Day 4:

So, I am super behind in posting this… like a week. I just can’t get caught up on life sometimes 🙂

Tuesday is our “EI” day (early interventionist). During the hour she comes to our house, she works on Mattie’s cognitive skills, fine motor skills, speech, and just about everything else. Some things Mattie is working on are stacking blocks, matching, sorting, and pretend play. Sounds fun!!

Mattie’s EI recently helped us learn that Mattie has a hard time thinking “backwards”. What I mean by this is if you ask Mattie what noise does a cow make, she will reply “moo”. If you ask her what animal goes moo, she looks at you as though you lost your mind 😉 (even though she can say cow and point to a cow). I find this interesting that she can’t process this the other way. There are a few more examples that have the same result. So we are re-training ourselves to start asking things a different way… ahhh variation (an ABM principal).

We have been going back through some of the HELP milestones to assess what Mattie needs work on. Although I briefly went through it, I realized that Mattie is not as behind as I thought she was as far as cognitive skills. Gross motor… well, I did not even go there 😉

Most days Mattie does music therapy. She spends time relaxing, looking at books, and even playing while listening to therapeutic music. Therapeutic Listening is an evidence-based auditory intervention intended to support individuals who experience challenges with sensory processing dysfunction, listening, attention, and communication. Since starting music therapy and speech therapy, Mattie has made tremendous gains in her speech. We are very happy with how she is talking these days!

Day 5:

Wednesday’s are hippotherapy (horse riding). Mattie has really come to love riding on the horses and since her surgery, she is sitting up really well on the horse.

Equine movement provides multidimensional movement The horse provides a dynamic base of support, making it an excellent tool for increasing trunk strength and control, balance, building overall postural strength and endurance, addressing weight bearing, and motor planning. The horse’s walk provides sensory input through movement. The horses’ movement is similar to human movement patterns of the pelvis while walking.

Mattie goes to Quantum Leap Farm. For more info on hippotherapy, check out Quantum Leap’s website.

We would like to thank The Goodwin Family and The Kryk Family for sponsoring Mattie’s hippotherapy this week!

If you are interested in sponsoring a therapy for Mattie, please click the link below. We will be doing another Sponsor-A-Therapy week in January!

As always, thank you for your continued support, love, and hope.

Day 2:

Sunday was our last day in Gainesville. Mattie completed another 2 ABM sessions. Sunday’s ABM sessions were sponsored by two of my best friends, Roxanne Anderson and Mindy Bennett!! Mattie was pretty tired after our weekend, as you can see 🙂

If you are interested in learning more about ABM, here is a great video highlighting the ABM journey of Cypress, a boy with Cerebral Palsy.

Day 3:

Monday’s are always a busy day for Mattie. She has speech at 9am and then takes a Gymboree class. Today’s speech therapy was sponsored by Donna Ottmer. Thanks Donna!!!!

Since starting speech therapy 5 months ago, Mattie has had dramatic speech improvement. She has recently been saying 3 word sentences and her vocabulary has really expanded. Here are some my favorite quotes from her: “Where Joba go”, “Mattie farted”, “How you doin?”, “Jimi Cat come”,

We recently had a meeting with our early invention program and they approved speech therapy for Mattie. This means that the state will pick up the bill each week (until she is 3) moving forward!! Pretty cool!!

Here are some pics of Mattie at speech therapy and Gymboree class!

I was not planning on adding a video but tonight Mattie was counting her “22 toes” it is pretty cute so I had to post 😉

If you are interested in sponsoring a therapy for Mattie, please click the link below. We will be doing another Sponsor-A-Therapy week in January!

As always, thank you for your continued support, love, and hope.