Ways to convey occupation


I had a busy day today. I feel like expressing the daily variation in my clinical responsibilities. These are all single-frame descriptions. If you read them quickly, maybe you will see me moving. Is this the nature of disconnected discourse? How can I make this 'real' for you?

My first task was to attend a planning meeting for a young child who has high functioning autism. He just transitioned into a kindergarten classroom and the parents asked me to participate. I have known this child for two years and had some input that was hopefully useful to the educational team. This meeting went well. Phew, they don't always.

Next I had a phone conference regarding a 4th grade child in a distant school district. The family traveled a great distance to see me and I spent a full day (a couple weeks ago) completing one of our infamous 'intensive' evaluations. This CSE meeting also went well, so I was feeling pretty lucky at this point.

Then I drove to see a little friend, just 17 months old and having some difficulties with feeding. He did an amazing job today of tolerating mixed textures (those dehydrated apple thingies in with his Stage II fruit). Amazing progress. 3 for 3! What a morning!

Next was lunch at Quiznos, which was unimpressive. Oh well.

My afternoon started with a session with an adolescent who has autism. He has been having some increased self injurious behavior lately and just hasn't seemed to 'be himself.' Any day that we make it through without serious SIB is positive, and the fact that I got him to do some academic work today was an added bonus. Not bad.

Next I saw my good buddy who has a metabolic disorder - he is seven years old and the doctor gave the parent a hard time about the child's recent weight gain. Boo for the MD and dietician who discussed it in front of the child. As if we don't have enough issues to contend with - add self esteem to the pile now.

Next was another seven year old who has some borderline learning difficulties. Not much to say about this fellow yet - I am still learning about him. We did have fun with an obstacle course, which he made me race him through. The good part was getting to have a reason to dive into the crash pillows today. The bad part was that he wanted to be P1 and I could be P2, and he scripted our play like a video game. Hm.

Then I saw an adolescent who has dyslexia. We developed a color coding system for his notebooks and schedule, and I taught him about how set this all up. Good news was that he actually seemed to catch onto the idea. Bad news is that the paper they use in assignment books is so thin that highlighter markers bleed through to the other side - making a real mess of organization attempts. So we switched to colored pencils. Onward...

Finally, I saw another good friend who I got into the argument with last week about classification of farm animals. Good news tonight was that he can tie his own shoelaces! Bad news is that he has shoelaces that don't stay tied very well. Mom is looking into flat shoelaces - should fix the problem.

So that was my day. What did you do?

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