Therapy and Such

I thought I'd write a bit about the latest in the realms of therapy for Tessa. She still has PT twice a week at home with Melody from SoonerStart and Kayla takes her to OT twice a week with Jenny at The Children's Center. It is so encouraging to see the progress she is making with PT and OT. We are still seeing Deb with SoonerStart for Vision therapy once a month. Tessa is doing very well with her vision, but it is still nice to get new ideas on how to challenge her and to hear (at least once a month) that she is continuing to make huge improvements and that her vision is coming along nicely. It's like we've been told from the beginning...'nothing is wrong with Tessa's eyes, it's how her brain processes what she sees, that we don't have all the answers to'. But the fact that Tessa is clearly using her vision, is enough to tell us that it's definitely working for her!

At this point in time, we are trying to really focus in on Tessa's expressive language. Expressive language is being able to express your wants and needs. Receptive language is being able to listen and understand what is being communicated. Tessa's receptive language has been steadily coming along very nicely since her activation in June. Since Tessa received her right CI, she is now hearing at about 20 dBs...the average person hears at about 10-15 dBs...so Tessa no longer has a profound hearing loss (which was 90+ dBs). This is amazing to me! I don't stop and think about it all the time, because just like most everything else, it has just become apart of life for us....but there are days where I really stop and consider the fact that my daughter can now do, what she wasn't able to do before...hear! Our ultimate goal is for Tessa to be able to listen and understand and communicate her wants and needs to us, but it's a process and there are lots of alternative communication styles that we would like to look into.

Tessa will be having a dysphagiagram done next Wednesday. It is basically a swallow study where they use a live xray to track food/formula to determine if she has any kind of swallowing disorder or if aspiration is occurring. She has made such great strides in eating that we haven't felt a huge push to get this done, but we feel like now would be a good time to at least determine a baseline for where she is at and get her some additional help if she needs it.

Next Friday the 2nd we will be taking Tessa to The Children's Center for an AAC Evaluation. AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. We would really like to start getting some input on ways we can work with Tessa on her expressive language. We have been pursuing the Auditory/Verbal approach with Hearts for Hearing and will continue to do so, but we want to make sure we give Tessa new experiences to see what sparks her interest between now and when she learns to talk. There is so much more involved in learning to talk than just hearing....with Tessa's CP, she has an oral/motor delay that not only affects her swallowing, but it also affects feeding, and her ability to form sounds and words with her mouth. The CP also causes us to realize that other forms of communication will need to be modified for her fine motor and gross motor skills as well. Speech therapy for Tessa will have to be a collaborative effort. We are really hoping to start incorporating a once a week therapy session at The Children's Center that will include both Speech and Occupational Therpy. The OT can help address the physical modifications necessary for Tessa to achieve the best results in the realm of speech.

Anyway, that's a quick update on where we are at. It can be overwhelming and frustrating at times to only be able to hope and pray that you are giving your child every opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. We know the Lord is holding us close in our every decision and are looking forward to Tessa's new experiences in therapy and in life!

~Whitney