One day. Two very big moments.
The first was Sawyer at OT this afternoon. We have been slowly working on an exercise the last few weeks that involves Sawyer using his hands to grip a "pull" and use his hand and arm strength to hold on while in motion. We have tried it in multiple ways - both while using the coveted swings and also the less-coveted scooter board. He generally lets go the minute he has to exert pressure to maintain that hand hold. The last few weeks we've been using modeling with Xander. The boys have separate therapists, but we have been meeting up at the end of the sessions in a single room. The exercise involves laying on your stomach on the scooter board and holding onto the pull with your hands and arms while the therapist drags you around the room (have I mentioned OT is actually a lot of fun?) Both boys work independently in these joint sessions, but we have Xander start each activity so that Sawyer can see what is expected. And it's been working very, very well. Last week Sawyer mostly watched. When it was his turn, he dropped the pull within a few seconds. This week he held on for the entire pull around the room. Not once, but on multiple attempts. He held on, using not just that all important hand grip but also his arms. Big, big step for him.
The second was Xander at home. He inherited Connor's old bike (the one with the training wheels) when Connor outgrew it and moved up to a bigger frame without training wheels. Up until today, he's only sat on the bike and used his feet to "walk" it around while steering with his hands. We have made numerous attempts to teach him how the pedals work. He would usually do it once, then drop his feet. Or worse, start trying to go backwards (which, of course, on this particular bike is the brakes). Today, after just a few minutes of help (don't tell my surgeon, but I may have bent over and used my hands to hold his feet on the pedals for the length of our yard). And that was all it took. From that point on, he was pedaling all on his own. Big, big step. We'll not worry about those training wheels just yet.
And yesterday was kind of a big moment, too. Our private speech therapist has been in the process of doing an updated evaluation of Sawyer's speech goals. Last week I picked him up from school and took him to an early session so she could work on some of the standardized evaluations (which our usual after school session is not particularly conducive to, since he's sometimes done after a full day at school). His scores had of course improved, but they are still far behind a typical six year old. And we've still been working on some other segments in our after-school session. A few people had thrown out the idea that in addition to autism, Sawyer might also have apraxia. And his scores on some of the evaluations seem to support the theory. We'll have to do a few more evaluations and also make an appointment with the twins' ENT in the coming weeks.
Okay, maybe it was two days and three moments. It's hard to keep track, they seem to happen so much lately. Life is busy right now, but it's also good ...
