Its been one of those weeks when I have worked with a lot of children! In fact, I didn't see any adult patients at all! Working with children is messy! This week resulted in my Saturday being spent disinfecting all of the toys I use for assessment and therapy...everything-from blindfolds for games at the creche to blocks to teddy bears-has either been drooled on, put in a kids mouth or used as a tissue...But every time I am able to complete a hearing screening or assessment, or achieve my aims in a therapy session, I am reminded that it is WORTH it!
A new group of speech therapy and occupational therapy students have joined us, as the last group has moved on to a new prac. While I am starting to feel quite settled in to the creche and community, it is a whole new experience for the speechies and OT's who have just started. This week we spend a lot of time explaining and discussing what we have found to work in therapy in the creche, including taking note of the children who need a bit of extra attention during activities. I am learning how to share information that we have discovered over the past 6 weeks, while still leaving room for creativity, new ideas and different perspectives from the new students. I would hate to get stuck into the rut of doing the same games and activities every single week, instead of having our creativity challenged to make our 3 hours at the creche the best 3 hours of those children's week!
This week was significant because OT and Speech and Language assessments have been completed in Rainbow creche! Individual therapy programs are starting to unfold for those who show significant delay- as opposed to group therapy where we target very general aims. Group therapy still goes on for the rest of the Grade R's (5 year olds), where we have been focusing on development of auditory skills, fine and gross motor skills and language development. I still have to learn a lot about the cultures and socio-economic backgrounds of these children in order to ensure that the instructions and stimuli used in our activities are relevant. I feel as if we were not really on top of our game this week with some of the stimuli, and this showed as the children lost focus easily.
We should be completing the hearing screening at the creche in the next session. So far we have identified many children with impacted cerumen, and have nearly finished developing an information letter to be sent home to the parents...the reality is that the parents wont be able to take their children to the hospital for cerumen management, so we are trying to suggest alternatives, such as using olive oil or cerumen softening drops. To be honest, I don't even know how many of the parents will spend money on olive oil or softening drops... so if anyone reading this blog has any other suggestions for cerumen management in this community, share the ideas! I get frustrated that so many children in communities in South Africa don't get the help and intervention that they need!
It seems as though this prac might be changed up a bit, as new locations within the community are added...I am excited to get involved in other parts of the Mariannridge community!
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