Therapy

Ben was evaluated this morning by an occupational therapist. She warmed him up by letting him bounce on a trampoline, and then she sat him down and had him use a pencil to fill in shapes, draw shapes, connect the dots, and other activities. She also watched him use scissors, stack blocks, string beads, stick pegs in a peg board, and a variety of other things. About partway through Ben really started to get fidgety and just wasn't into it at all, so she let him crawl through a tunnel a few times, and turned it into a number game where he had to announce what number he was going to bring through the tunnel, pick up the correct number (which were puzzle pieces) and put the piece into a puzzle after he got through the tunnel. He enjoyed that, and then she sat him down again for more hand exercises - picking up pennies, sorting cards, etc.

At the end she let him lay on his stomach across a hammock-swing and grab onto a rope to pull himself over to her, take a puzzle piece, swing back, and put the puzzle piece in its place. He absolutely loved that, though he needed a bit of help with the puzzle.

Watching the whole process was quite interesting for me. Ben followed directions very well, until he got bored - then he would intentionally do the opposite of what was asked, snicker, and look at the therapist expectantly to see if she would catch on. He was also a little bit more hyper than usual, probably because of all the attention and the new environment (or maybe because of the donut I let him have for breakfast on the way over?) My own evaluation of Ben's performance was that he did terribly with most of the activities involving the pencil and scissors, and pretty well with everything else. Watching him with the pencil and scissors was interesting, because he used his right hand for those but for everything else -- block stacking, bead stringing, penny-picking-up, etc -- he used his left hand.

Next Tuesday we have the interpretive results session, and another therapy session for Ben, since the therapist did say she thought he needed treatment, but that we would go over the results and treatment plan next week. So, I will let you all know how that goes next week!