Friday at the Farm: New Speech Therapist

Gwyneth spends Friday mornings at a therapy center called McKenna Farms.  They have many horses here used for hippotherapy for some of the kids.  They also have the therapy building (a converted house) where Gwyneth receives Speech, Occupational, and Physical Therapies to supplement what she receives through her IEP at school.  Our Speech therapist had a baby a couple weeks ago so we started with a new therapist today.  The schedule has worked out that Gwyneth now has a 2.5 hour solid block of therapy on Friday mornings: 30 minutes of Speech, 1 hour of OT, and then 1 hour of PT.

So today Gwyn met with our new Speech therapist, Lisi, for the first time. She will continue the goal of helping Gwyn put together her own short sentences to express what she wants. Lisi pointed out that Gwyn puts her tongue between her lips when saying some sounds so she will work on some Oral Motor therapy to change that.  I think that will also really help with Gwyn's struggle to drink from a cup.

With the OT, Kacie, today Gwyn tried out the wiggle car.  She has issues with her vestibular sense (sense of balance, etc.) which is part of the reason why she is not walking yet at age four. It was great that she was willing to sit on the car and move around a little bit.

With the PT, Leslie, she continued building up her walking strength and comfort level using a different type of pediatric walker.  At home and school, she has become very comfortable with her reverse pediatric walker, which looks like this:

In both the OT and PT areas, we are really working on challenging Gwyn to be comfortable with standing and moving on her own without any support around her trunk from an adult or equipment.

New Blog!

This blog is a spin-off of my first blog "A Place in the Sun."  I've decided to make that blog private for family and friends as a place to post family updates and pictures.  This new blog will be my focus on my daughter Gwyneth, who happens to have Down syndrome, and how that affects our day to day life and thoughts.