Port of Discovery

We spent today at Baltimore’s Port of Discovery, a wonderful Children’s Museum in downtown Baltimore. The center of the museum is a three story climbing apparatus with slides and rope tunnels. There was a also a mock diner, a grocery store with real cash registers and products the kids could scan and a wonderful water play area. They will be opening an exhibit on the 19th to help kids understand their peers with disabilities. We look forward to going back then.

Watching Byron in the museum I began to think about his progress. He has been in his cast for six days now.

What I have noticed is :

an overall relaxation in the left arm

a more open hand

a general willingness to use his left hand.

an increased ability to open and close his hand

more ease with using two hands to hold largish balls

Most of what he does is still gross motor e.g. raising his arm to push a button with a closed fist, which he did quite often in the museum. (He pushed buttons a lot more in the museum with his left hand than he ever would have a few months ago.)

Later today when we tried to have him complete his homework of picking up and releasing eight balls into a bag, I didn’t see much difference in his grasping ability than we might have seen a month ago. What WAS different though was his compliance. He never would have even allowed this activity before, and his hand would have been so clenched that it would have been very hard for him to open it. Now it’s the opposite, his hand is so loose that he can’t seem to hold much in his grasp. I look forward to seeing how It all unfolds in the coming weeks.