Communication

Sometimes one wonders how much these brain injured children understand of the world... of course, their world is a very 'closed' one, as in Richard's case, it is his family, home and school. He hardly ventures out as Mum is 'too busy' to bring him out to 'the world'.

But though he doesn't gesticulate, speak, sit, or walk, I believe he understands to a large extent the dialogue and the nuances of conversation that he hears around him. He actually follows TV programmes he watches and he seems to enjoy Sponge Box Bob.

His eye and sound communication isn't very clear...only those close to him understand what he is trying to communicate. His clearest comminication is to turn his head away to reject something he doesn't want/ like. In school he uses the 'communication board' which he 'looks at' to choose the activity he wants eg he will choose between 'stop' or 'more' when the teacher asks him if he'd like to continue with an activity.

When he doesn't like an activity, he will just close his eyes and last week when he closed his eyes 3 times when the teacher approached him and called his name, then he'd open them again when she walked away, it became very clear to her that he wasn't interested in the activity. So she had a 'talk' with him and told him that he had to pay attention as he was in school. After the 'pep talk', surprisingly, he kept his eyes open and paid attention throughout the rest of the lesson.

So to a ceratin extent, he does understand but the challenge is to get him to communicate his understanding, his wants and needs to us caregivers....
Of course when he smiles, he is happy and his smile always brightens up our day!

Neck Control

This photo was taken a year ago. Richard's neck control has improved since then and he's lifting and holding his head much higher and for a longer period. Will take a photo soon so we can compare see the improvement....Thanks to ABR!

Physical Excercises

Somehow Richard seems to be getting physically stronger. It's especially prominent when he's doing his 4- point kneeling on the floor. He takes a while to 'gather and summon' all his might in order to lift his head from a flopping position. His neck, head, shoulders and back muscles have strengthened. We think this is attributed to the daily ABR and physical therapy excercises which we do diligently at home. Whatever 'therapy' we learn from Rainbow School for the special needs children, we follow up and modify it for Richard and do them at home.
I think that we have to increase the intensity of the PT exercises so that his 'stamina' can be improved. Our aim is to get him to be able to sit without support...soon!

FLASH CARDS

Some how I know that the process of flashing 'flash cards' actually DO work as I've seen children from the Glen Doman programme benefit from it but I'm always wondering if Richard is getting any benefit from it. I'm not very diligent ie don't do it everyday so not totally commited to the process! I think that makes a big difference. I don't want to stop but on the other hand don't do it 'properly'...
Friends from GEMs have been a great help in loaning the cards to us so that saves a huge amount of time preparing them.
So @ the back of my mind I do know it works and I shouldn't waste precious time by not flashing them everyday...