I realized that I have not updated on Grace for a long time...since July! So much is new!
I wrote last time that Grace was switched to a new medication - Vyvanse. Vyvanse is the longest acting ADHD medication which gives her symptom control even into the evening. We try to get it in her ASAP in the mornings as the first hour of the day is a little hairy, but then we settle into a routine:) Vyvanse also is unique in that it is not abusable. Vyvanse is encased in a special coating that does not allow it to break down except by very specific enzymes that are only found in the stomach. Not that we are worried about her abusing it, but as she gets older that is a good choice. We are also THRILLED that with the other various interventions we use with her, we only have to have her on the 20 mg dose when 30 mg is the starting dose.
In August we had an occupational therapy evaluation and the very wonderful pediatric occupational therapist worked with us regarding sensory interventions. We discovered that Grace is over stimulated auditorily and visually, but understimulated in the senses of tactile, proprioception (deep muscle pressure) and vestibular (spinning, swinging, being upside down, etc). So, when Grace gets over stimulated in one area, she will gravitate to an area of understimulation but go WAYYYY overboard in an attempt to "feel" those senses. We now have interventions to keep her more "balanced" with the stimulation. The biggest change is that at bedtime we no longer have 20 minutes to 2 hours of screaming as she is way too out of balance sensory wise and nothing could reintegrate it other than sleep (which she could not get to due to feeling so out of balance). If that isn't improvement I don't know what is lol!
In October I attended an ADHD conference taught by Dr. Barkley. His insights were extremely helpful for understanding ADHD in a way that I had not previously conceptualized it. That conceptualization along with very practical tools for management of ADHD have resulted in a major shift in how we parent Grace and life has probably improved (between the medication, the sensory interventions, and the new behavioral management techniques) to the place where realistically we are as good as we are going to get...at this place is manageable. Check out my blog posts specifically the statistics of ADHD here and the conceptualization of ADHD/ADD here. I highly, highly recommend his book on parenting a child with ADHD.
I have yet to type up a post on the behavioral interventions/expectations of a child with ADHD, but those changes have been a total Godsend in our home and we have had several months to tweak them and see how they work over time. I'll get on the post...sometime;)
Finally, Grace's impulsivity has not lent itself well to learning. Once those behaviors were more controlled we realized just how poor her concentration/focus was and that prompted the medication change from Ritalin to Vyvanse. Once school was underway for 1st grade we realized that she is still struggling mightily. So...we contacted the school and got her set up for various testing. She now has an IEP in place with the public school and attends there for a couple of hours 2x a week for various interventions to hopefully help in the areas in which she struggles (math, reading, writing, etc). Grace's test scores for IQ and speech/language issues were as varied and comical as Grace is. She had scores off the bottom of the chart...and off the top! Guess which area she scored at the 99th percentile??? Scores related to talking! For those of you who have met her you know she NEVER stops talking and is quite able to quickly think on her feet to argue any point to exhaustion lol! The testers said that (despite having had her medication) she was upside down in her chair, under the table, standing on her head, etc during the testing. This child is never still...that is part of what makes her so fun...and so difficult;) I want to say here that our school district has been amazingly awesome about the kids (we have more than 1 with an IEP) being home schooled yet working with us to give them the interventions we have all agreed on. They have been thoughtful, they have heard our concerns, they have been wonderful with the kids, etc. I am so thankful for them.
I belong to various Yahoo groups for mom's of adopted kids, mom's of adopted kids with learning differences, mom's helping kids with auditory processing issues, mom's helping kids with dyslexia issues, etc. I have learned many, many things from these groups including that the issues my kids have are not as bad as they could be:) I have also learned about various interventions that they talk about over and over. I belong to a online Home school coop from where home schoolers can buy various deeply discounted curriculum. I saw Reading Eggs on there and have heard of it on the yahoo groups over and over, I decided to try it. Grace plays this internet "game" and it teaches her phonics, etc. It is good for her since it provides immediate feedback, it is engaging...for hours!, it drills concepts over and over (did I mention that she stays out of trouble for extensive periods of time while on the computer? ;) We also got the Reading Eggs app for the ipad so she can have it to do while we are out and about and need her to be still.
As for day to day life? There is no question she is our toughest child. There is no question that life is exponentially more...more...well, "more" because of her in our lives. She brings joy in things that we would just not see if it were not for her. She brings opportunities for us to learn more about humility and grace in the face of the sin in our hearts that her behavior brings to the surface. She definitely makes ordinary moments quite extraordinary. For example, I just got done brushing and braiding her hair. She said "ouch" then turned that into "ouchie" then turned that all into a rap song complete with dancing and prancing around (making it more difficult to complete her hair) and then took the brush and started brushing the carpet with it in beat with her song... life is just like that all of the time! I tend to be a person that misses many details as I am focused on task accomplishment and long term goals. Grace has no ability to think other than the moment and thus she helps me to see things that I would otherwise miss because she is ALL about the moment, not being distracted by thoughts of the next moment:)
No comments:
Post a Comment