We are having alot of cancelations today, probably because of the holiday weekend. I only saw two kids this morning. Both were autistic kids and both actually did fairly well. The boy did a group game with two peers today and did pretty good. He managed to stay on task for about ten minutes before getting wild and wiggly, which is definate improvement. He took turns well, too. The little girl is fairly low level and I have been having some huge behavior problems with her the last couple of weeks but today, after alot of sensory activities, she managed to do a decent job with not too much behavior.
 

I'm afraid life is keeping me busy. I'm having trouble finding time to remember this.

I am having difficulty recently with a little girl I have been seeing for about three years. She is diagnosed with mental retardation and with autism. I had alot of trouble with behaviour when I first started seeing her when she was about four. Then things started going real well for about two years. Now, just recently, her mother had a baby boy and A's behavior has become horendous. For a few weeks after the baby was born she was still fine and even now she wants a baby doll to carry around all the time and says 'baby' all the time, which is one of a very very few words she knows even though she is now around six years old. But her behavior has deteriorated to tantrums and crying when I try to show her how to do something or to help her with something. It is very frustrating. Today was the third week in a row she has done this. It is tantrums, too, because if I igore her s he turns off like a faucet and if I look at her or speak to her even for a second she turns it back on again. Time out sort of works, but for awhile she only screams louder. Even the baby doll doesn't work alot of the time, only ignoring her but then we can't get any therapy done. sigh...
 

I just wanted to report some exciting progress with one of my little autistic guys who just started coming a couple of months ago. I can understand almost two thirds of what he says to me now and he can make requests known. Today and last Friday he stopped asking to be bounced 'fast' on the large therapy ball and refused to have the weighted vest on both time. This means to me he is feeling better and more organized and more comfortable with himself and the environment and doesn't need the extra sensory input anymore. His attention for sit down tasks is better and his sit and wait is better with fewer cues now as well. And he will tell me his name now. I have to ask about ten times first but he'll do it and he wouldn't befor. He couldn't or wouldn't tell me his twin brother's name, however.

This job is go great!!!!!
 

One of my favorite parts of this job is when one of my kids calls me 'mom' or 'mommy'. It happens ever so often, usually with one of my autistic kids or one of the really little ones. I don't have kids of my own and it feels nice. Unfortunately, I have to try and correct them so they can learn correct titles and names. Sigh!
 

So I have this little guy, about seven years old. His main diagnosis are learning delays and moderate MR or mental retardation. He is so funny because he talks a mile a minute and he can't not talk. No matter what I say or do he just can't not talk. If you try ignoring him his talking just gets faster and more excessive and becomes increasingly more inane. He's a very sweet little boy and he runs up to hug me when I go out to get him and he's always ready to go to work, even when he knows he'd going to have to do things that terrifiy him. This is becuase he has a major problem with gravitational insecurity. When he first started here he couldn't get two inches off the ground without falling apart in a screaming terror - literally. So, we have been working on bouncing on a very large ball and have finally progressed to actually laying both on his stomach and on his back without screaming and overreacting.

He also gets one session of therapy at his school with a therapist who also works here and both of us have been working on getting him to climb up a ladder without screaming his head off. He can do it now and last week he actually not only climbed a ladder but stepped across an eight inch gap between the ladder and the jungle gym without screaming. He also will walk a balance beam without a terror reaction. Last week he also walked along the top of a railroad tie garden wall that is several feet off the ground due to being on a hillside. I held his hand but he did it without screaming or falling apart. He is doing so well. It's always so wonderful to have a kid make progress, even if its just a little.
 

I saw another new kid today. Another high level autistic little boy. I dealt with a major temper tantrum including his grabbing things on my desk in the treatment room and throwing them across the room - all because I wouldn't take him back to his Nana when he wanted to go. He is only six years old.

Another therapist and I were talking and we both took a look at our master schedules. Of the fourty kids I see each week only nine are girls. Her schedule is much the same. So many boys with so many problems.

What is going on with our boys?!
 

I saw a little boy for the first time today. Not quite four. His only diagnosis is
"developmental delay" but his behavior fits nearly every check point on the autism checklist. He is completely echolalic, won't make eye contact, doesn't interact with other children and only with adults when prompted and when I went to get him from his speech therapist he was bouncing off the walls (not an official term ) and running all over the place, or trying too. He responded exceedingly well to sensory integration techniques, including wearing a weighted vest for much of the session.
 

Today I came in to work and in my box I found a note from my boss that she left me two smoked chicken legs in a baggie in the fridge. ? ?
Let me preface this by saying, although I like my boss and she's a good boss and a good person, we are not by any means buddies or even friends really. We are friendly, but not friends. She's my boss, and to be honest, I have always been a little imtimidated by those whom I feel have authority over me. Some more so and some less so. So - she's my boss. Once in the past she gave me some scrapbooking materials she said she didn't need any more, but today she gave me...smoked chicken drumsticks.?

What am I supposed to do with that? The action, I mean, not the food. I ate one for lunch and it was delicious!! However, I have been a little weirded out all morning, mostly because its odd to give away leftover food and it seemed to come out of left field!!!

It was good though.

I left my boss a little posty in return thanking her and I think I'll leave another telling her it was really good. But I'm still a little weirded out!

Random friendliness, sheesh! Go figure.
 

It was interesting today. For a little while I watched while two other therapists, one Occupational Therapist and one Physical Therapist, created an shoulder abduction pillow for a little boy. He is around 9 years old and he was involved in an accidental shooting. His shoulder was messed up pretty good and now it has contractures and an open wound that isn't healing right. Because it is hard to move because of the contractures and some pain he refuses to move it even enough to wash it out. If the contractures are allowed to continue and he doesn't range his shoulder or let anyone else do it, soon he will be unable to move his shoulder at all. So two of our therapists found a picture in a catalogue and have created a shoulder abduction splint with some two inch foam and soft strapping and velcro. It was very interesting.


We have a lot of kids who come here who have eating problems that are real. Much of it is true sensory difficulties, but every once in awhile I know some of these so called 'feeding problems' are just picky, stubborn kids. Like the fellow I saw today. He comes for therapy for some social and visual motor problems, very minor ones, on Wednesdays and Fridays. I see him Fridays and another therapist sees him on Wed. His mom got worried because he wasn't eating what she wanted him to eat. (my eyes roll!) This other therapist was telling me that on Wed. he ate a bite of hamburger - something he doesn't normaly eat according to mom - willingly. On the second bite he all of a sudden decides to throw it all up back into his hand. Today his mom brought some Stove Top stuffing because he refused to eat it the other day and this morning he apparently gagged at the use of whipped cream in his hot chocolate instead of the marshmallows he wanted.
When he came to therapy today he ate both with no problems at all. (my eyes roll again!!) On the fourth or fifth bite of stuffing, after he asked if he could stop eating it, he started this little coughing thing so I told him that if he threw up I was going to throw up all over him because when someone gets sick around me I tend to get all urpy too, (for real). The little coughing miraculously stopped and he ate another three bits with no problems whatsoever . Can we all say b-e-h-a-v-i-o-r?!!!!
 

Today I have DK. I have seen him only once before and he hasn't been back since. He is ten years old and is diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and bipolar disorder and ADHD. His mother makes excuses for his poor and sometimes violent behaviors at school - along the lines of 'he can't help it'.

There isn't alot we can do, especially if his mother neglects to give him his medicine. We can work on the learning delays caused by missed school and his medications but beyond that all we can do is try to expand on what he should be doing at the various mental health facilities he's been to. That is work on stress control and anger management issues. I also plan to work on writing some social stories for him to memorize for various situations that may come up at school. We'll see if they help or not. It's lucky my first degree was a Bachelors in Psychology.

Still, he actually has to show up first and he needs to be here regularly or there isn't much at all we can do. We'll see...