Update on Occupational Therapy

Yesterday we had an evaluation with an OT (Occupational Therapist) at the Boulder Community Hospital Pediatric Rehabilitation Center. The OT that we met with worked with Jac when he was in the hospital at BCFH (Boulder Community Hospital Foothills). She is very nice and we enjoyed working with her while we were in the hospital.

She had a very different perspective on what we should be doing with Jac than the OT we have been working with for the last few months who has been mostly hands off. She said that he still has low muscle tone (very, very common in preemies) and that his suck is not very good. She wants to do a lot of different exercises in therapy and at home to work on both of these things.

It will take several weeks for us to get processed through the hospital system and with insurance so that we can start appointments with the new OT. In the meantime we have a list of things to work on at home.

Assigned 1/25/08

1. Practice rolling over from back to tummy

2. Put hands on knees and roll side to side

3. Ball exercises

On tummy move back and forth side to side and bounce gently. Hold trunk and gradually move down to holding upper thighs with thumbs on sits bones. Pull him back on the ball so he can lift head more easily.

4. Infant massage

5. Do mouth exercises
a. Gum massage: Divide the mouth/gums into 4 parts. Rub where the teeth would be 3 times back and forth firmly with your finger, a Nuk brush, or a washcloth over your finger. Take your finger out after each part to allow for a swallow.

b. Let your baby suck on your finger. This is good practice for strengthening the suck. Stroke the tongue in the middle and stroke the roof of the mouth once in a while to encourage sucking. When your baby is sucking on our finger, pull your finger out slightly allowing the baby to suck your finger back into his/her mouth.

c. Massage cheeks with circular movements, or pull through cheeks from ears to mouth.

d. Tickle the sides of the tongue to encourage the tongue to come to the sides. This will help bring in tongue lateralization skills which are important for strengthening the sides of the tongue for sucking and keeping food to the side later on. Tongue lateralization is also important for speech skills.

e. Tickle the tongue tip to encourage tongue pointing.

f. Stroke the sides of the tongue from back to tongue tip. Stroking on the back of the tongue on the sides helps to decrease tongue sensitivity. Stroking on the sides will increase tongue strength for cupping.

6. Play in water (Jac crys when he takes baths so we want to work on him getting used to water in a fun way)

7. Buy Sophie the Giraffe