An interesting case

So at the university, we have a clinic called CHRIB - Clinic for High Risk Babies. It's an Early Intervention clinic, where parents bring their children to be assessed in various aspects. They are assessed by an Occupational Therapist, Psychologist, Speech Therpist, and an Audiologist. Many a time these patients are referred to us by a pediatric Neurologist, or another doctor.

So yesterday (Friday), I had a re-assessment on a little boy that was assessed at CHRIB last year, so this would be his second year by us. This little boy has "Sotos Syndrome". I'm not 100% sure exactly what all the implications of the syndrome are, but I do know that he is 1 of 5 people in the whole of South Africa who have been diagnosed with Sotos Syndrome, so yea, it's very rare.

For confidentiality reasons, I am not going to give my clients any names. This little boy will therefore be "client B".

This little boy (client B) is 5 years old now (65 months), and has no form of functional communication. We aren't even sure whether we will be able to get him to use any form of communication, but we are definitely going to try.

When he wants something, he goes to his parents, and takes them by the hand, leading them to where he wants them to be, to show them what he wants. A lot of the time, his parents already know what he wants, so he just has to lead them to the fridge, or the swimming pool, or whatever.

Client B has a huge delay in all aspects of his development, Speech and Language being the most severe. While my co-therapist student was doing a play assessment on him, I was doing an interview with his dad. I asked general questions, and also did the Developmental Assessment Scale (DAS) ( Northcott, W. H. (Ed.) Curriculum Guide: Hearing Impaired Children 0-3 years and their parents. DC: The Alexander Bell Association for the Deaf). According to the DAS, his general development is severely delayed. His parents refuse to leave him alone at any given moment, for safety reasons.

Last year they tried getting him to use the PECS system (A picture communication system), to teach him how to communicate his basic needs. This did not work, he ignored the picture cards completely. So now this year we will try and focus on imitation, and trying to devise a communication mode that he can use. We will consult with professionals in the Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) department, and see if they don't maybe have a device that could be beneficial for him.

In the mean time, we will see what we can do in terms of communication and development. I will keep writing about our progress with him, or even what we don't achieve. If anyone else can learn from our experiences with him, or even have any suggestions, that would be great. That is the whole point of a blog, isn't is?

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