were able to come into the home if the parents felt safe enough. We made sure to take all precautions to allow her therapists into the house.
In terms of her progress, here is where we are at with both.
Occupational therapy: While we are still working on Cameron being able to transition from activities with little to no help and little to no whining, we still have a little ways to go. She has gotten better since we started but she does still have a little more ways to go. She’s almost 3 so I do think part of it is just age related, but her therapist has given us plenty of tips to help those transitions go smoother.
In terms of what she’s been learning and working on in her sessions, she can now identify objects without hesitation, she can match up items, color coordinate items, do puzzles with 3-4 pieces, and name all the body parts she’s asked to without issue. She is starting to be able to draw lines and circles, as well as cut paper and stick things and glue things as well. We have also been working on her hand strength by having her push and pull parts into her potato head doll. We have about 2 more months of services before she ages out so I’m interested to see what else she will accomplish.
Speech therapy: Now because this is what we were really focusing on, I was sort of bummed that after only two sessions, we had to move to online meetings. I completely understood why, but I was super nervous that Cameron wouldn’t focus and we wouldn’t get anywhere and would have to stop therapy altogether. I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case at all! Granted she doesn’t focus all the time, and some days I have to chase her with the laptop, but 80% of the time she does great. I think it also helps that she loves her speech therapist so that holds her attention.
Within the first session, Cameron was already making progress by learning a few signs that could help her communicate. The first goals we set for her were 5-10 words within 3 months, and 25+ words within 6 months of beginning therapy. Well I’m happy to say, when I counted up the words/signs that she does consistently and can be understood she has over 65+ words now at the 6 month mark. Now I know technically she should have somewhere over 250 words, but the fact that she went from 4 words to 65 words in 6 months while doing her sessions via zoom makes me very proud!
She can say things like please, thank you, more, help, again, open, up, down, and those sort of helpful words. She also knows her numbers 1-10, her body parts, colors, some food and drinks, and then some other nouns.
I firmly believe it was more about her having nothing to stay and being stubborn, more than her not being able to talk. She has about 8-10 sessions left and her new goal is to put 2 and 3 worded sentences together! I think she will be able to hit that goal no problem, and then she will be talking to a storm and I’ll wonder why I was ever concerned!
Once she turns 3 and ages out of the program she may be re-evaluated to see if she will need to continue on through the school system or if they feel she has improved enough to end all together. All I know is that we will be working as hard as possible to give Cameron all she needs.
