Oh how I wish it was OK for me to bring the camera with me to Atti’s therapy and take pictures of the other kids. Oh how I wish I could introduce you all to this little cohort of boys Atti gets to hang out with as they all get stretched and pulled and taught how to use their little bodies.
When we go to MOVE class on Wednesday’s (which is basically like an adaptive PE class where special ed teachers play with the kids to teach them how to move) there are often other kids coming in and out. Lately there have been three other boys and a little girl, all right around the same age, all with different abilities and disabilities, who get to hang out together. These kids are so dang cute, so curious about each other, and it does my heart so much good to see Atti have peers.
When he goes to church on Sunday, his nursery leaders and the other kids have just been beautiful in how they include him. The little girls especially look after him and the kids fight to be the one to include Atti by sitting next to him or bringing him toys. I really couldn’t have asked for more then what he’s been given.
But, there’s still a difference. He needs those typical kids to show him what he could be doing and to give him the motivation to try, but until lately, he hasn’t seen any other kids that were like him. And I needed to see the kids that were like him to see how typical he really is, just by a different measure.
We’ve started a new technique called Therapeutic Brushing and it’s a little bit magic, I think. It’s complicated and technical, but boiled way way down for us laypeople, I basically give Atti a brushing every few hours as if he were a horse. There’s special brushes to use, and a specific technique, but essentially, he gets a good hard horse brushing every few hours.
There are a bunch of different reasons this works or times when you’d use it, but in Atti’s case it’s about giving his body input. Since the messages can’t get from his brain to his legs, the messages have to go from the legs to the brain, and the brushing stimulates all the nerves that send those messages.
It’s amazing to watch. After a brushing he sits up so much straighter, he doesn’t do some of the defensive behaviors that make our jobs harder, he’s much more active. And the whole time I brush him he giggles over the tickling.