Back to Therapy

Today, Bella was evaluated for ECI again so that we can resume feeding therapy.  She has made so little progress with eating textures and also not putting everything she picks up in her mouth, so we thought it was time to pick it back up again.  Well, they do a full evaluation anytime you start services or restart them. 

It was interesting to see where Bella is on their scale of development.  As usual, she sits a bit behind on physical development (4 months behind).  However, much of this has to do with her tibial torsion and shorter stature.  For instance, she has a more difficult time going up and down stairs without getting on hands and knees.  With all that the physical therapist found, she decided it wasn't worth doing therapy to "catch up".  What Bella is behind with will come with time.  Nothing to worry about.

Bella is also behind in social development (at 12 months).  Again, we talked about it and the only reason she ranks lower in this department is due to the fact that she doesn't really do pretend play yet, nor does she seem to care when you tell her to do something or not to do something.  Bella does what she wants, when she wants.  If she doesn't feel like doing what you've asked, she ignores you :).  Most 18 month old kids are responding to requests that they don't wish to do with a resounding "no".  A lot of this comes from the fact that Bella isn't around other children her age.  So, really, that isn't anything to worry about either.

Now, the speech factor.  This is what we're looking at because it has to do with her feeding.  Bella is a very orally fixated girl.  Her way of playing with things is to put it in her mouth.  This also contributes to her being "behind" in some of the social and physical points.  When we measured her development in speech, Bella actually comes in at around 21 months.  She is a very verbal girl and does a pretty good job at communicating what she wants, what she doesn't want.  She also picks up a lot from repeating what Steve and I do.  However, this is the therapy we need.  Funny, isn't it?

What speech therapy will do for Bella is help her eating habits and also help to curb her oral fixation.  Her therapist and I will work on getting her to drink more creamy beverages, eat a larger variety of textures, and get her to strengthen the muscles in her mouth so that she won't keep her mouth open all of the time (eliminating much of her drooling) and keeping her from putting everything in her mouth. 

Some things we have to look forward to:

• getting more calories into her diet by getting her to drink creamier drinks
• strengthening her jaw so she won't tire out from eating so quickly
• getting her to eat different textures so she doesn't have to vigorously chew everything she eats, which tires her muscles out
• getting her to use utensils more and teaching her to use a straw

So many of these things will help increase her intake of food, which is exactly what we need to get Bella gaining more weight.  It's going to be a long process, but at least it gives me something to focus on now that my mom is finally able to move to Alabama with my dad (that's another story for another time).  Let the eating begin!