Post by Jackie on Oct 5, 2005 11:22:58 GMT -5
Jessie...this is a really good post. I think that enough is enough when YOU feel like its enough. Call me old fashioned....old and jaded....out of date...etc... ;D...doesnt bother me. I still maintain that most families put way tooo much time , effort, and money into therapies. Remember I am an OT or was....so I can look at a lot of this from a different perspective. We did all the right things with Emily as far as PT was concerned...sitting skills...strengthening ...etc....and she still has a loose pelvic gait....meaning she tends to waddle a bit and often leads with her chin and neck when she is moving fast. But...it isnt all that weird and it certainly does NOT keep her from anything she wants to do.
Her fine motor skills are still skewed....but she buttons, zips, writes, paints, ...in short does everything she would do if she didn't have DS.
As to her speech...she was lucky...never really had much in the way of impediments....thick speech...etc. About the only thing I would change is that hers is a tad guttural and she speaks quietly.
I know I really focused early on on her neck and trunk control and her speech. My good friend who was her speech pathologist for many years really convinced me that as a ST she could try and clean up Emily's sounds but she couldnt "teach her to talk" ...meaning couldn't just give her conversational skills...but did work with me on lots of ideas about how Em could be put in situations to stimulate it....such as theatre....speech classes at school...etc. I remember one of her best ideas was at the middle school level having Emily work as an office aide where she had to do some communicating....and we got the ST to act as a consultant...and instruct office people as to how to facilitate all of this.
As we have discussed here before...no magic glue that will fix or cure DS....sure...all the therapies help...but they don't create something that might not be already there....and I still maintain to this day...that Emily's ability to fit into this world as well as she does...is not from her therapy time...but from her family and friends time....so each person has to make this determination.
It really can get frustrating at time I know...I still go thru some of that.
Jackie mom to Emily 25
Her fine motor skills are still skewed....but she buttons, zips, writes, paints, ...in short does everything she would do if she didn't have DS.
As to her speech...she was lucky...never really had much in the way of impediments....thick speech...etc. About the only thing I would change is that hers is a tad guttural and she speaks quietly.
I know I really focused early on on her neck and trunk control and her speech. My good friend who was her speech pathologist for many years really convinced me that as a ST she could try and clean up Emily's sounds but she couldnt "teach her to talk" ...meaning couldn't just give her conversational skills...but did work with me on lots of ideas about how Em could be put in situations to stimulate it....such as theatre....speech classes at school...etc. I remember one of her best ideas was at the middle school level having Emily work as an office aide where she had to do some communicating....and we got the ST to act as a consultant...and instruct office people as to how to facilitate all of this.
As we have discussed here before...no magic glue that will fix or cure DS....sure...all the therapies help...but they don't create something that might not be already there....and I still maintain to this day...that Emily's ability to fit into this world as well as she does...is not from her therapy time...but from her family and friends time....so each person has to make this determination.
It really can get frustrating at time I know...I still go thru some of that.
Jackie mom to Emily 25