Friday was Grace's last feeding therapy appointment. As you can see, she didn't enjoy the session!
When we started feeding therapy in March of 2011, we had three main goals for Grace. They were (or are); Grace would learn to 1) feed herself using a fork and / or a spoon, 2) drink from a cup (any cup) and 3) eat solid foods. You can read here, here and here how things went, but basically we are stalled.
On the positive side, Grace can now feed herself using a fork and / or spoon (when she wants too) and can also drink from a straw or sippee cup. However the eating solid foods is not progressing. Not at all. As you can see from the below picture, she wasn't thrilled to be asked to eat a piece of pasta. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth!
In the interest of full disclosure (and to help me remember accurately), we knew going in to the session that this was going to be Grace's last feeding therapy session. For a wide variety of reasons; she wasn't making progress on what I considered to be the most important goal, school ends this week and I would have to take both boys with me to Grace's appointments during the summer, and due to Grace's summer session schedule we would not have any free days during the summer and I wanted our Fridays to be fun.
Michelle and I have come to the conclusion that Grace's feeding issues are pretty much behavioral in nature at this point. Meaning, she doesn't do something because she doesn't want too. She will feed herself pasta at school, but throw a fit at therapy. She will drink from a straw at school but not at home. She will feed herself an entire meal at school and at therapy but not at home. Basically, sister is playing me!
The issue with Grace, which has always been the issue, is that we don't know where she stands cognitively. Her behavior is not defiant. As in, deliberately defying a request. It is just that she won't do something when she doesn't want too. There is no way to give her a consequence because she just doesn't care about anything. She's not attached to anything. She's not able to follow basic one step instructions.
So we threw in the towel and stopped feeding therapy. I'm hoping to work on some of our issues at home and have her keep progressing. We are not yet ready for intensive therapy, mainly because of her cognitive issues and delays.
Guess who was all smiles once the session was over and she got out of her chair?
That's right. Sister was all smiles once she got her way...
2 comments:
This must be difficult for you and the family, as well as for Grace. and not having a way to show consequences from not meeting the requests. Perhaps your planned break from the therapy will spark Grace to change her behavior.
Eating therapy can be so awful! Glad to hear you have hopefully found a solution that will suit you all! It's a life long, or at least a childhood long, process
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