Can you hear me now?

Randy can.  He passed his hearing test with flying colors!!!!!! He has had several hearing screenings:

Newborn - passed in left ear, refer in right
July 2008 - passed (sort of)
April 2009 - borderline
May 2010 - failed
July 2010 - PASSED

He did great.  His attention span was pretty good and he was able to visually attend the TV screens they used.  I think he did so much better because he is in a better place visually and cognitively.

He's a fish

It has been my desire to take Randy to the pool at an early age.  Late May 2009, I eagerly went to my local YMCA and signed him up for swim lessons.  Well in June 2009 he had a shunt revision and July 2009 he had ear tubes inserted.  Then in August 2009, he began his two month illness that I thought would never go away.  He had another shunt revision in November 2009, then we were in the middle of winter and his neurosurgeon and his pediatrician suggested I wait until late spring to enroll him in swim lessons.

So I excitedly looked up the information for lessons this summer.  I decided to wait until July because I was still working part of June.  Well I took too long to go register and was closed out of the class! I was disappointed.  So instead i took him to the pool during open swim.  The first time was about two weeks ago.  He was a little clingy at first, but became comfortable very quickly.  But we where only able to stay in the pool for 15-20 minutes because he began shivering uncontrollably.  Although he has put on some weight, he still does not have enough body fat to keep him warm in the pool (and it was a heated pool). 

So I bought him a swim shirt, and waited for him to get over a slight cold he had before I took him back.  So last night we went back and he LOVED it.  He is a natural in the water.  He splashed his hands.  He kicked he feet.  He knew how to move them together like there were fins and separately in a kicking motion.  He floated on his back.  He even knew to tilt his head back when he floated on his back.  He stayed in the pool for 50 minutes.

The only thing I noticed is that his right leg kind of "dragged" at times.  His right side is his weak side; he has less strength and it is his weak eye.

So I am definitely going to have to get him in some lessons.  I was thinking about the YMCA.  Does anyone have a better suggestion?

Progress

Randy ate the top of a whole Bob Evans biscuit!!!!!  Do you think he can get a commercial spot?  The line can read, "Biscuits so good, even toddlers with feeding issues will eat them!"  LOL.  I know this may not seem like much to you, but to me it is HUGE.  He would not eat the inside, but I will take what I can get.

All of this was after two weeks of misery about his eating.  I did not even blog about it because I feel like I was beating a dead horse and boring my 18 followers.  But I could not help but write about this accomplishment.

I can see other improvements too.  He is willing to pick up unfamiliar foods.  He will lick them too.  Sometimes he puts them to his lips.  Most of the time he will hand the food back to me, but there was a time when he wouldn't even touch unfamiliar foods.

His feeding therapist was able to get him to eat 3/4 of one of these cereal bars.  So I, the eager and excited mom, went out and bought two boxes.  He has eaten ZERO cereal bars for me.  I wish I had her skills.  She was able to put it in the back of his mouth so quickly that he had no choice but to chew.

Nonetheless, I am happy with the progress.

Recent Speech Therapy Re-Evaluation

Dated: June 9, 2010

Long term goals:
Randy will increase expressive language skills to an age-appropriate level (vocabulary, sentence length)-partially achieved
Randy will increase receptive language skills (vocabulary, understanding concepts, following directions)-partially achieved

Short term goals:
Randy will demonstrate appropriate play with toys with cueing 7/10 trials-partially achieved
Randy will follow one-step directions with moderate prompting on 7/10 trials-partially achieved
Randy will imitate CV combinations modeled to him by the SLP five times each therapy session-achieved

Randy has made nice progress during his enrollment in therapy.  His play skills are progressing as Randy activates cause and effects toys independently. However, he continues to need maximum assistance to participate in interactive games with adults such as rolling a ball back and forth.  He continues to explore toys during play through mouthing and banging.  Typically, children aged 6-9 months play without mouthing and banging.

In terms of receptive language, Randy is to follow one-step commands in the context of play.  The commands he follows are predictable given the context of the activity.  For example, he will put balls in a ball popper when requested to do so.  He is not following novel one-step commands in the context of play.  Same aged peers are typically demonstrating their understanding of language by identifying body parts, choosing one object from a group of five, and following two-step related commands.

Regarding expressive language, Randy ~10 words per therapy session.  This has increased since the last status report in April wen Randy was imitating ~5 words per therapy session.  Imitation is an important skill for increasing expressive vocabulary.  Currently, Randy is saying ~20 words independently.  At 24 months of age, children are typically saying 50 words independently.