Lots of laughing, smiling, and tired kids, parents, and therapists after Day 2!
Wow! What an eventful and busy day!
Abi, a sweet, yet quiet little girl, finally opened up to us today! She giggled through many of our sessions, but had the biggest belly laugh during our PT group session! It was such a delightful sound to hear and joyful sight to see! She also made some great progress with Kara during her speech session by making a new "g" sound, which we had not heard yet before. Seeing so much progress in such a short period of time is so rewarding and just blesses us during our trips here to Learning Spot.
Emma, a beautiful young girl with hemiplegia, learned how to tie her shoe! Katie, her OT, taught her a new way to tie her shoe using primarily her dominant hand. Sometimes, two hands are overrated, and determination and desire for independence can override any hurdle when given the tools! Emma is older than some of the other children we are seeing here at Learning Spot and we are so proud of her perseverence to be more independent with her self-care skills.
Paige has been working hard to get more speech production for our spunky Juan Pablo! Yesterday, Kara was able to get some bilabial speech production and, today, Paige was able to add to those sounds with varied vowel sounds. Using a reinforcing ball, or pelota in Spanish, she was able to prompt the "o" sound to request his desired object. Using even small variations of sounds is so reinforcing for children and promotes an increaed desired to communicate with others, especially when they realize it can get them what they want!
Each discipline had the chance to present for parent and staff education. The speech therapists were able to present to Learning Spot staff about feeding and oral motor skills for the children they work with daily, while OT was able to give the parents at home activities they can be doing to help promote their children's progress and development in conjunction with their therapies. Finally, all the disciplines got together to present on impulse control, developmental motor milestones, and speech production.
Everyone was wiped out at the end of the day, but what a productive day it was! Definitely worth every moment!