Monday: Figuring out what therapy is all about. 8 am - 3:30 pm

Today was my first day of Senior Project. After having talked to Janine (my Sponsor) beforehand on Saturday, I looked up the conditions of the first few infants on Sunday already to get a head start on what was going on. Janine picked me up at 8 o’clock this morning and on our way to the first little child that we visited, we reviewed the child’s conditions and she let me read his health profile. This child had a repaired cleft palate and therefore was delayed on its speech abilities that should have been already clearer and more advanced. Through pictures and games, Janine tried to get the little boy to imitate the sounds she was making. Interesting was how this child in particular had problems with ‘b’ and ‘p’. It seemed though, as if words that he had been used to for a while were easy, as he could say “papa” but not a new learned word like “baby”. While I observed the boy’s reaction to Janine’s tricks to get him to do certain things and took notes, Janine would explain certain things to me during her session. In the car ride to our next stop, I asked questions that came up to my mind and I read over the session’s report that the therapist has to write after every visit. One of our visits got cancelled, while another one of Janine’s families called, asking her to come to the child’s first socialization. Socialization is a group session for kids from 0-3 years old, in which they can learn how to interact with each other. The little boy has severe failure to thrive because of his reflux problem. Due to these problems, he needs a very specific diet and can only eat certain textures, so that it was important for Janine to be there in order to tell the supervisors what food he may eat or not. Another important key point in his therapy to help him getting used to normal food, is making him more comfortable with other textures, than just smooth ones. I observed Janine making him touch a vibrating alligator toy with his mouth, with the success that he did not reject it at once. The movement of his tongue is very limited as well, so that the family and Janine constantly imitate tongue movement in front of him to get him to do them as well. Coming from the second visit, I got to meet Janine’s supervisor, who explained the system of their company to me. After lunch break, Janine and I had one more visit. This third patient has problems with his body movements. Everything is very central for him and he is very stiff. He cannot roll over or bend, and he has never crawled, so he is very uncomfortable lying on his belly. In order to help him do so, Janine made him pick up things from the ground and challenged him getting him into unusual position for him. I finally got back to campus around 3:30 pm having learned a lot in one day by observing and asking questions. I really enjoyed my first day and was particularly interested in the last boy’s condition, so that I might concentrate in him a little bit more over the next few weeks.