Cooper is a beautiful boy that suffered a severe brain injury from a near drowning accident in 1998. This blog has been created to post updates on his journey to recovery. Your interest in and support of his progress means the world to his family, who loves him more than words can say! We love SUPER COOPER!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Cooper and Assistive Technology
Cooper has recently had some exciting advancements with assistive technology. Assistive technology is any device that helps those with a disability achieve a function they are otherwise unable to do. We have been working in conjunction with the school district to help Cooper get some services at home and incorporate technology as well.
We've had some wonderful specialists evaluating Cooper and bringing over devices to try, along with a device that Coop's mom had seen another child use called an Eye Gaze Communication Device. This device is activated when the person looks at a picture on the screen and then makes a noise such as a sound or a spoken phrase. It can be used for many things: to teach someone how to control their eyes better, to teach someone the sounds associated with an object, or even to help give someone a voice to interact with others. For example, a person could look at a picture of a cup on the screen and the device could say "I would like a drink."
Cooper had a trial with the Eye Gaze device and did very well. After a series of questions, a speech therapist programmed the device to say some familiar phrases when Cooper looked at colored boxes on the screen. Cooper seemed to quickly learn the cause and effect of looking at the boxes. Then the therapist began to put pictures of objects on the screen that made a noise when Cooper held his gaze on them long enough. (a dog, a cat, a train, etc.) We quickly noticed that Cooper wouldn't look at the object when the background was white. As soon as the background was changed to a color he would look at it and activate the sound.
Once he began responding to the objects with color behind them on the full screen, the therapist made the picture smaller and smaller, increasing the difficulty for Cooper in having to find them with his eyes. Each time the picture had a white background he didn't look at it. As soon as the color background was added, he looked at the picture and the associated sound was activated. When the picture got to 1/4 it's original size, all the therapists in the room, his mom and his nurse cheered. Then, the therapist said she wanted to try 1/8 the original size and if Cooper could activate that, then he would prove he has the capacity to learn language. She put up a picture of a cat 1/8 the size with a white background and he didn't respond. She changed the background color to purple and we heard "Meow!" Cooper had found the image at 1/8 the size. The speech therapists were impressed! You can see Cooper doing this in the videos/ picture below.
Cooper has also been able to activate an iPad at his recent evaluations. He was shown that when he touched it, music would play. He reached over and touched it to activate the music repeatedly. It was so purposeful that all the therapists looked at each other and said "Did you see that?" There was no mistaking that Cooper wanted to hear the music! He even smiled when he made it come on and moved his head around to see the iPad.
We are still in the evaluation process and developing a home school program for Cooper, but things have been very encouraging! He will be getting an iPad loaded with various programs for him and the Eye Gaze Communication Device very soon on a trial basis. Therapists will also be coming over to help teach him how to use the devices and teach his parents how to program them too.
We've had some wonderful specialists evaluating Cooper and bringing over devices to try, along with a device that Coop's mom had seen another child use called an Eye Gaze Communication Device. This device is activated when the person looks at a picture on the screen and then makes a noise such as a sound or a spoken phrase. It can be used for many things: to teach someone how to control their eyes better, to teach someone the sounds associated with an object, or even to help give someone a voice to interact with others. For example, a person could look at a picture of a cup on the screen and the device could say "I would like a drink."
Cooper had a trial with the Eye Gaze device and did very well. After a series of questions, a speech therapist programmed the device to say some familiar phrases when Cooper looked at colored boxes on the screen. Cooper seemed to quickly learn the cause and effect of looking at the boxes. Then the therapist began to put pictures of objects on the screen that made a noise when Cooper held his gaze on them long enough. (a dog, a cat, a train, etc.) We quickly noticed that Cooper wouldn't look at the object when the background was white. As soon as the background was changed to a color he would look at it and activate the sound.
Once he began responding to the objects with color behind them on the full screen, the therapist made the picture smaller and smaller, increasing the difficulty for Cooper in having to find them with his eyes. Each time the picture had a white background he didn't look at it. As soon as the color background was added, he looked at the picture and the associated sound was activated. When the picture got to 1/4 it's original size, all the therapists in the room, his mom and his nurse cheered. Then, the therapist said she wanted to try 1/8 the original size and if Cooper could activate that, then he would prove he has the capacity to learn language. She put up a picture of a cat 1/8 the size with a white background and he didn't respond. She changed the background color to purple and we heard "Meow!" Cooper had found the image at 1/8 the size. The speech therapists were impressed! You can see Cooper doing this in the videos/ picture below.
Cooper has also been able to activate an iPad at his recent evaluations. He was shown that when he touched it, music would play. He reached over and touched it to activate the music repeatedly. It was so purposeful that all the therapists looked at each other and said "Did you see that?" There was no mistaking that Cooper wanted to hear the music! He even smiled when he made it come on and moved his head around to see the iPad.
We are still in the evaluation process and developing a home school program for Cooper, but things have been very encouraging! He will be getting an iPad loaded with various programs for him and the Eye Gaze Communication Device very soon on a trial basis. Therapists will also be coming over to help teach him how to use the devices and teach his parents how to program them too.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
STEM CELLS 2012
As a result of the funds raised at reCOOPERate 2012, Cooper was able to receive stem cell treatment for the 2nd time last fall. He completed a series of 3 treatments over the course of 3 weeks, each treatment was 5 vials of stem cells.
This is considered a large amount and we are hopeful Cooper will have some good results. They typically begin to see results of stem cell treatments 3 months after, which would be February for Coop. Results can continue to be seen up to a year after treatment as well.
So far this time around we haven't seen any big changes yet, but there have been a couple small things happening. One thing is Cooper has been turning his head to the right more, farther and purposefully. This might sound like not a big deal, but it's quite difficult for Cooper. Since his injury he has had a powerful reflex called ATNR that continually forces his head/ neck to the left. He sometimes strains to turn his head to the left so hard that he begins to cut off his airway and gasp for air. This has made his neck muscles on one side very strong and on the other side very weak. This keeps him from being able to hold his head up in the center. (you can see in the picture that his head is propped with a pillow on one side due to this) This has also affected his vision as his eye muscles have also been trained through this reflex to look to the left.
In the past, Cooper has struggled to turn his head to the right or even use his eyes, but after last year's stem cell treatment, Cooper's vision improved drastically and he began consistently tracking to the right. We saw him looking to the right with his eyes only, but recently he's been turning his head with it. He turns to a sound or to look at something on his right side. He does this quickly and purposefully in a way we haven't seen before. He seems proud of himself when he does this and often smiles :o)
This along with other small changes can be the building blocks to new function and can add up to make bigger changes. We are hopeful we will continue to see him progressing since in the past this wasn't the case... we'll be sure to keep you posted on Super Cooper! Thank you for your continued support and prayers in helping Cooper achieve a better life!
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