Small Victories

The Oldaker world is a little crazy these days.

This chaos consists of therapy appointments, juggling schedules, ensuring Kaden is seeing the best therapists, trying to navigate our way through unfamiliar systems, starting to plan for the upcoming IEP transition meeting, daily diet modifications & research, and about a million other things. I’m not complaining, as I have learned to embrace this “organized chaos."

Through it all, it is easy to get overwhelmed and feel defeated at times. There are days I just want to sit and cry. Then there are days like yesterday, which remind me of the importance in all of this. These are the days that make me feel like we are conquering the world, and no matter how many insurance battles I have to fight, or systems I have to blindly find my way through, I am reminded of how amazing my little boy is! That feeling outweighs ALL of the other stuff that comes along with this new world we are living in, and it is days like yesterday that reassure me everything will be ok….Kaden will be ok.

He started with his new Speech Therapist this week. We switched because all of the other professionals working on “Team Kaden” really thought he should be doing PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System). A lot of Speech Therapists use this tool for non verbal children, however his was not. So, we switched to a Speech Therapist who does use PECS and she came highly recommended to us from several people. Basically, PECS is a way to communicate without words. Many say it is a bridge to verbal communication, but we have been told it will open up a whole new world for Kaden. As excited as we were to bring him to his 1^st appointment, it is always a little nerve racking. We all have to get to know each other, and that can create a little anxiety at first.

PECS in a nutshell: There is a binder full or little laminated pictures velcroed to the pages. He has to pick up the picture of what he wants, and hand it to you. During the learning process, the therapist has something he wants (such as a toy car). As soon as he grabs for it, she tells him “no, if you want it you need to hand me the picture of the car.” Then a visual prompter assists Kaden in getting the correct picture and handing it to the therapist. She then says “Oh you want the toy car, ok here you go.” At that point the therapist takes the picture of the toy car from Kaden and gives Kaden the car. Pretty straight forward.

Kaden’s first session went well. It was mostly the therapist trying to get to know Kaden and teaching Dave & I about PECS and how we will use them. She told us that they have to train Kaden how to use them, that this process can take a few weeks, and warned us that sometimes it is hard for the parents to watch because they really have to push him.

Throughout his first session she kept saying she couldn’t believe how smart Kaden is. She said she thought he was going to pick it up fast, but with Kaden it is always challenging to find motivators for him. So, she tried some different things and started to teach him, but only using a few different pictures.

He had his second session on Wednesday, and it was awesome! The Speech Therapist said that she has been doing this a long time, and Kaden is getting PECS faster than any kid she has seen yet! She said what he did in his first two sessions was equivalent to what her typical patient does in a month or two!

Not only is he picking it up, but he is LOVING it! He was laughing the whole time, just so excited that he has a new way to communicate! Our case worker has put in a purchase for a PECS book for us to use at home and we should have it sometime next week. We are very excited!

Kaden’s ABA therapy has been going great this week as well, he is really thriving in so many areas. Tomorrow is his Occupational Therapy and Mundi is going to try what is called the “brushing technique” in hopes that it will be something that will work for Kaden and helping him be in a calm alert more often. I am curious to see how it will work with Kaden, I have heard great things about it. That will be an entirely different blog post!!!

Have a wonderful rest of the week, I hope everyone will take the time to celebrate the victories life has to offer, no matter how large or small they may be!