Therapy Thoughts

My child, Matthew, was four months old
when he was diagnosed with Agenesis of
the Corpus Callosum. He immediately began
both early intervention therapies in our
home and I also took him to private
therapy at a child development and rehab
clinic. We did this therapy routine for
several years.


I felt that Matthew received a very good
amount of therapy services but even so it
feels like you are not ever doing enough
therapy for your child when they are
developmentally delayed and struggling to
meet their milestones in so many areas.

When I took Matthew to physical therapy
once a week at the private clinic I did
something that I wasn't sure why I did
and I am still not sure why to this day.

Because we were not always in an isolated
room during therapy sessions we often saw the
other kids in the hallways working on walking
and other things and I would catch myself
watching those kids sometimes and find one
or two that were somewhere close to where
Matthew was (who were also working on learning
what Matthew was learning) at the time.



I got it in my head somehow that Matthew
would walk when those other kids who were
also in therapy learned to walk. That was
a huge mistake and a big disappointment not
to mention unfair to my own child. I
watched many kids learn things that Matthew
was working on and watched many kids pass
up Matthew and make progress while Matthew
was still working on learning to walk.

I am not sure why we do those things to
ourselves but I know I'm not the only one
who compares my child to another child...either
a child who is typically developing or a child
who has the same diagnosis of ACC as my own
child or even another child who is somewhere
around my child's age who is also delayed.

It is definitely not an easy task to help
your child learn and to allow them to learn
according to their very own timeline and then
to be patient and trust that it will happen
when it is meant to happen and to know that
you are doing everything possible to help your
child.



Another thing that can be difficult is to finally
have that peace and know that you ARE doing
everything possible to help your child through
various therapies and then you read something
that another parent wrote in a support group
or talk with another parent who tells you what
they did for their child and how they made
such great progress and 'caught up' to their
age level or close to their age level and are
developmentally very close to where they should
be. The parent goes on to say that they know
it was the therapy that made all the difference
and is the reason behind why their child was able
to catch up.

That can be hard to hear because, as parents,
we know that we are also doing all we can to
help our child through therapy services and
yet our child maybe isn't progressing as quickly
as some children do. It is easy to second-guess
yourself. It can cause you to feel like you're
failing to provide enough therapy or the right
therapies for your child if you allow it. But
it simply is not true.



I don't understand why one child who has ACC
makes leaps and bounds through all their therapies
and another child who has ACC goes months and
months with very little progress and struggles
to learn and accomplish one new skill.

Honestly, even to this day, when I read the
words of a parent who gives credit to the
therapies that their child participated in
as the reason behind why they were able to
overcome the huge developmental delays and
move forward towards hardly knowing today
that they were so behind at one time, I catch
myself feeling the sting of wondering if I
did enough to help Matthew through therapy
services when he was younger.



Each one of our kids who has Agenesis of the
Corpus Callosum or a corpus callosum disorder
will accomplish and do exactly what it is they
are meant to do in their life. Life is such
a precious gift. Take each day one step at a
time and celebrate what YOUR child can do and
each wonderful, new thing that they learn to do.