Feeding

One of the school class aides enthusiastically shared a "positive" report about my daughter C. yesterday. 

It seems the school's "feeding expert" (an Occupational Therapist) gave C. a session, in itself a cause for celebration, given its rarity. She found C. capable of holding a spoon throughout the entire meal that the therapist fed to her.

I hated to be a wet rag but the news left me cold.

As I may have mentioned here in past blogs, C. can feed herself. First, I fill her bent spoon which has reversed masking tape wrapped around the handle to help her grip it. Then she lifts it to her mouth and inserts the food very efficiently. So what's the big deal about holding the spoon and doing nothing with it?

Several years ago I both video-taped C. feeding herself and personally demonstrated her doing the same in class. I expected to spur the staff to have C. feed herself her lunch every day. 

In my dreams.
 
They made a few feeble attempts to have her do what she'd demonstrated to them she could. But soon afterward they were back to spoon-feeding her.
 
And they've never looked back.
 
Yesterday I told her current teacher that holding the spoon is really unimpressive - not that indelicately, of course (I can be sweet on occasion). I promised to make the staff a new demo video so they can appreciate what C. is capable of. 

The teacher expressed eagerness to switch C. to self-feeding. We've been down this road too many times with previous teachers for me to get my hopes up. But I'll give this one a chance to prove me wrong.
 
Here (below) is the video we made yesterday. Doesn't C. rock!