week one of CE

Well, tomorrow starts week #2 of CE so I need to get some thoughts down about week one! As I observed the activity of the first week, I had a lot of thoughts about how they were doing things such as, "Erica actually does quite well walking without holding onto anything, as long as I'm behind her with a gait belt. I wonder if I should mention that to them?" But I kept quiet because I wanted to see how she responded to their methodology, and also because I'm waiting for Kelly (the director) to get home from vacation because I'm not too confident about talking with the Hungarian conductors. At the end of the week, she walked out of the room and into the hall - at a rather brisk pace, I might add - with the conductors supporting her at each elbow but not holding on to anything. Hmmm - there must be something to that ladder thing.

I will say this about Brighter Beginnings: they have taken the space they were able to find and are doing the best with it! I know that Kelly mentioned they hope eventually to build their own clinic - which of course would be ideal - but in the meantime, my only real complaint about this facility is that the front door is not ADA compliant. It is super heavy (therefore my usual helper, Natalie, cannot manage it), has no stopper of any kind, and is just a real b**** to deal with! Other than that, there is loads of parking in the lot because the other businesses in the building aren't super busy; BB has taken it upon themselves to spruce up the ladies' room, which has a nice changing table in it; their clinic is bright, roomy, and cheerful and the kids seem to really enjoy being in there; and the waiting room - although somewhat small - is nicely decorated. Natalie and I walked around the building on the first day to explore, and found that an elementary school directly behind the property has a really nice playground and a picnic table under a large shade tree. We took advantage of this on Tuesday, before the weather spiked too hot and muggy once again. Oh, and the location is just a hop off the highway (33) for those of us who are driving a long way to get there!

Here are some random observations I made this week:
- They are obviously doing a lot more crafts and learning activities than I realized, because I see a bulletin board in the classroom where they are putting leaves on a tree for something and displaying artwork... I need to ask what that's all about and take a closer look. (On Friday Erica was excited to share that D. won a prize for having the most leaves.)
- During lunch, they each sit around a table on wooden chairs with high ladder backs. They have grab bars in front of them on the table, and I noticed they were encouraging Erica to hold this bar with her left (weak) hand while eating or manipulating craft materials with her right. She has a block under her feet for 90/90 positioning. To my surprise, they had no belt, towel, pillow or other support of any kind helping her to sit up and yet she was... without ever seeming even to start to fall over. How does this work?
- The written report on Friday stated that Erica worked very hard the first week, is becoming more active each day (? - not sure I see it, but OK...), sits and eats nicely at lunch (this I could see) with verbal prompts to keep head at midline, and is being encouraged to answer with complete sentences not just single-word answers. This last bit made the SLP cheer when I reported it on Friday... it's actually one of her IEP goals and these ladies didn't take long at all to realize that she is capable of sentences and to require it of her. Bravo!

This coming week, Natalie will be at day camp so I will have time alone in the waiting room - maybe I can surf the Internet to do some in-depth reading on CE methodology and find answers to my questions about why they do things a certain way. Or maybe I'll just pester Kelly since she'll be back from vacation, LOL! Probably a little of both. I know I plan to clean out my inbox (over 300 unread e-mails at last count - not from actual people, mind you... those get opened first... these are links to articles, newsletters from ARC or the BODD, and the like).

Hopefully, I'll be better about posting news more frequently, and we'll see where all this leads!