Wisdom Heart

I want to begin this entry by stating that currently Sophia is receiving 4 different types of therapy in regards to physical delays she has due to being hospitalized for so long as an infant and because of her medical condition. Upon discharge, after our daughter had her first heart surgery, the social worker at the children's hospital put us in touch with a state program called First Steps. This is a totally free program that provides various types of therapies to physically and mentally challenged children that are residents of the state of Missouri. Even being a past state employee myself, I had never heard of it prior to this.
My entire focus of attention since the day we brought Sophia home from the hospital is her full recovery. So naturally Michael and I thought the program would help attain that goal and sounded wonderful (it is).
Soon we met with a representative of the program who did a brief evaluation of Sophia's developmental progress and recommended she see a feeding specialist (because she was not able to swallow) and a physical therapist because she was lagging behind with her motor skills.
So, we began meeting with a feeding specialist who introduced Sophia to various oral stimulation exercises. This lady came to our home weekly for an hour and introduced putting small objects with different textures and tempatures, such as baby toothbrushes and cold baby spoons in Sophia's mouth. This therapist recommended that the hospital conduct a swallow, or "OPM", study to see how her anatomy functions while she swallows. Sophia failed this test miserably. She had had one previous study shortly after surgery while still in the hospital and it went very badly as well. Progress with this therapist was slow, and because of the OPM study she was unwilling to let Sophia have even tiny amounts of food orally. So eventually, we got a new therapist.
This therapist began to slowly introduce baby food in small tastes to our daughter. This was very successful and Sophia now swallows 15 bites of baby food two times a day. I know that this does not sound like much, but we are so proud of her progress.
This new therapist comes twice a week for an hour and works with her speech and language for half of each of her one hour sessions. With this therapy she has learned her first words, mama, lala, nana and yaya. We are working on dada.
One thing to mention before going further is, the great part about all these therapists is they come to your home to do this work and they focus a lot on teaching parents how to continue the therapy in there absence.
Sophia also sees a physical therapist twice a week for 30 minutes. We are so lucky to have such a great PT she bring so much experience with her. This therapist works on skills like sitting up, tummy time, trunk control and muscle tone. Sophia's has made leaps and bounds with her progress in physical therapy. She works really hard for her therapists and enjoys playing with toys on the floor. Recently she has started to sit up independently. This was a huge goal for her.
Our daughter also meets with a occupational therapist. She is also wonderful at her job. She comes for an hour each week. Sophia enjoys this therapy session the most. She works on her fine motor skills. She has improved in the areas of picking up various sized objects with her cute little hands, banging blocks together and using her hands and muscles to help balance herself while sitting.
Lastly, she sees a registered dietitian. Our girl has experienced some major ups and downs with her weight in the last few months. I am happy to say she is doing quite well in this area now. Anyway the dietitian comes every week at the same time and weighs Sophia. This has proven to be quite reassuring to us. Sophia sees so many specialists, doctors and hospital clinics that every time she got weighed at one of these appointments with all these different scales her weight would fluctuate. So it is great to know that her weight is being monitored weekly by the same professional with the same scale to accurately measure her progress.
Sophia has a total of six separate therapy sessions per week. It is a full time job managing the scheduling of the appointments so they coordinate with feedings, baths, doctor appointments and naps. I believe strongly that these amazing therapist have had a tremendous impact on our little girls development. I also feel that after her upcoming heart surgery, she will progress quickly with new found energy. Sophia's therapies are a way of life at our home.
-Patty