Occupational Therapy has played a big role in Gavin’s development.  On this day, we worked with the “cocoon swing”.  It allows Gavin to work on proprioception, tactile as well as vestibular input.  It helps him to gain an understanding and receive input of how his body works.  I know I say this a million times, but Gavin needs to receive input throughout his whole body, in order to begin to understand just how one part of him works.

For example, every move he makes in this “cocoon swing” is with resistance.  He was asked to push the outside of the swing, with all his strength.  This allows him to gain an understanding of how long the length of his arm is.  When we extend our arms, we can see the tips of our fingers.  When Gavin extends his arms, he doesn’t really have a full grasp of what is at the end of his fingers (other than open space), and so this helps to give a mental map of the length of his arms, and he gets input all down his fingers from the resistance.  It’s such an interesting concept.

His therapist, Mary, also put the cocoon swing under his arms.  It provided just enough support to allow free movement, which is something you don’t see all the time with blind children.  His face was priceless, as he controlled the movement of his legs as he side-stepped, jumped up and down, and ran from side to side.

He also worked on jumping from a small height, unassisted.  I was able to grab my phone, and capture this moment.  He was so happy when he did it.  His therapist has been working on having Gavin, jump.  Not just up and down, but off of something of a different height – independently.  This is not something a child who is blind, is going to do.  But it is important for him to gain understanding of open space, and his body position, and using both parts of his body in sync.  There is hesitation, but, he did it!  Many blind children do not want to jump without guidance, as there is definite fear of the unknown, and a general fear for safety.  You can see we still need some work on weight shifting, as well as him lifting his foot completely up in the air and stepping it onto the step.  He keeps constant contact with the mat and the step, as he is trying to get his foot up onto the step.

We are going to continue working with stepping on/off curbs, steps as well as jumping down from them.  I will keep you posted as his development continues.

As a side note, I know I have not kept up with this blog like I would like.  It’s always the first thing to slide when life happens.  But, please stay connected with us, as we will have some exciting news to share in the upcoming days/weeks!

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