Please don't assume................

I've been debating for a week or two whether to write about this or not.  It's not the sort of subject I usually talk about but it keeps coming back into my thoughts so I think that means that I need to share this story. 

As I wandered through the grocery store one afternoon(probably trying to find real food in the land of artificial & convenience) I noticed a lady in a wheelchair struggling with the bathroom door which happens to be a very heavy one. An employee offered to help & she graciously accepted.  The employee held open the door the lady entered the bathroom & expressed her appreciation.  All's well.......but then it happened. The helpful employee reminded her to lock the door after herself!!!! I was astonished.  In a single "helpful moment she unknowingly & effectively reduced a capable, independent adult who only needed a hand with a heavy door into a child.


..............................& I wonder why people underestimate my child?

How do you deal with people putting limits on or making assumptions about your child or loved one's abilities?

Trisomy 21 & Choline in Pregnancy

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/09/more-choline-mom-decreases-down-syndrome-effects

Interesting article - please ignore the references to "normal" babies.  

Brachiation Ladder Tutorial

This is the unedited version of this post. I have promised it to a few people though so I wanted to get it up right away. I am going to be busy & not able to get on the computer much for the next week so I thoughts I'd just post it as it is & try to read over it again later.  It's almost midnight & I'm falling asleep at the keyboard so there's probably a few typos too :)  If you have any questions or anything doesn't make sense please message or email me & I'll try to fix it or explain better.

I've been wanting to build K a brachiation ladder for quite a while. I even bought the dowel & hardware last fall but kept putting of building it because with the directions in Glenn Doman's Physically Superb book you need to drill holes & without a drill press it is hard to line them up just right...............at least for a carpenter with my experience ;) . I'm sure I would have ended up having to drill out the holes to get the dowels to go through & of course they wouldn't have been as snug.


Through the summer we have a old set of monkey bars in our yard but as fall closed in this year I again thought about ways to make a brachiation ladder. Being able to use them indoors makes a huge difference here in Canada where we have fairly long & cold winters. I posted the question on the Unlimited Potential (UP) group as well as the Down Syndrome Action Plan group. I got a great response from both groups & on the UP forum there were even a bunch of pictures posted. Check it out here.


None of the ideas seemed exactly right for what I wanted to do but they did get me thinking & I came up with a plan to make a brachiation ladder that was a little simpler to make.

This tutorial is for a ladder that is mounted directly to a wall or across a narrow room.  The plus side is that you don't need to build the end supports but the negative is that it's not as easily adjustable.

note:  I was concerned that because our ladder was going to be up against the wall that it would need to be a little wider.  As it turns out that really wasn't a problem.  This tutorial is to make a little wider ladder but you could always make the end boards & dowel a little shorter to make the ladder a little more narrow.  Basically you can just build it to what suits you & your child.
 

First of all - this brachiation ladder is meant to be installed across a narrow room, hallway or any space that isn't too long.  Before you get started you need to measure the length of your space to make sure you buy long enough boards.


Supplies

Tools - drill, hand sander, saw, tape measure, level, an extension cord will be handy

Materials -

Two long - 2X6's - This type of brachiation ladder is meant to be fitted into the wall or across a narrow room  so you will need to measure your space & buy the appropriate length boards

Two 23"  -  2X6's -  I explained about K's physical program & K batted her beautiful eyes at the nice lumber yard guy & he walked over to his scrap pile, found a large 2X6 & cut it into 3 large chunks - way more than we needed!

tip - many hardware stores will cut the boards for you after purchase. Measure carefully though as you want it to fit very snugly into the space you are putting it in.

1" dowel -for the length of ladder I was making I needed 3 lengths of 1" dowel.  Again, this may vary depending on the length of your ladder space & which lengths are available at your hardware store.

3/4 " hole straps - don't buy 1" ones like I originally did as they are too big & don't hold the dowel tight enough - even these were a little large (as you'll see as you get a little farther in the tutorial) you may even be able to buy 1/2 " ones but check first to see if the dowel fits through.

Sandpaper - I bought a few kinds - some courser & some finer grit

twenty four - 3.5" screws -  12 for putting the ladder together & about another dozen to secure it to the wall.

approximately forty eight - 1.5" screws



I just noticed that our newly adopted little dog & one of K's best buddies is in this picture.  Isn't she cute?

The first thing that I did, which I don't have a picture of is to sand all of the boards excluding the dowel, first using the coarser sandpaper, then the finer grit.

Pre drill 3 holes on each of both long 2X6's.

Cut the shorter boards to 23 " & use the 3.5 " screws to fasten them to the longer boards using the predrilled holes.

measure the dowel & cut to 23"

Re sand the spot that your daughter drew on because she was being a carpenter & had to write some fancy symbols on the wood -  normally I leave this kind of artwork but not this time :)

next you will need the hole straps.............................I mean clampy thingies (my brother told me to use that word in my tutorial as that's how I described them to him when telling him my plans for building the ladder).

This is what makes this method so much simpler than a traditional brachiation ladder.

Now here's where things get really technical ;)    for those of you that don't already know, we live on a farm.  Anything that can't be fixed with duct tape, binder twine or crazy glue can probably be fixed by bashing it with a hammer :)

The clampy thingies were still a little to loose so I bashed them with a hammer to make them a little flatter. 

 

Mark the sides of the ladder frame every 10" (or whatever width you decide you want).

After bashing the clamps with the hammer use the clampy thingies them to attach the dowels to the 2X6 frame with the 1.5" screws. Make sure they fit very snugly.  You don't want the dowel twisting as your child is brachiating. If they are a little loose then you need to bash the clampy thingies a little harder. 

 

I seem to have misplaced my copy of Glenn Doman`s Physically Superb book (I can`t seem to find it at the Gentle Revolution bookstore so this is a link to it on Amazon) recently so I didn't use their measurements. I did go by the measurements on another blog but since K is used to her monkey bars that have a very wide spacing & because she's growing & I want it to last longer I made about 10" apart with each end being slightly shorter to make the dowels all fit on the length of our board.  This seems to work very well for her.

 Continue to mount the dowel along the full length of the brachiation ladder.

At that point the main frame is done & it can be mounted to the wall of whatever room you want it in. If you have a stud finder this makes the job of screwing the ladder to a secure place on the wall a lot easier.  K's Daddy & 2 big sisters helped with this which made the job go much more smoothly.

K loves her new brachiation ladder!  We've had it up for about a week & she plays on it often including a before bed but after story session. She is never the first up in our house but she is often up as soon as she hears someone stirring which is usually around 6:45 on a school morning. Today at around 6:15 my husband & I heard some movement from in her room.  Several minutes later the light flipped on - yes she had woken up early & was brachiating in the dark before turning on the light! 

So far we've been mostly just letting K play on it & most of my pics look something like this:

"Look Mom! I'm hanging upside down!" 

Here is a link to another tutorial which is still modified but is closer to the Doman model

Guess What I Did Today?????

Brachiation ladder tutorial to follow!

This is my version of a Doman brachiation ladder & took a couple of hours total.  It only cost about $ for all of the materials. We mounted it directly to the wall which means that it doesn't take up as much space, was quicker to build & cost less. That's K's loft bed that you see to one side of the ladder.  It is pushed up against the wall now so she does loose about a foot & a half of bedroom space but even in her fairly small room it's not too bad for space.

The only downside I've found so far is that literally 30 seconds after I put K to bed tonight I heard her get out of bed to use it...........................but who can blame her?  Your own set of monkey bars in your bedroom is pretty hard to resist!

I took pictures as I built it so I'll post a tutorial soon.

Wow! What a difference!

About 6 years or so ago when I was looking into neurodevelopmental programs & still in the stage of trying to decide if this was a path I wanted our family to follow, there was a forum called Child Brain.  I spent quite a bit of time of that forum reading (not actually typing anything because I was too "online shy" at the time) & checking out past posts.  I am forever grateful for those moms & dads on Child Brain because they were my first chance to see what a neurodevelopmental program was really like.  They shared the good & the bad, the challenges along with the frustrations. They gave me a real picture of what life on program was like.  Unfortunately the site crashed a couple of years later. It was months before they were finally able to get it online again, no one seemed to find their way back & the site was soon shut down permanently.


One important theme that I read over & over on this site was how important the physical component of a neurodevelopmental program is. The wise moms on Child Brain always insisted physical activities like creeping, crawling & brachiating was more important than the academics, so if you could only get part of your program done, try to give the physical stuff priority. If you don't help the child's brain to become more organized then the academics just aren't going to sink in.

This spring due to some confusion scheduling the appointment (probably my fault) K did not end up having her regular neurodevelopmental evaluation so I created my own program for her. I included math, reading, speech (sentences structure as well as we are working on the TH sound), auditory & visual processing, thinking skills, handwriting & a bit of sensory stuff. The biggest change that I made was that I really ramped up the physical activities, namely creeping, crawling & brachiating.

The interesting thing is that I just talked to K's neurodevelopmentalist yesterday after implementing this program for several weeks & she said that they are also starting to add more physical activities to their programs. K's next evaluation is in early September & there will likely be a lot more physical activity on it. I'm so glad to hear that my instincts are correct.

It has been only a few weeks & already I'm seeing changes.  The biggest change has been in K's handwriting.  It is much more legible than it was a few months earlier.

She also seems stronger with her digit spans & her upper body strength has definitely improved as well! I'm so glad we tried a back to basics approach.


Now for the really amazing part!

I have been noticing lately that KJ,  my 10 year old doesn't have a very coordinated crawl . I talked her into joining us in creeping, crawling & brachiating this summer. shhhhhh..................don't tell her friends that part of the story ;) 

Anyways, we didn't see a huge change over the summer.  The only thing I really noticed was that by the end of the summer her reading interests had changed & she suddenly became a voracious reader like my other 3 girls. It was never a fight to get her to read but she just never seemed to have the same passion they did - she would often read comic books & graphic novels.  Suddenly I realized that she was reading everything & anything including a book my 14 yo just read last year!  I wondered if all that physical program could have had an effect but reasoned that it could also just be a coincidence.

Fast forward to early September & I am amazed at the difference!  We did nothing that involved writing this summer so I as unaware until school started however K's handwriting has improved greatly!  According to K, last year her teacher had to constantly remind her to write neatly so she could read it.  She also made a number of letter reversals which made her writing hard to understand.  This year her teacher keeps saying "Wow! you're writing is beautiful!"  She is also finding spelling tests much easier as well as social studies.  I wonder if the latter 2 could just be because she is so excited about the improvement that she is working harder however there is no disputing the handwriting - last spring even when trying her absolute hardest she could not write as neatly as she is doing today when not giving much effort.

Since last year I have been having KJ write out her spelling words on flashcards to teach to K. Here are examples of last spring's writing compared to now:

 

& a couple more examples - these are pretty average, not even the messier ones!

Another Kindergarten Update - Time for Compromise

If you haven't read the past posts here are the links so you can understand the background to this post:

1st day of Kindy

Kindergarten Update - Frustrated

As soon as I started to suspect that Longvida Curcumin may be responsible for K's defiant behaviour I immediately took her off of it.  Within in a few days I started to notice a return to her usual behaviour - Whew!!!! so glad to have my same old pleasant kid back!  I was about to rip my hair our for a while!

In the meantime, we were already going into the 3rd week at school & the teacher, in light of K's defiant behaviour, was becoming very concerned. One of the other problems they have had twice in these first few weeks is K being a little too independent.  One warm afternoon when the kids were playing on the playground K was too warm & went inside the school & sat inside the door to cool off.  While that was a reasonable choice, she didn't tell the teacher first.  This has never been an issue in preschool but I think with the number of kids the teacher is busier so K just didn't bother. It could also be that this summer we really didn't expect K to check in with us much at all.  If she wanted to go outside or anywhere in the house she had the freedom to just do it so it could be just a return to the rules/structure again. This sort of thing has happened twice now at school & while we have dealt with it now, I can understand how they can't feel certain that it won't happen again.  The cut off for getting coding in place is the end of September & while I'm certain the K is back to herself & I did explain the situation I can't help but completely understand their concerns.  I'm so frustrated at the timing of this situation but feel I need to compromise.

One of the biggest reasons we were not coding K was so that she could get local speech therapy services.  This is the only therapy that I want the school to provide for K.  Her neurodevelopmental (ND)program does cover speech but I think this skill is so important that I feel the more practice she has the better. Kids who are coded have a consult type system with someone who travels from a few hours away & I really want someone local so I can be more involved & I think there is also a little more accountability.  Not only that, they would see her much more often & therefore would be able to do a much better job assessing her speech. The other huge reason for wanting local services is that the SLP that K would see is familiar with ND programs!  I never thought I'd find that in a mainstream therapist! Her daughter was greatly helped by a ND program several years ago so she is totally on board & interested in K's program.

So, K will end up being coded this year but they are able to get an exception & she can have the local speech services that we want for her.   I do want the 1:1 for speech so she will be pulled out for this but that is the only time she will not be in the classroom - not for PT or OT which she will likely not get anyways.  Some of the funding  received will be used for an aide for a portion of the day - I'm thinking it will be for a couple of hours in the afternoon but am not completely sure. The aide is to act as a classroom aide & only give K the minimal amount assistance when necessary. She will be there more as an extra set of eyes so that when the current classroom aide is working with one of several other kids who need speech the teacher will have help because of the number of kids in the room.

As an aside, K's fine motor skills were on par until the last year or so.  While a tad on the messy side, her printing can usually be read. K's program covers fine motor really well so if they end up doing any OT I don't want it during class time as that is so well covered at home. I do think that it may be helpful if they learn some ideas to use with the whole class but don't want OT to interfere with K's classroom time.

One thing that I am requesting is a vision assessment.  A vision consultant will be coming out from the CNIB to assess K's vision & give suggestions.  This will likely be much more helpful for myself as print in kindergarten tends to be very large anyways.  Even if some things are written in a smaller font, they won't be long paragraphs & K can manage to read even very small print in small amounts.

Kindergarten Update - Frustrated!

Well, so far after only 4 days of kindy I'm feeling very frustrated & very confused.

For the past two weeks K has been very defiant & uncooperative & of course that is carrying over to school. Don't get me wrong, she is loving school & I don't think the behaviour is related to school but the timing sure is horrible!

Over the summer we have been working really hard with K on her behaviour.  As the youngest of 4 kids it seems like there was always someone there to help her comply with any directions we gave her & while her big sisters were trying to be helpful it wasn't helping K to independently follow directions so that was our main goal over the summer & I was really seeing her blossom & become much more responsible. After such progress it's very frustrating to see such a huge regression in behaviour especially at a time that I really want her to behave her best. 

The other thing that I noticed is that she seems to be getting help with tasks that are very basic.  The other day when I arrived a few minutes before the end of the day I was able to sit in on the class for about fifteen minutes.  I noticed that after the kids were done painting the classroom aide helped K wash her hands. I also was quite surprised when at the end of the day K expected me to help her change her shoes.  WTH??!!  These are basic tasks that she has been doing for 1/2 of her life already!

So tomorrow I am having a meeting with the teacher & after that I hope K will have a little wake up call about being a whole lot more independent! We will also discuss her behaviour & hopefully come up with some solutions.

As for the grouchy behaviour I'm hoping a change in supplements will help. We ran out of Longvida curcumin this summer & coincidently received our order a few days before school started.  K has had trouble with grouchy behaviour in the past when on the full dose so I have been giving her a half dose which she has always tolerated well. I'm wondering if the 1/2 dose is now too much for her too.  It is such a great supp for her speech - the only supp that has ever really made much of a difference plus it is so great for brain health that I don't want to remove it completely from her diet but for now I've taken her of all supps just to make sure none of them are causing her behaviour problems.

Wish me luck tomorrow & cross your fingers, or maybe even say a little prayer that we get to the bottom of this soon!