Gulliver started Physical Therapy in June, 2010 to address low muscle tone. We had weekly visits for the first six months then switched to two 1-hour visits per month. We have been fortunate to work with the same PT during that time. We just love Kaylynne!
Most of the time, Kaylynne comes to our house. But sometimes we venture out to other locations to mix things up a bit and get Gulliver away from his comfortable home environment. We have gone to the playground, the gym in town, Kaylynne's house, her office PT facility, and the Trailhead Museum. Gulliver does a variety of different activities with Kaylynne, all of which involve play and fun.
Gulliver's history includes reaching all of his gross and fine motor developmental milestones, although he usually reaches them later than average (even for his adjusted age). It's great that he does not skip over things, as that could cause problems later (the ol' "crawl before you walk" saying).
I've learned so much more in this area than I ever would have without PT services. There are many subtle things that indicate low muscle tone. For instance, the sway in his back when he crawled, or holding one hand up in the air while learning to walk, or grasping objects with just his thumb and index finger instead of his whole hand.
When Gulliver was learning to crawl, Kaylynne would hold a towel under his hips to help him along. When he was learning to walk, she would have him hold on to a bar to help keep him balanced and centered. We worked on throwing for a long time. When he mastered that, we worked on throwing at an object to develop aim and intent. We spent a lot of time going up and down stairs and throwing objects up and down the stairway. She likes to have him jump off things. They read books that involve different actions (rub your head, kick up your heels...). She focuses on building core muscle strength through activities like wheelbarrows, riding Rody, and leaning him over an object so he has to pull himself up using abs and back.
A favorite activity of late is the tunnel. You have no idea how many ways you can play with a tunnel! Climb through it, stand in it, step over it, put a 180 degree turn and crawl through it, roll balls from one end to the other, hold one end up so the ball rolls down, roll over in the tunnel, rub the tunnel to make funny sounds... the list goes on and on.
Watching them play with the tunnel reminded me of when we were in St. Louis last fall and Harper and I came up with a list of "101 games to play with a superball."
I could tell Kaylynne was excited about how engaged Gulliver was with the tunnel and how many different things they were doing. She commented several times, "This is good in so many ways!" I asked her to explain that to me. Aside from the physical acts of crawling and moving around, she talked about how it is such a good sensory activity and great to be able to play with a toy in unconventional ways. Being able to get past the intended use and find other ways to use it. There is also the problem-solving aspect of indirectly using an object (lifting one end of the tunnel) to manipulate another object (the ball rolling down).
PT has been such a positive experience. I used to focus on when we would be "done" with PT. I thought that would mean everything was OK.
Now I realize that everything is OK with Gulliver. PT just provides extra attention to ensure that everything remains fine. It's more of a journey than a destination. We all have things we can improve upon, and PT helps us identify specific areas for focus. And for Gulliver, it's lots of fun!
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