Ocular Motor Apraxia Brochure

Oculomotor Apraxia has a brochure!!

The brochure contains a great overview about the condition, the resources available to us, and it includes great comments/advises from parents and people living with OMA. Whether you choose to get the free PDF version and print it at home, or to order professionally printed copies, I strongly encourage you to get enough copies to share with your pediatrician, therapists, teachers and close friends and family.

Also, please ask your child's neurologist/ophthalmologist to get copies so that his practice can give them out to future OMA patients. We all remember how scary it was the first time we heard OMA at the doctor's office, and the little information that was given to us about it. Now this brochure will help other parents to get some more information at their very first ophthalmologist/neurologist visit, and to feel welcomed into our international OMA community.

To get the brochure, please visit our website at: http://www.ocularmotorapraxia.org/brochure.html

Enjoy!

PS - All the photos on the brochure are from people living with OMA from different parts of the world =)

Busy with extracurricular activities (Part 2)

I talked on my last post about the swimming lessons and other classes that Patrick has been taking "mainstream". But there are 2 additional classes that he is taking over the summer that are designated for children with special needs.

Soccer:

Patrick has been attending soccer classes through a local program called C.A.T.S (Children's Adaptive Team Sports). They had a board bulletin about this at the place where Patrick receives private therapy. I called and they had already had the first class, but I signed him up regardless. I'm from Mexico and grew up playing and being a fan of soccer, so I can't wait to be a soccer mom. Due to Patrick's developmental delays and motor planning issues, I know he couldn't join other children his age on a regular class, so I was thrilled to find out about this special program, so close to my house!

The class is advertised for kids 4-10 years old. I wasn't sure how that would work exactly with such a wide age range, however, the skill level of all the kids is about the same. There are a couple older children with walkers, a couple other with Autism, and a couple other who, like Patrick, you couldn't pinpoint what exactly the health issue is, but you know there is a developmental delay. This class is perfect for him to help him build confidence and learn what is like to be in a sport team.

The instructors on this program are volunteers. Once I read a quote that said "Volunteers don't have extra time, they have extra love to give" and it's so true! We can't go around assuming that volunteers simply have extra time in their hands and this is why they do what they do. They do it because they want to do it, and they find the time to fit it in their busy schedules. I hope other parents elsewhere who are reading this start their own version of C.A.T.S. in their cities if something like this isn't available. It's a great opportunity for children with special needs that otherwise wouldn't have access to experience what it is to belong in a team and train and play regularly.

Music:

A good friend of mine talked to me about a great piano teacher her kids have, and said he mentioned once that he used to do music therapy for autistic children. She introduced us and he was so nice that we decided to give it a try. Patrick is not autistic, but sometimes he presents some behavior that can be considered on the spectrum. His sensory issues, his motor planning issues, his developmental delays - all can be helped with music classes. The instructor suggested to start with sticks and other instruments before getting him to practice piano, as he is still really young.

Patrick enjoys making music with the instruments. It's not easy to get him to follow a pattern but that's the point of taking music lessons. After the first class, the instructor gave me a few exercises to practice at home. I like this type of "homework" because it's so much fun and a great way to spend some quality time with my children. One of the observations the instructor made was to motivate Patrick to make more eye contact or at least make him "aware" of his surroundings. Since then I started to pay more attention to this and realized that indeed when he is playing an instrument he is into it so much he stops paying attention to anything else, and this is the reason why he won't even attempt to follow our patterns/rhythms.

When Patrick was 2, we used to attend a great group class called Music Together Vivo, which is offered in various cities across the United States. It's for children 0-5, and parent participation is encouraged. It was a great way to socialize and dance, sing and play instruments following a pattern. We were considering signing him up again because he really liked those, but when we got the opportunity to get one-on-one music therapy, we decided to give this a try and we are very pleased.