Snapshot Of Today

I thought I would write a few things down about where Preston is today so that we can better track it as we go.  We have detailed test results from Brain Balance, but as far as day-to-day reality of his abilities, it's nice to remember exactly where you were when you started something.

PRESTON

• Focus is still one of our biggest issues.  His abilities are coming along, but everything takes him FOREVER.  He can empty the dishwasher, but it takes many reminders and lots of encouragement to get there.  
• He also struggles to focus doing homework, reading, and even in conversations if they aren't something he's specifically interested in discussing.  
• Fine motor skills are a HUGE struggle for him.  He can do most buttons and snaps, but they take him quite awhile to get.  He doesn't do zippers very well.  And although he now dresses himself, his underwear, pants, socks, etc. will often be twisted or put on wrong.  Fine motor skills are to blame, as well as the fact that he is under sensitized so he just doesn't feel that they are all bunched up and twisted.  
• He doesn't tie shoes yet and even doing up shoes with velcro is difficult.  He just slips them on and calls it good most of the time.  
• Holding a pencil correctly is still tricky and a constant battle.  Handwriting is HARD for him! He prefers to hold the pencil with all four fingers rather than with the index finger, middle finger and thumb. 
• He LOVES to color and draw, but his way.  Do not try to correct the way he holds a crayon, marker, or pencil!  
• He rides a bike well and is getting brave.  He tries to do tricks like his older brother.  He also has a very good aim with a ball.  But he really struggles with team sports.  It's too much for his brain to process.  He was in soccer, but we decided to wait for team sports.  He didn't want to play and although he has pretty decent skill with the ball, following the pace of the game and not getting distracted by the people screaming on the sideline is hard for him.  
• Academically he is quite far behind, despite our best efforts.  He has letter recognition and knows sounds, but he's still at the point of sounding out three letter words that follow basic phonics rules.  Part of that is ability and the other part I believe is lack of confidence.  But we are still waiting for the reading "breakthrough" to happen where it becomes less of a step by step process and more automatic. 
• He does know a handful of sight words.  Memorizing isn't too difficult for Preston as long as things are repeated enough to him.  Retention, however, seems to be a struggle with much of his learning.
• Preston's special ed teacher gave me a paper with a bunch of 1st grade words listed in four columns.  I'm supposed to have him read it every day, time it, and count the errors.  And then chart it so we can see his progress.  The goal is to be able to read the whole paper in under 3 1/2 minutes with fewer than 5 errors.  To give you an idea of where we're at, that paper of 1st grade words took us 26 minutes to read with 55 errors.  Reading is definitely an uphill battle.  I suspect he has dyslexia, which just adds to the difficulty in reading.
• As far as sensory processing goes, he has mixed sensory issues.  Some kids are sensory seeking, others are sensory avoiding, and then there are those who have mixed sensory issues.  Preston is the latter.  So he jumps a lot and has kind of those proprioceptive needs.  He also licks things and chews on his shirt.  Thankfully not people, but he will lick objects to try to get the sensory input he craves.  When he is "off" he will actually ask for a cold ice pack to lick, which will help to calm him.  
• Sensory avoiding.  We CANNOT do fireworks.  We've tried many things and this is just not something he can handle.  The big loud noise at an unexpected time causes him to panic.  We are a very patriotic family by nature so this has been a difficult one for us to come to terms with.  In general, we try to avoid fireworks shows and if we do watch them, we try to be near a home where he can be inside watching a movie.  It still makes him very anxious, but we can usually get through it that way.  This year, we attempted to watch fireworks at a public park.  My sister brought an iPad with a movie and Bosch headphones that block out background noise.  We put him on a lawn chair facing me and I applied pressure to his legs as well (deep pressure also helps calm him).  Even with all those factors, we were barely able to get through it.  His heart was racing and there was fear in his eyes every time he looked up at me.  So we have made progress for sure, but in general, this is not something we can do.  This was the first 4th of July in YEARS that we were able to be together as a family during a fireworks show.  It wasn't ideal, but we were grateful to have the memory of all being together to celebrate.  
• Preston also gets very nervous with motion and heights.  He doesn't seem to have a very good feel for his body in space, and because of that tends to overreact with things that shouldn't be too big of a deal.  We had never been able to go on a carousel with him until two  years ago, and then he would only sit on the stationary bench with an adult sitting next to him with their arm around him.  No up and down motion of the animals while the carousel was moving in a circle.  That was way too much for him!  Last year, just before my baby was born, we were at the county fair and he actually got on the carousel next to Dylan (his big brother) and rode a horse that went up and down.  I was shocked!  I cried and cried!  He asked me what was wrong.  He does not understand emotional tears.  But he still struggles with this type of motion.  He hasn't wanted to go on a ride again since then.  But today (September 2014) at the zoo, with much hesitation, he tried it again.  And he did it!  He got through the whole ride going up and down while the ride went in a circle.  He was nervous.  But he did it!  
• He wears a blanket over his head a lot when he is trying to regulate his sensory needs. And when he can't calm down, deep pressure really helps him. I often roll him in a blanket like a burrito and then squeeze around his body with my arms and legs to give him deep pressure. 

DYLAN

Dylan has fewer things that concern us, but I wanted to mention a couple of the behaviors we feel the Brain Balance program will help him to improve as well.  

Dylan is very loving, loyal, and a natural leader.  He has a heart of gold.  He is very bright and is able to understand things at a much deeper level than most kids (or even many adults).  He can connect the dots and analyze life situations well.  He learns easily and is talented in many areas.  

Our biggest concern with Dylan revolves around impulse control and emotional outbursts. Although his challenges are few and less extreme than those of Preston, we feel that this emotional immaturity often casts a negative shadow on an incredible child.  He can be fine one minute, and completely lose his cool the next.  His emotional outbursts are not what they once were when he was younger, but we still feel they are keeping him from reaching his true potential.  We also feel that they are not just a product of bad behavior, but are the result of a brain imbalance.  From what I can tell, I think his biggest struggles stem from his frontal lobe being weak and underdeveloped and that as this comes along, many of these things will fall away.  As far as Brain Balance is concerned, many of the struggles Dylan has are due to  an underdeveloped right brain, as well as retained infant reflexes, so we are trying to catch the right hemisphere up to the left hemisphere in hopes of correcting some of these problems.