Therapy Begins!

Logan and Cole began their various therapies in January of 2006. We discovered that Logan was quite delayed with his speech which was still a surprise for us. Nikki from PTS was a God-send to us. Not only was she very helpful to Logan in teaching him new words and working with his low tone in his cheeks, she also became a good friend to me. As a mom it's difficult to watch your child go through something so hard. It's didiscouraging and when they are so young you wonder what the future holds for them. Nikki was great at listening to my fears and encouraging me that I was doing a good job as his mom. So, in a sense, she was also my therapist! ;)

Logan's speech therapy looked a lot like play time. She worked with him on words and vocabulary. She also used things like frozen pops and whistles and bubbles to teach him to use his mouth muscles. Logan enjoyed therapy for the most part. Nikki didn't hesitate to push Logan so that he would be challenged. Nikki was probably one of the few people who got to see Logan have a temper tantrum like what I would see at home.

When Cole was evaluated by the Early Intervention specialists, we discovered he was very delayed with meeting his milestones and especially his gross motor skills. In January, Cole started Physical therapy with Leah. His therapy also looked like play most of the time. Leah was very gentle and loving with Cole, but he cried a lot of times when he had to do something. Cole was 8 months old when he started therapy and at 8 months he was still not rolling over. So we first working on rolling, then sitting, standing and walking etc.

After attending Logan's speech therapy sessions, I asked about Cole and his speech development. We had some struggles with feeding him food. So Nikki evaluated Cole for me and found that he qualified for speech therapy as well. Finally, Leah also recommended that we get Cole evaluated for Occupational Therapy.

Cole's first Occupational Therapist wasn't very good. But she was quickly replaced by someone who literally changed my life. I say that often and I hope it's not giving her too much credit or exaggerating, but this OT answered all the questions I had for Cole. Up until meeting Marcia, we didn't have any sort of idea about why Cole was so delayed in so many areas of his development and we didn't know why he had the nystagmus. Marcia worked with Cole twice a week for over a year. During that time we saw huge improvements with Cole. Marcia explained that Cole had signs of Sensory Processing Disorder or Sensory Integration Disorder.
His problems stemmed from a problem with his Vestibular System. In fact, one of the ways that you diagnose a problem with the vestibular system is by looking to see what type of EYE movement the patient has. EYE MOVEMENT or NYSTAGMUS! This was a light bulb moment for me. From there I tried to learn more about SPD and all that it includes.