Today was the first of the lasts…. the first event in the "last time we do……" fill in the blank.

Today’s was "last therapy day" and it was very hard to say goodbye.  These folks helped me get Anna Grace on the right track, first mentioned Apraxia and gave me a bit of direction.  This direction helped me to do the research I needed to be able to provide the extra therapy Anna Grace needed at home.  Apraxic children really need therapy 5 days a week but there is no way they can ever receive it.  I decided that my child would receive it but to do so, I had to do the therapy activities at home as best I could.

I learned about Nancy Kaufman and bought her kit.  Taught myself how to use it.  I read all I could about apraxia, dyspraxia etc. and paid attention to language errors that often repeated.  Then asked the speech therapist for ideas to help Anna Grace overcome this area.  I did all I could to make sure that Anna Grace got a little bit of therapy every day.  And that Anna Grace thought we were just playing when we were doing therapy.

I watched for areas where she struggled and asked the O.T. for ideas to help her master this skill.  We did art projects to work on fine motor skills and sequencing skills.  We ran obstacle courses to get the gross motor and sequencing skills.  We did preschool pages to work on early handwriting skills, etc.  And tried to make sure that Anna Grace was having fun.

More than anything, I relied on my faith.  I trusted that God would tell me, show me and guide me to what I needed to focus on.  Time and time again, he faithfully  used these people to know where to turn and what to do.  He also used these people to let me know when I really needed to let something go, just let it be and trust that it would be okay.

This past week Anna Grace has been getting a CELF (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals) and I knew that she did the best she could.  It brought out an area that she is really struggling with and made it very clear she needs help (The area… pronouns.  She missed every single question regarding receptively understanding pronouns.  Can’t get much more clear than that!).  I was a bit concerned over what she missed and wondered where she’d score.

Today we got an email from the speech therapist with a preliminary view of how she did.  Every single area was within 1 standard deviation of the mean.  Which means, essentially, that she’s coming into normal range.  Now, she has great strengths which compensate when it comes to scoring for areas of weakness.  So, we can’t say we’re all done.  But we can say that we are getting closer and closer to all done.

Today was a "last" in another way as well.  Anna Grace will be getting speech therapy when we get to Florida but, for the time being at least, this was her last occupational therapy visit.  I will try to do the things she needs as far as sensory issues, fine motor skills practice etc through our daily activities.  And swimming lessions. Most of all, I’ll keep an eye on her to make sure that if she starts to slip behind, we’ll get it addressed and return to O.T.  But for the meantime, today was our last O.T. visit.