Video Fluoroscopy Swallow Study

There has been much concern on whether Taylor is aspirating (taking food and/or liquid into her airway). She's very gurgly, has been since birth, but it's most pronounced when she's feeding. She had a Video Fluoroscopy Swallow Study done today which is a moving x-ray that shows swallows of food and liquid so that they can see if her swallows are going down the food pipe or if they are getting into her airway. It was very cool to watch actually. She was positioned upright in a special seat and I stood gowned up infront of her feeding her spoonfulls of food when prompted by the technician, as well as formula from her bottle. They put barium in the food and formula so that they could see it in the video x-ray. As I watched onscreen, it looked just like an x-ray of her mouth and throat, but it wasn't a typical picture x-ray, it was moving. So I could see the food sitting in her mouth and watch it move down after she swallowed. Very cool. But the coolest part was the confirmation that she is NOT aspirating....thank god. No more worrying about my sweetheart needing to be tube fed. HUGE relief.

At Taylor's therapy appointments with Infant Team, she always enjoys being in the "Little Room". It's basically a sensory room to stimulate sight, sound and touch. Last week at our therapy appointment my mom was looking at it and said, "Ya know...Bryan could make one of those". So we took lots of pictures and got measurements and we're putting him to work!

There are many benefits of the Little Room...

• develop an awareness, existence, recognition and memory of objects
• an environment where they learn to be independently active and have success from their own explorations
• experience, explore and experiment with objects independently as a way to learn
• begin to establish concept of object permanence
• stability of the equipment and arrangement provides the child with certain feedback on each movement
• experience without adults interpreting for them (the less we interfere with their initiation and exploration, the more they are able to learn)
• the child becomes an active participant in learning instead of passive recipient of information
• learning will become part of the child's personality
• learning opportunities develop from the child's activities
• individual need successes for development
• motor skills (grasp/handle/manipulation of objects)
• location/position of certain objects (object/concept permanence, spatial recall)
• sensory integration (associate kinesthetic/auditory/tactile)
• control of muscle strength
• cause and effect
• auditory experiences (echoes)
• receives feedback from unintentional movements
• motivating the child to produce intentional movements and sounds
• child can listen and learn about sounds they produce...teaching the child they can produce object based sounds
• cognitive skills (problem solving, comparing, sequencing)
• growing familiarity allows for comparison of different tactile experiences, increasing perceptual fields
• increased vocalizations and vocal play