Therapy {31 for 21}

As documented before, Reese was evaluated by FirstSteps within weeks of her birth since she qualified for services automatically with a diagnosis of Ds.  Kids with Ds reach milestones at a slower pace than typical kids.  The progression is usually the same, it just takes them longer to master the tasks.   I remember wondering what the heck a newborn was going to accomplish in therapy, but it's amazing what these therapists think up.

We had a rough patch before her heart surgery when her energy level was in the toilet & we were worried about expending too much energy, but since her repair she's been a therapy machine.

Let me just give a quick shout out to all the moms & dads who work fulltime during the week & still make therapy a priority.  I am home Monday-Friday & still have to occasionally juggle Reese's therapy schedule with our everyday lives.

Reese has occupational therapy once a week, physical therapy twice a week (one session is a joint session with OT) & speech therapy once a month.  This may sound like overkill but it's actually very manageable.  And it gives me an excuse to clean my house since the therapies occur in the comfort of our home.

Our PT told us water therapy can be very beneficial for kids with Ds so Reese has been in AquaTots since she was about 9 months old.  We will actually pursue 1:1 aquatic therapy which is offered at our Community Center when Reese is a little older.

And we are toying with the idea of treadmill therapy.  Way back in my research mode (the mode is not over, it's just not as crazed), I ran across this article about the benefits of treadmill training with infants with Ds.  I mentioned it to Reese's PT & she was intrigued.  Kids with Ds typically walk around a year after their typical counterparts but research suggests that treadmill therapy can knock months off that timeframe.  I'm not going to go into specifics since the article is very thorough & Rick Smith over at Noah's Dad writes extensively about this subject, but the concept is simple:  practice makes perfect.  Support a kid over a moving treadmill and they will take steps.  It won't be pretty & it takes some serious support from parent or therapist, but eventually the child will become more proficient.  Now that our little observer has finally decided she's interested in pushing to sit & scooting across the floor, I'm thinking it may be time to invest in a treadmill.  So if anyone has a treadmill collecting dust that can reach a blazing 0.5 mph, I'm interested.

Noah showing off his skills...courtesy of Noah's Dad