Occupational Therapy

I thought I would start doing some posts on what we are learning in Occupational Therapy.

We have started the therapy to help Caleb with his sensory integration issues, but my first post on this subject will be about Hannah, who also has these issues.

You will see here in this picture how Hannah has her hand turned upside down and her wrist bent (actually her hand used to be at almost a 90 degree angle, this is quite an improvement). This is how she regularly writes, along with barely gripping the pencil or crayon. She hates to color or write, as it is very hard for her....so coloring books for presents are not her favorite. LOL!

When I was talking to the therapist, she suggested that Hannah is doing this to stabilize her hand and so she can 'feel' the pencil in her hand. This part is hard to explain, but sensory challenged kids have a hard time 'feeling' where they are in space, hence they are always moving to 'sense' where they are. In the same way, Hannah is 'sensing' her pencil by resting the bones of her hand on the bones of her wrist.

One of our trial work stations it this!! Doing our writing on the refrigerator!

This forces her to write with her wrist straight!

We have also cut the pencil way down and I hand it to her holding it between my fingers, which causes her to pinch it correctly with her fingers.

We are also strengthening her grip between her thumb and her pointer finger, because she cannot rest those wrist bones together.

We have seen an amazing difference in only a week.

What we have recognized is that the kids have learned coping behaviors to deal with some of these deficiencies. We are hoping that the therapy will address these issues at the root, so they will not need to figure out ways to cope.