Nate's now had two session with the OT through our health care provider. I wasn't able to take him to his most recent session this past week but my mom (AKA Grandma Emmy) was. Here's what she had to say about the session:
Nate spent most of the time at the beginning exploring the room, going from one thing to another. He even went into the closet areas. He took the roller coaster car and pushed it back up the track to the top. When she turned it around (because it was backwards) and asked him if he wanted to try it, he moved on to something else. She hooked up a platform swing and invited him to sit on it with her, and he moved on. And so on.
When she got out a large plastic tub with rice and shovels and plastic animals, and a toy you could scoop the rice into at the top, causing wheels underneath to spin as the rice dropped down, he sat with her and played.
After awhile, he got up and found a beach ball, and tossed that around. She persuaded him to go up the steps to a platform, and when he did, he chose to toss the beach ball down the tube slide. Then he went down the slide. The second time he did this, he tossed the beach ball over the climbing cargo net to me. Then when he went down the slide, I tossed the ball so that it bounced near where he came out of the slide. We did that several times, and then it was on to other things.
Earlier she had showed him how to straddle the tire swing, but he wasn't interested. So now he returned to the tire swing, and swung on it with his belly. After a bit I was able to have him straddle it and hang on, "riding the horsey". Then he went over to the platform swing and sat on it, and she gave him a foam pegboard, with large pegs. He did a few of those, and then decided to ride on the roller coaster car.
About then the session was ending, so we discussed how he probably watches his brothers to see how things are done, and may not do enough experimenting and exploring to figure out things by himself.
She doesn't really see any gross motor problems, but said that some fine motor skills can be worked on. She said that his speech obviously is the main concern. And that "he is a conundrum".
The OT is working to set up something with this pediatrician where Nate will have an OT session, we will be given some goals and tasks to work on at home and then return for another session. I'm satisifed for now with that because at least we're getting some additional support for him.
We are still waiting to hear if Nate's Montessori preschool will receive the grant to cover the cost of its SLP and OT services, but in the mean time I did receive some good news that although the funding is not there for the summer, the school's director approved to pay for the cost of OT and Speech through the summer for a few of its highest needs kids-Nate included. So Nate should be receiving some Speech and OT more regularly again, starting in the next week. I just wish that the therapy was more consistent.
