O.T.

We had Cody tested for Sensory Integration disorder and recently received his results. She did recommend Occupational Therapy with a specialist. She also gave us some ideas to help him focus at school. I meet with Cody's SST every 6 weeks to check his progress. I brought a lot of these ideas to the table and they basically told me that the district O.T. had to evaluate him to get any services. Well, you can imagine how well the District O.T. has been cooperating....AS IN NO HELP AT ALL. She sat in on his class to observe him one day. First of all she came in the morning when of course he's well behaved because his meds are in his system strong. She told his teacher that he's doing fine and she doesn't know why he would need services. If she's a professional, then why would she come observe him in the morning. She's going to come observe him again about an hour later than she did the previous time. We shall see what happens next. I doubt the district is going to be too helpful. It's frustrating though as a parent, usually you know what's right and needed for your child's success. We may have to find and OT that specializes in this in our area now and hope that insurance will help pay...
But Cody is doing pretty well in school. Tons better than last year. He's beginning to like Math and getting better at it so it gives him some confidence where he had zero confidence about 2 months ago. Overall he is progressing in the right direction so we are pretty happy. We love his teacher who is so helpful and goes out of her way to help Cody.

Sensory Integration

What is it you ask? Good question. I didn't know much about it either but I have an Aunt that suggested we have Cody tested. It's the way we respond to our senses from out body and environment and how well they work together. They say that it is the foundation for learning and productive behavior. We took Cody to an Occupational Therapist to have some testing done on this subject. I will be very interested to see his results in a few weeks. Daniel and I sat and watched him do the testing, and I have to admit that we learned a lot ourselves just by watching him. It's very interesting. I will keep updating when we get his results.

Upcoming events!

SST and Sensory Processing testing in a couple of weeks. More info to come...

Long time no post

Cody is doing well. He's lost both his front teeth in the last two months, both being knocked out by himself!! One by jumping over a swing in Utah and the next he was playing with an umbrella. But school wise he's doing very well. They are seeing huge improvement in learning and behavior. He's reading better and has pretty much accepted the fact that he has to go to school everyday. But he has an awesome teacher and had two wonderful student teachers.

We are now getting ready for Christmas. I am excited to see him open his gifts. We tried to buy less gifts this year. We tend to spend too much on him since he's our only child. We are very grateful for him and the cute things he says and does. He may be a bit high maintenance but he's my little man and I couldn't imagine life without him. He's going through a funny phase right now. He has a cute, funny personality. He loves to make Daniel and I laugh and is trying to be very independent lately. He will be 8 in a couple of months. Hard to believe but he's getting so old...and so am I (but that's another story).

Kiai!!

Cody practiced Karate with an Occupational Therapist at the camp he went to this past summer and loved it. He kept telling us that he wants to do karate with Sensi Wayne (that's the OT from the camp). I contacted him to see if there was a program like his in our area and I quickly received a call from him. He told me that he didn't know of any other program like his anywhere. The program he runs is karate for high functioning Autism and ADD kids. He's been in the paper many times and received all sorts of awards. He's also a really good surfer and has a surfing camp during the summer. We thought about it and decided that it was something that Cody would have fun doing. We signed him up...only one problem...he's all the way out in Tustin. We did a trial class and we were amazed at how powerful Cody is and how karate really keeps his focus. We were stunned. Of course they teach the kids that it's only for self defense and sport/health so that they don't start doing karate on everyone they know!! He also emphasizes respect and love for parents to the kids. We are three weeks into it. He only goes on Saturdays right now but after seeing the confidence it gives him and the focus we couldn't deny him this experience. Plus it wears him out which nothing else does. It's worth the 35-40 minute drive.

If anyone is thinking about karate for their child and the child has some focus and attention problems I really recommend this program. Cody is testing in two weeks to receive his first stripe and we are very excited. Watch out world, this kid is already talking about getting his black belt!

Audiology

A couple of weeks ago we took Cody out to Laguna Niguel to see an Audiologist. The recommendation came from the psychologist who performed his Psycho-Ed eval. Sometimes there are other factors that can affect the child's focus on top of the ADHD. Hearing problems have shown to contribute to hyperactivity and loss of focus. We were very anxious to have this testing done. This ADHD thing has really opened a new world to us that we didn't even know existed. It seems that we are lead from one thing and then another and sometimes feels like there's never an end.
Okay, so back to the Audiologist appointment. Her name is Maria Abramson, Au.D., CCC-A, FAAA (what all of those initials mean...I have not a clue) She was extremely nice and really seemed to know what she was doing. She had two sound proof booths, one for Cody and another where we remained to see how Cody performed for the first test. The first test was just your every day...push a button when you hear the sound test. He did fine with this one. Next Daniel and I went back to the front office while she continued with more tests. She took his snack and some water that I had brought with them and said, "he's going to need this".(luckily I brought something) About and hour and half later she appeared at the door to call us back to her office to discuss the results.

So we all know that the brain is an amazingly complicated organ. Luckily I had an good anatomy class in college so I understood everything. Most of us know that the right side of our brain controls the left side of our body. The same goes for your ears. But your speech center is on the left side. Cody has a left ear weakness which means that when he hears out of his left ear it takes more time to process the info. When you hear out of your left ear the sound has to go to the right side of the brain and since the right side of the brain doesn't "talk" the info has to be sent back to the left side of the brain to speak and process. If you have a left ear weakness and someone/teacher is talking fast or softly the right ear may be picking up noises from another source while your left ear is picking up what your teacher is teaching. The info takes longer to process and in that time you are already distracted by the other noise and therefore miss what your teacher is saying because you processed the right ear noise quicker and was distracted by it.
It sounds confusing the way I say it, but the Dr. managed to explain it very clear.
                                                             As you see in this picture the sound goes in the left ear and is

sent to the right side of the brain and then sent back to the left side to the speech center.

This condition is not caused by ADHD, but is it's own disorder that is added on top. There are ways to strengthen his left ear and we plan to try our best to correct this issue. But some reports have shown that this issue improves as the child matures. Like I said, the brain is a crazy, complicated organ.

Next step is to have Cody tested for sensory issues. We are going to cover all of our bases.

Finished with a smile!

Friday was Cody's last day of camp. He completed 5 weeks of "Therapeutic Camp" and I can report that he's made good progress and has learned some coping skills for when he gets frustrated. All of the counselors were sad to hear that Cody wasn't taking part in the 6th week Adventure week. I didn't think he was old enough to do the things they were going to be doing. Anyhow, all of them gave him a big hug or did their special handshakes. It was good to see what good relationships he built with them and a few of the kids there. This is a big accomplishment for Cody. Mostly everyday I picked him up he had a huge smile on his face. Daniel and I feel that paying the money that we did for this camp was well worth it.

 When campers have a good day they give them the award of Camper of the Day. He was pretty stoked to get this along with an Eagle award which is a big deal. I guess not a lot of campers get this. It means that the camper is making huge steps in the right direction and that they can tell. It took us by surprise but we were very proud of him and tried to make him know that it was a big deal. We celebrated with icees!!

 This is a cologe of the many activities they did in the 5 weeks. It consists of rock climbing (which by week 3 he was doing it blind folded), played soccer, went to the beach, had karate lessons by a trained Occupational Therapist, Cody was an Eagle in the short movie they put together. They went to Knott's Berry Farm and Boomers. They also met in groups and talked about the many ways they could make friends and cope with frustrating time.

We can't express enough how proud of Cody we are and how we can see changes here at home in the course of the 5 weeks. Besides having to drive to Huntington Beach everyday (most days in traffic) it was a good experience. I love my little man and I will do anything to make life as an ADHD child easier. I am really hopeful that this camp will continue to help him when he starts school again.