2010

January 2010

• Ruben returned back to Nursery and has settled in very well in to the rising 3,s. Ruben is now supported by Sharon whom is his 1-1 worker. Bobbie is his key worker and Bev and Susie work along side. The staff are fantastic with Ruben and it is clear that Ruben has built up good relationships with all the staff supporting him. The whole team have worked really hard to make ruben comfortable and relaxed within his new environment. Ruben now has stairs to compete with every day to access the room, at first i was concerned but the more i thought about it the better i felt  as this would be good for his mobility skills and build up his confidence at lot faster. Karen and Alison from the special support service for VI continue to support each week for an hour and are very happy with rubens progress. They are currently working with a project called fantastic fingers which is all pre braille skills. Susie whom is Rubens mobilty teacher is also visiting Ruben at Nursery this is for hour every fortnight. She has drawn up a molbilty plan for all the staff and ourselves to work with which at the moment is pretty much what is happening. Main  focus is directional  work, container work which is using different size containers to encourage Rubens Auditory skills  and hopefully long term for Ruben to use echo location just like our good friend Daniel Kish, this is our hopes. we are also trying to encourage Ruben to walk sensibly  up the stairs using the rail and sat on his  bottom coming  down which at the moment is quite tricky as Ruben doew tend to like to mess around on the stairs and hang off the gates both top and bottom!! still totally obsessed with opening and closing doors...

Just to add we did not have to attend senas for meeting regarding Rubens statement, the ammendments were made and all has been finalised. We are very happy with statement and feel this will take Ruben well in to School, thanks to the NCBS for their support!

February 3rd- IEP meeting

Attended Rubens IEP meeting today all professionals attended. Went through VI journal and Ruben has acheived most of his goals and is where he should be for his age, well actually a little above which  is really reasuring. Ongoing targets were feeding himself, which he tends to do more of in nursery,typical obviously wants to be lazy for mom! and to encourage Ruben to keep his hands in front of his face when walking. We also talked about Rubens behaviour which is at its peak with biting, pinching and although this is a natural part of development it still needs to be monitored and dealt with in a consistent way. I have noticiced an increase at home and see how Ruben will seek out Theo and attempt to bite him. sometimes this is provoked by Theo being typical brothers but sometime it can be for no apparent reason as is of nursery. The eduactional physcologist was keen to know what the cause for this was and felt that this should be monitored as he felt that sometimes these situations may be avoided. Which was quite true in some situations as Ruben has always had 1-1 when this attention is diverted this is when he tends to act out so the Ed physocologist was saying that maybe to inform Ruben at all times what the 1-1 is doing etc which did make sense. Overall all are happy with Rubens progress..

18th feb - Moorfields

Time of the year for check up. Ruben again was great travelling down and it was so nice to be able to park outside the hospital now having our blue badge which take so much stress and time off the journey. Again alot of waiting around and seing different professionals. but to cut a long story short, Ruben has perfect vision! which was a little confusing but all made sense when told IF Ruben,s retina,s had developed thiswould be the case. Rubens development  overall no concerns. We also got to see Proffessor Moore whom is quite interested in what is going on with the retinas, not that this helps us. Again we asked the question any developments and when.. Again told within his lifetime and that it would not be as staright forward as a transplan as the brain would also need to be trained to work the sight sense which by now would be focusing in other areas. I believe that this desision will be Ruben choice and as time goes by i would not like and would find it hard to make..A further appointment will be made fro 2011.

March 4th Dentist

This was Rubens first dental visit and he was quite excited until the dreded chair as we all know we tend to stiffen up when in it! Ruben was happy to sit in the chair but did not want to open his mouth, but we did not push as dont want to put him off, no concerns anyhow..

May - new kitten Anya

After carefull research and deciding kitten or rabbit , Theo chose to have a kitten. Theo found the kitten of his dreams and our new addition to the family is Anya. She is all white and very cute and has settled invery well . Ruben is very excited and is very happy to have his first pet. He loves to hear her miaw and purring this really is fasinating for him. I think this was the right desision as the joy on the boys faces and it is really important for children to have relationships with animals and for them to build confidence, not that Theo needs it but certainly for Ruben.

June- speech and language

Attended appointment and was not in here for long when Ruben went into a full on conversation with them! I think it was clrealy obvious that he had no issues in this area.. It was very funny actually as Ruben when being spoken to was telling them to be queit so he could here the birds outside and the baby in the next room!! tickled me and them too. Conseqently Ruben has been discharged LOL!!!

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