ABR: Second Training Day and First Evaluation

Fletcher's first evaluation was this morning at 10am. Everything was just fine as Fletcher sat on my lap and we talked to the evaluator about his preterm birth and everything leading up to the MRI and subsequent diagnosis. The fun and games were over as soon as the evaluation began in earnest, though. First we had to strip Fletch down to his diaper and lay him on a firm work bench while a stranger manipulated him. I think he had flashbacks to the myriad doctors appointments after he came home from the NICU and he was not having any of it. As such, the evaluation was cut a bit short, of course that left lots of time for my questions, so I was in heaven. And, truthfully, Fletcher will have an almost identical evaluation with Leonid tomorrow, and today was more of a warm-up or study session for the real deal.

Now, I am going to plagiarize this next segment from a mommy blog of another woman who is also up here for evaluation, so Katy, since you are a teacher and all, and I am sure you are very keen to such things, I will credit you up front. I think she did a perfect job briefly describing her son's eval, which was very close to Fletcher's, so I am just stealing her description and adding Fletcher's name instead of Charlie's. Yes, I am that lacking in creativity. So... Fletcher is a classic cerebral palsy kid. He's got all the signs: His neck is too short, his rib cage has a diamond shape, his pelvis is very thin, and his legs splay outward from his body like a frog. His arms move from the scapula rather than the ball of the shoulder, and his legs are very weak at the pelvis. So, the bad news is that its a lot to work on and Leonid will only get into it further tomorrow. The good news is that since he's pretty classic, they've got a lot of ways to help him.

Because he was throwing a fit, we didn't get to really dig into a few of the positions that Leonid will place him in tomorrow, so hopefully we will gain a little more insight then. Of course Fletcher's tone increases dramatically when he is upset, so I am sure that is bound to skew the evaluation slightly.

Next up was the second training session. Trevor and I first practiced our technique on our instructor, and next moved on to Fletcher. Fletcher was very cooperative with Fhilin (Trevor suggested this spelling of his name, all I know is it is pronounced Phill-eene). While Fhilin did the ABR technique Fletcher just sat, or laid, there with wide eyes, like he was in a trance or something. On the other hand, when Trevor and I tried it on him he was a bit more feisty, trying to grab our hands and chew on our fingers. But overall it when very well.

Fletcher's First ABR Session