Summer had a visit from her OT and PT at school. I didn't think she would work too hard as she was tired and missing Don quite a bit.

Ann had this to report:

Summer was great this morning! She worked so hard and had so much fun it was great!!! She was tired when we left but she was happy. (Gee, did she really see my kid???)

Summer was using her right arm and hand more spontaneously during every day activities without needing reminders and the speed of movement in her shoulder and elbow seems to have improved.

We have been using Velcro food to cut up, when casted with her right hand – of course but today she cut with her left. Once all the food is cut I push it all off to her right and she uses her right hand (usually still holding the plastic knife) to push it across the table to her left for me to catch in our “soup pot” as it slides off the edge of the table. She really swings her arm out away from her body with a nice position of her shoulder and elbow and then swings back connecting with the food and bringing her arm across midline to push the food. She gets to do it again when I am unsuccessful in catching the food. She has no complaints that she has to do it again and again. She has nice speed in the shoulder movements and great elbow extension when reaching for the foods and when swinging her arm. She has developed better control as well: initially if she swung her arm to the side and lifted it off the table she frequently banged her hand against the table when she would swing her arm back across but today she lifted her hand completely off the table every time and she only banged her hand once when she came back down. We tried a variation to get supination and although it was tricky for her she was actively moving from pronation (palm down parallel to table) toward neutral. At one point she put both hands on the tool and was swinging it well much like a base ball bat or a golf club.

---Always great to have a good report to reassure us that 3 weeks in a cast is worth the extra effort---

Monday we will have the post casting AHA - Assitive Hand Assessment.
Sum worked on gross motor as well:

We did a lot of pushing up to sitting, rolling toward her right side and pushing up using her right hand/arm during a little tug of war game during which she was giggling! She is so much fun to work with. Andree and I were also trying to figure out a way to support the arches of her right hand during weight-bearing during various activities but were not really successful – we will have to try some other things out. However, the exciting part of this is that after we were done the game Summer lay back down and twice out of 3 time spontaneously and independently rolled toward her right side and pushed herself up into sitting without any verbal reminders or anything!

That's my girl!