 When Colette Friest traveled to Minnesota from Iowa to take her seven year old daughter, Lainey, to visit a learning center in Edina, she did not want Lainey to miss out on the occupational therapy and speech services she receives weekly while at home. A friend recommended she see our specialists at A Chance To Grow in place of her own while in Minnesota. Little did she know that our occupational therapy program would provide results that would change her daughter’s life forever.
When Colette first arrived at ACTG to take Lainey to see Occupational Therapist (OT) Angela Rosales, she expected Angela would use the same traditional approach that she has seen OTs use with Lainey in the past. Instead, Angela used our own unique approach, which differs from approaches at other therapy centers because it uses brain-friendly methods such as Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex Integration (MNRI)* to lay the foundation for motor function and everyday life skills. Colette says that being introduced to reflex integration therapy was one of Lainey’s most important and life-changing experiences. Before her time at ACTG, Lainey was nonverbal, had fine and gross motor issues, lacked focus and had difficulty with fine motor planning. Other challenges included reading and talking. OTs at ACTG have taken courses in MNRI and use the method often. Julie Neumann, ACTG OT, said that focusing on the integration of Lainey’s reflex patterns allowed Angela to lay the foundation necessary for Lainey to develop higher-level motor and everyday life skills. As a result, Lainey’s life has been drastically changed. “We have seen huge differences in our daughter in just the two months that we have been doing reflex integration, and the fact that ACTG has OTs who can do these reflexes with kids can make a big difference in children’s lives. Many parents are like us and don’t have time to go to conferences and learn things like reflex integration, so this is huge. If it wasn’t for Angela introducing me to reflex integration at ACTG, we wouldn’t know about it and we’d still be stuck,” Colette said. When asked to reflect on her time working with the Friests, Angela said, “They are such a solid family. Colette has a fearless approach when helping her daughter succeed. Her initiative and ambition are very impressive.” For eleven weeks, Colette and Lainey stayed at a hotel Monday through Friday, traveling back home to Iowa on most weekends. During her time at ACTG, Lainey also saw Bridget Russ for Speech Therapy and Becky Aish for Audio Visual Entrainment and EEG Biofeedback. Colette said these additional interventions further strengthened Lainey’s ability to focus, talk and overall, act more mature. Now, over five months later, Lainey’s verbal skills continue to improve. Finally, Colette is able to read stories to her daughter from beginning to end, and Lainey actually follows along! “We had a great experience at ACTG. I want other families to hear about it. Lainey has been in therapy since age two, and we have seen more improvements in two months than we saw in five years. If parents really want to do something that can be life-changing for their child, I can’t stress highly enough how much of a difference A Chance To Grow’s programs can make.” Another thing Colette said she loves about ACTG is the fact that our Founder and Co- Director, Bob DeBoer, has been in her shoes. “He had a special needs child himself and understands where we’re coming from. That makes a huge difference. Not many therapy places start with a founder who had a special needs child and knows exactly what we’re going through,” Colette said. *The Masgutova Method (MNRI) focuses on the important role of children’s automatic motor reflexes and underlying neurosensorimotor mechanisms. Occupational Therapists trained in the Masgutova Method learn to understand the difference between automatic motor reflexes and learned motor reflexes.
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