Joshua's Therapy

Joshua had his new therapist come to the house today. Ironically, we knew her before as she lives on the street behind us, and is very good friends with some good friends of ours, the Deludes, (aka: a Ruffing)

Her name is Jen, and Josh clicked with her right away. In watching the way he was interacting I began to notice something. He had changed in the two weeks since he'd seen the other therapist. Jen hadn't seen Josh before, but from reading through his info. made note of the change as well. His vestibular motor problems seemed to have "caught up" to where he should be for his age. I told her we had been doing more "work" with him with regards to getting him on the swing outside, using the trampoline inside, and giving him some time in the kidney bean box we have in our living room. Mike has also been doing more physical rough housing with Josh like putting him up in the air, and swinging him around...a reason why Mike himself is probably still in PT! :)

Jen also told us that it could account for his more aggressive, and temperamental behaviors over the past few weeks. Sometimes when one area of a child's senses are changing and growing, other areas become "stressed", causing new behaviors that can be temporary...as long as we stay on top of it. Although it's been tough to go through, I was glad to hear of this possibility. He HAS been very aggressive. Bekah, Ethan and I have been taking the brunt of it...usually hitting, kicking, biting, and body slamming. Bekah is going to be a, (as a friend of mine put it), pretty little girl you don't want to mess with! :) Heheheh...watch out boys!

In the meantime we have some more tricks up our sleeves to help him with this growing adjustment that is going on in his body. We look forward to more whistles, blowing straws and flutes to help develop his lung strength and facial muscles, as well as more of the aggressive behavior as we try to help him through all this. At least for know, Jen feels fairly confident that we are looking at his issues being Sensory Integration in nature. We both feel that developmentally he will catch up quickly, which will help with regards to teaching him some coping skills for the sensory issues he does have. It does mean that come July 4th, when he turns 3, we will be looking for outside therapy's in the areas of OT and speech, but since those are services Ethan is already receiving, we hope to get Joshua in to see the same ones that see Ethan.