Samantha is officially off her anti-seizure medicine and I'm so glad. Just one less variable. She has seemed more "bright eyed" and engaged since taking her off. We went to the zoo today and she was interested and pointing at many of the animals, unlike a year ago when she could have cared less.She is making progress with program. She seems more interested and her attention span has increased a lot recently. Last week she sight-read five flash cards with 100% accuracy, however since then she hasn't been interested, but that day helped reassure me that what I am doing is getting through. Things feel like they are moving in the right direction all around.
Based on advice from my GAMT mommy friend, I found a place to do horseback riding with Samantha. The woman has a 34 year old horse who is extremely calm and gentle. We had our first visit this week and Samantha enjoyed feeding the horses carrots and petting and brushing the older horse. She started to lose interest so I didn't press her to ride him. It's fine if it takes a time or two to build up to it. The idea is that horses walk at a nice rhythm that is conducive to speech, along the same lines as music therapy.
Her grandparents were here the other day and Sam wanted my mom to read her a book. The books were in a room that was locked and she was whining and pointing at the door and I said "Sam, what do you want? Tell grandma 'book'." She said "boo" (so close!) and her grandpa looked shocked and said "wow! that was pretty neat!" I love watching Samantha surprise people. I think it's pretty easy to underestimate her.
Sam is now constantly practicing sounds throughout the day and when we are looking at flash cards her eyes are locked onto them and she is muttering the words (poorly pronounced like the book example) under her breath. I will say "Samantha, I can't hear you, talk louder!" and she'll look up and laugh and mumble the word again. All pretty cool.
I'm so blessed to have this little sweetie as my daughter. Some days can be tough and it's not always easy to see your own child teased or stared at, but somehow we are adjusting and that stuff doesn't bother me as much, as I am learning about what really does matter in life!
2 comments:
The latest "Backpacker" magazine (June edition I think) has a story of a family of three with an autistic child that received unbelievable results taking their son to mongolia (I think) and having locals there bless him and go horse back riding. 180, litereally. Please pick it up, as I think the results symptomatic of GAMT could realize the benefits of what the autistic boy received. If you cannot find it, call me and I will dig it out of my collection and photocopy the article into a PDF. Thanks for posting this update.
This is great! I miss Samantha. I haven't seen her in at least 6 months. I wonder how awesome it will be when I do see her again. It sounds like she's made progress...and probably gotten bigger!
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