I'm Such a Ham!

Paxton had a speech therapy appointment this morning. Getting to the appointment almost took Susanne longer than the actual appointment itself. Even though this was disheartening for Susanne, she definitely thought that the travel time was well worth it in the end. The medical model of the hospital vs. the parent model of Early Intervention was a great adjunct to Paxton's therapy. It was nice for Susanne to catch a break with doing all the work with him. A trained professional could finally have their hands on him during the entire hour of therapy. It was also nice to see that the speech therapist was able to come up with new exercises for Paxton to work on.

She started the appointment by asking Susanne questions about Paxton's level of verbal communication. She wanted to get a feel for where he was at so she could also focus on this in addition to the feeding component of therapy. Paxton was trying to show off during the appointment by babbling the full hour. He wanted to make sure to show the therapist his full range of sounds. He also attempted to mimic the faces that the therapist was making at him. This was the first time that Susanne witnessed this skill other than when he had mimicked her in the past with sticking her tongue out or making the suckling sound. It was always so exciting to see him learn new tricks.

About halfway through the appointment, they moved on to the feeding component. The therapist started out with some facial massage. Paxton thought this was great and giggled the whole time. She moved on to rubbing his gums with her gloved finger. Once he was all warmed up, she took a nuk brush which had a textured surface and rubbed it on his tongue. This was to encourage it to come forward and lay flat. Paxton gagged a couple of times, but would immediately laugh afterwards. He was being such a ham today. The therapist used a new tool today called the Johnson's Therapeutic Textured Spoon. The purpose of it was to provide oral-sensory stimulation along with feeding. At first, she just presented the spoon by itself. Before adding any food, she offered him a water soaked oral swab. He loved it. He was smiling in between suckles which was quite hilarious. The therapist quickly moved on to offering a squash infused oral swab. She achieved this by mixing the tiniest bit of pureed squash in with the water that she was soaking the oral swab in. He didn't even seem to notice. Next, she offered the pureed squash on the textured spoon. He didn't like it and quickly caught on to the change. He started whining and fighting the therapist with every mouthful. He couldn't keep up the sass for long. They were able to get him to laugh everytime he started to get the least bit cranky. Hopefully, he would become desensitized with every session. Susanne was positive that with the increase in all of his therapy services, he was bound to make some noticeable improvements.