Rebound Therapy

Feb 8-10, 2012.

Ian is age 4 this year, he has speech difficulties with not forming proper words. He is able to understand basic instructions. He expresses himself through tears,  but lacks in eye contact, has a poor posture, poor lip movement and is lacking in tongue rolling.  He has attended speech therapy in a private hospital, so as to attend Occupation Therapy from a private practitioner. When his mother came to visit my centre for the 3rd time she broke down in tears before confirmed Ian for the therapy programme.

First week, when his mother left him at the centre he cried ( separation anxiety). I walk him into the hall, hug him, show him how and where to put his belongings. In few minutes his tears stop. I walk him out to the garden, he begins to explore around, I notice Ian likes to pick up leaves and throws them over the fence allowing the leaves to drop into the drain; he observes the way the leaves move flying down. He also likes to pick up the leaves and press them. He went into the tunnel from one entrance and exits from the another entrance. The tunnel has three entrances. I allow him to walk bare foot in the garden for feet stimulation. A lot of verbal communication is given eg, run, walk, fast. Then I clean his feet before bringing him back to the hall.

I bring him to the hall, inviting him  to drink some water. He is still using a tumbler with a straw to suck. He begins to explore the material in the centre. He will take four different type of apparatus. He mixes all the apparatus into one container.

He begins to arrange the animals into a row, making babbling sounds with no proper formation of words. Then he moves to another apparatus  with variety of different colors , size knob cylinder. Again the same: he will mix all cylinders in one box. He repeats the same, by arranging the cylinders into one row. A very repetitive stereotype pattern of  arranging material for this week. After all this arranging I invite him to help me to sort it out. He refuses with tears. I insist he must help. He helps in tears. We work together to get all the material sorted into their respective containers with Tom, another boy.

This first week I am mostly observing him. He comes in with not fit health. hence we do only light activity for him. How will Ian progress? It is both a challenge and a mystery for me right now, but time will tell. All therapy success is based upon careful observation and individual adaptation of the therapy. Time spent in observation is never lost.