Friends of Kai

Anat Baniel works with Kai

Kai's 'therapeutic journey' up to December 2007

During Kai's early months his developmental delay became more obvious, which led us to ask for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging procedure.   After the MRI which diagnosed his partly missing corpus callosum, we started to inquire about ways we could find to support his development. We coordinated play therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy every week for 2 years.

Definitely it has been a journey of extremes, because parallel to the challenges, we also had the gift to have a child moving through the developmental phases slower. If you would meet him in person now,  we are sure, you couldn't help but want to hold and kiss him. 

Most 3 ½ year olds are already ‘little adults’ to some degree. Kai has kept his innocence because of his delay much longer. About six weeks ago the so called ‘terrible two’ phase has set in, where he starts now to assert his will.We want you know that all of the medical facts have not impacted Kai (the 'Being' that he IS). Kai was and is a happy 'trooper'.  Since he is three, Kai attends a wonderful school for special needs children. He has become an avid climber, no drawer is safe from getting emptied out, and the world is just an adventure for him. A small grass leaf, a twig, a truck that passes by, any animal and particular other children are of utmost interest to him - he lives in wonder of all that surrounds him. He is an invitation to stop and to join him to go back to the time when we also experienced life so full of excitement, joy and amazement.

Within the last two months he discovered Barney, the purple dinosaur, and Barney seems to be the first love of his life. He gets absolutely excited just by mentioning the name 'Barney'. Only one other word brings him into the same state, 'playground'.  For us, as his parents, the challenge lies in meeting him where he is and not let the medical paradigm, which labels him as a 'special needs child' and as 'delayed' cover our seeing of who he is. Admittingly, sometimes it is painful to be with him on the playground around other children his age or younger who are able to communicate like 'little people'. Kai is just entering the phase of vocalization, of repeating sounds like 'bah, bah', 'tah, tah', 'mmmhh', 'kah, kah' and so on. Sometimes a 'mama' or 'papa' slips in without him being able to reproduce it on request. His capacity for receptive language, to understand, is nearly at a normal level, yet his capacity to vocalize is maybe around one percent. That is his edge and we are asked to meet him where he is and to deal with our issues about his situation within ourselves.