School year-end progress report for Kinnick

So sad to see the school year come to an end. The kids have both been making great progress.

Kinnick's progress (continues to get therapy/school homebound):

O&M:

• Kinnick continues to show progress in her O&M skills. She has a positive attitude and loves to go outside to work. She loves to explore her surroundings and is improving her ability to utilize the AMD (mobility device).
• She exhibits an understanding of laterality and responds appropriately to left and right commands with about 50% accuracy.
• She is also beginning to identify elements of her environment outside. Several weeks ago, her dad drove past and said hi to Kinnick, while she was walking with her O&M teacher. The following week, when she past the spot where this had occurred, Kinnick stopped and said "dad". Her O&M believes she was able to recognize the area and remembered that this is where she heard her dad the week before. Yay!

OT:

• Kinnick is using a pincer grasp to pick up small items about 65% of the time. She tends to still want to slide the items off the edge of a surface and rake them.
• Kinnick requires moderate assistance to put on her pants (assistance with threading one leg and helping her place her hands on the pants accurately); She requires moderate assistance to put on her shirt (assistance to hold her shirt in the right spot, pull her shirt completely over her head, and orient it correctly to put arms in).
• Kinnick is able to place the shapes in the form board with physical prompting to feel the shape first before pushing in. Tactile cues where added to help with locating destination of shapes. She does not know the differences between the shapes yet.
• Kinnick is improving on taking off lids and getting good forearm rotation but needs assistance to understand to turn and let go and tun and let go to unscrew completely.
• She is working on putting on large beads onto a dowel rod but has difficulty with orienting the bead correctly.

OT/SLP:

• Kinnick is using her hands to touch a variety of foods to her cheeks, lips, and tongue for 5 trials, which is excellent progress! Bites: 0/3 trials. Lips, cheeks, tongue: 5/5 trials .
• Kinnick is not yet drinking from a cup: 0/3 trials. However, she is holding a cup and placing it to her cheek and mouth. With support, she is allowing the therapist to put the cup to her lips, cheeks and tongue for 5/5 trials!
• Kinnick has been bringing the spoon to her mouth on 2 occasions. Usually ask her to kiss it however, she does not seem to enjoy it.

SLP:

• Kinnick continues to impress! She is consistent when using 2 word utterances for 80% of the time. Recently, she used describing words with her two word utterances (yellow duck, blue horse, green frog!). This is carrying over to a variety of educators/family. Kinnick is imitating 3 words consistently, for 70-80% of the time. Way to go!
• Kinnick is able to answer simple "what" questions during 4/5 opportunities. She is able to answer "who" and "where" questions with verbal prompts during 3/5 opportunities. She is not answering "how" questions at this time. Nice progress.
• Due to Kinnick's frequent colds, at times it has been difficult for her to develop consistency at the word level. That said, she has made significant progress with her words Initial position /p/: met /m/: met /n/: met /t/: met. Final position: /p/: 50% accuracy /m/: 50% accuracy /n/: 70% accuracy /t/: 60% accuracy.

VI:

• Kinnick is doing great when reading braille. She is doing better keeping her hands together while tracking the words (3/5 times). Her finger strength is getting better. She can hold onto a Velcro mat with one hand and pull a ball off with the other. She is able to use her right and left index finger to writes dots 1 and 4. Kinnick still needs some help with the other four dots and will occasionally double up her fingers (The dots are the "letters" on her braille writer - there are a total of 6 dots that represent A-Z when used as single dots or combined to make a different letter). She is able to point out the difference between the picture and the braille in a book 5/5 times.
• Kinnick has been introduced to letters a-h. She is still working on tactically identifying them. Kinnick is starting to tell her VI teacher that dot 1 is "a". She is also able to sing her alphabet. With more practice she will make good gains meeting this goal (learning her braille alphabet).
• Kinnick is able to scan visually/physically for objects on the lightbox with 70% accuracy. When asked to identify a shape she typically says circle. We often talk about the difference between a circle and a square and count the sides and she will count them. She will tactically discriminate between 2 shapes correctly about 40% of the time, which is down a little since February. I think that she knows there is a difference but maybe cannot remember the words/choices and so she most often responds with circle. However, if she is only learning about squares one day she has no problem telling you that there is a square in her hand. She is a smart girl, hard worker and very eager to learn. There is no doubt that she will meet this goal (recognize shapes: Circle, square, and triangle).

PT:

• Kinnick can walk up and down a flight of stairs, at home, using same step pattern, and using handrail or wall for support on 2/4 trials.
• She can pedal a tricycle 10 to 15 feet, independently keeping her feet on the pedals, with verbal cueing, but requiring maximal assistance (requiring assistance for 75% of the task) to advance and steer the tricycle on 4/4 trials.
• Kinnick can stand on either leg for 2 seconds, without losing her balance on 3/4 trials. She can bunny hop off the floor, but requires two hand assist, to clear both feet, from the floor, at the same time, on 2/4 trials.

This is all great progress considering these goals have only been in place for about 6 weeks! Again, I can't wait to see where Kinnick is at the end of next school year!

My next post will go over Carver's school year-end progress.