New Foods, ASD, & Tom

Today was a pretty good day for Cody.  He's still crying when he has to leave me and go to sessions and he still won't play with the therapist. BUT he's already had bites of 9 foods that he's never had before coming to Marcus and this is only Day 4 of treatment.  

Breakfast began with strawberries continuing from yesterday and a new food- string cheese.  Try to imagine a string cheese puree.  Yum?  Some of the bites at breakfast were still empty spoon.  He did well enough with his bites of strawberry and string cheese that they decided to probe him again with chicken nuggets, fries, broccoli, and pears like yesterday.  He did not pass that probe but it was better than the last one.  He actually handled pears and broccoli pretty well.  He cried a lot on chicken nuggets and fries. 

His snack session today was replaced with a weekly oral motor skills session.  I go to that session with him to learn how to do these exercises at home.  We'll now do chewing practice and gum massage 3 times a day.  For now I'll rub my finger over his gums going as far back as he'll allow without gagging 3 times allowing him to play with a toy between each "rub."  We'll do that in the morning, afternoon, and night.  He got a yellow "chewy" that I will have him bite 3 times on his molars on both sides of his mouth 3 times for each session 3 times a day.  We are familiar with some of these things from OT with Ms. Debbie.  Cody was excited to get a sticker after completing that session. :)

At lunch, rice was added to Cody's rotation of strawberries and string cheese. Rice was an easy addition, probably because it's a pretty bland food.  Out of 5 bites at this point, only one was an empty spoon.  Forgive me for not remembering the pattern! After several easy sets of five on strawberries, cheese, and rice, they tried the probe foods again.  This time pears were ok and french fries did not get as bad of a reaction as it did previously.  I definitely don't understand the protocol or what the probe showed, but after the probe they decided to add peas.  That went ok, so the rotation became empty spoon, strawberry, cheese, rice, and peas.  From what I am seeing, the goal seems to be quickly exposing Cody to a lot of different foods rather than increasing the amount of the foods he's becoming most comfortable with.  

At dinner there were no empty spoon bites and... Cody passed the probe!  For the rest of the dinner session they rotated the probe foods- nuggets, fries, pears, and broccoli. There were no empty spoon bites at the dinner session!  One of the head feeding therapists was in the observation room with me at that point and kept reiterating to me how well Cody is doing. 

I do recognize that Cody came into this program far ahead of many kids we've come in contact with here.  There are many with feeding tubes and I've rarely seen kids actually eating food themselves.  Cody is ahead because he already has 5 foods! He already eats with a spoon!  Some are just drinking Ensure if having anything orally at all.  No one has made comments to me about Cody's "advanced" eating, but I have had comments about how verbal he is for 3.5.  This may be obvious already, but most of the kids at Marcus are moderately to severely autistic. Cody has been referred for an ASD evaluation, but even the people who referred him are aware that if he is on the spectrum, he's very, very high functioning.  When another parent asked me how old Cody was she was surprised and commented that her son didn't say his first word until he was 3. Not only can Cody talk, he spent about 15 minutes today reading full sentences that I wrote for him on a magna-doodle board. I think a lot of people at Marcus have been surprised by how engaging and verbal Cody is.  He talks to people in the halls and elevators.  I can't tell you how many strangers have commented to me about how cute and funny he is.  I have felt at times like Cody is missing interacting with other kids like he does at preschool.  The ironic part is that Cody is probably less social than MOST 3 year olds. He is just MORE social than most kids at Marcus.  None of the other kids talk to Cody at all. Many are non-verbal. I have encouraged Cody to introduce himself, share toys, etc, which he has done.  There's one boy who is 4 that seems more like Cody, but he's on the opposite schedule of Cody (he's in therapy when Cody's out), so they don't get much chance to be together.  The therapist, Demerea, who is with Cody most often, is in training.  I have wondered if they assigned her to Cody's case, because he is easier than some others.  

For all of those worried about our "monkey yogurt" situation, my aunt and uncle tracked some down for us and delivered it to the Marcus Center today at lunchtime. Cody and I REALLY and truly appreciate not having to drive around in the rain this afternoon looking for yogurt.  And I'm sorry that Cody insisted on calling my uncle Tom rather than his actual name, Tod.  :)  

More tomorrow.