Yesterday Molly had her first appointment with Nancy Murray, her newest therapist. I don't quite know how to categorize her because she has degrees in audiology, speech pathology, certification in specialized music therapy, and works at a neuro rehab center. It one was the most informative sessions I've ever had. She is truly a gold mine of information for me.
First, in doing a quick assessment she thinks Molly is actually closer to 8-9 months developmentally, not the 5-6 months we've been thinking. YEAH!!!! We spent the entire hour discussing everything I've been worried about from a developmental standpoint.
One of the biggest things I took away from our session was when I am working on something with Molly, work on only one thing at a time. If we're doing something physical, give her whatever makes her happy to do it. Don't worry about language, sensory things, or new toys because it can overload her system and delay her progress. The other thing was to never use 'baby talk' when when working on word association. I don't really do that anyways, but it makes sense why that would be counterproductive.
We talked a lot about music and the role it can play in organizing the brain. The method she thinks Molly would be perfect for is called the Listening Program. We tried out the first cd and Molly loved the music and didn't mind having headphones on. She did try to eat the cord, but we can work on that. Nancy spoke from personal experience about it as she has one child with severe ADHD and one with severe brain trauma. When her ADHD child is listening to the music, they can get her to sit down and eat an entire meal with the family without interruptions. I'm thinking we'll get for her for Christmas.
Nancy talked a lot about bubbles. Apparently they are one the best therapies for babies because it combines physical, sensory, language (as long as you talk a lot while doing it), and fine/gross motor skills without them realizing they're working. It was so cute to see Molly react to them.
Something else she warned me about was not to expect any kind of big language development until Molly progresses more with physical development. I never thought about it, but speech is linked to stomach, hip, and butt muscles, so if those aren't developed and stable, speech cannot develop properly. So until she is more confident with standing or figures out crawling, most of her language development will be listening to us and trying to form verbal connections to things.
Food wise, she had some awesome suggestions for me. I've been struggling with finding ways to introduce textures without vomit or massive stomach pain be the association. Some ideas were to use evaporated cane juice as a sugar substitute, spoon one spoonful of applesauce into her oatmeal and if she tolerates it increase the amount over time to help her intestines adapt slower, crumble up goldfish crackers into her veggies, try plain yogurt mixed into her veggies to experiment with dairy. I've already tried the applesauce with oatmeal, and she loved it!!
I know I've forgotten some of the things I wanted to write down. I'm so thankful we were able to meet with her and can't wait to use her ideas.
PS-Nancy also noticed something I was debating about being there. Molly's left eye has started to go cross the past week and half or so. Since someone else has noticed it, we'll be visiting the opthalmologist sooner than I thought.
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