United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

has anyone here ever heard of it or go to one?? its a gym just for kids ages 4 months - 12 years, there's one that recently opened up around the corner from our house.. it seems like a neat program, thought about enrolling anna because it would be therapy in a fun way with other kids.. they have a website thelittlegym.com would love to hear anyones thoughts about it.. anna is almost three months post mod quad.. besides having a rash that the doctor isnt sure of what it is (and its spreading!!) she is doing great!
I posted about the gym friday and its never come up yet, so i'm doing it again..
marg

Hi Marg - that's where we have gone and Maia starts again tommorrow for a new session.

We started taking Maia about a year and a half ago into a parent child class which was just a fun jumping and singing and bubbles and balls and a bit of climbing class. Maia really loved it. But as the class progressed and Maia was not able to do the tasks - or at least do them very very slowly and fearfully - the class kept on going forward and Maia pulled back more and more to the point where if you just mentioned the word gymnastics she would flip out. So we pulled her out. Maia really didn't have enough stability in her arm to be able to crawl all over the pillows and do the things that everyone else was doing and she had major balance issues so she couldn't even do anything like the very low balance beam.

HOWEVER!... going there was wonderful because it set the basis for what Maia would be learning in PT. We set up all the things that Little Gym had - in the gym at the PT center - only at her level and within time she got the balance beam and she got the ability to crawl over the pillows (with her arm tucked in). Doing it alone and with help gave her confidence to be able to do the things and she wasn't being 'watched' by other kids her age and the teacher (my own supposition).

Even her OT followed suit.... Maia would walk in the room and there would be six cushions for her to crawl over and then at the end there would be one big square cushion that had an OT game on it and she would pick the game , sit at the tablel, and do it... then she had to start at the begining again - climbing over the pillows to get to choose the next OT game.

So to continue on with this very long story....(sorry)... it's now I guess it's now about a year after she quit Little Gym and she was invited to a birthday party there a few weeks ago. Well we didn't know whether to go or not but then I thought that birthday parties are for all kids - not just kids that do gymnastics so they're not going to do anything too hard - these kids don't have training. Right! We got there and it was all group activities - they had 4 instructors there and about 30 or so kids....and they just had a BLAST! Maia included. Splint and all she had the confidence now to do the balance beam that was about 1 1/2 feet off the ground. She couldn't crawl on the pillows but she felt more confident at climbing on them vertically. She has orthotic inserts that are really helping her with her balance issues.

She had such a good time that she asked us over and over to sign her up again....and I just paid for one month to see how it would go AND her Early Intervention PT will be going with her and helping her along. So when the kids go off doing their hard stuff ont he bars and all, Maia and Amy can go choose another area and work on something Maia needs to work on. She starts tomorrow - so I will let you know how it works out.

Little Gym is a franchise - so each Little Gym will be different based on the owner's philosophy.

You have to look at how many kids there are in the class and how many teachers. If there are parents in the room it doesn't matter that much, but if it's a kids only class, then you have to look at the ratio.

The other thing I want to say is that I can only relay to you my experience with Maia - there are MANY kids with bpi that do very well with gymnastics and MANY that don't. It's an individual thing - just like it would be for a child who is not injured.

Maybe you can ask them for a trial month?

-francine