Day 114 – Grayson’s Condition

Dear family and friends

Today I will share a second installment of information presented at the conference we had this week with Grayson's therapists. Hopefully you find this informative and helpful in understanding where Grayson is in his recovery journey.

In the area of language and speech, Grayson has made some improvements. His vocabulary remains off the charts – he uses words seldom heard at the center. He has started using his voice more frequently, although he habitually slips back into a whisper. It seems hard for Grayson to use his voice – it seems to require effort for him. Even though his ability for sustained attention remains severely impaired, it has improved along with a corresponding decrease in frequency of exiting (getting up and leaving) or passive refusal. In his speech, intelligibility is fair at the single word level, but decreases significantly at the sentence level.

Grayson is displaying an improved ability to follow three step verbal directions. He is also able to listen to 35 word passages with a 79% recall. However, when given a task to complete, after a 5 minute break, he forgets what the task was, and is unable to complete it. These items tell me that his working memory is starting to return, but his short term memory is still severely impaired.

As with his physical abilities, Grayson's language and speech also are improving – this is good news. The rate of change continues to be slow, but there is change. We pray that the changes continue!

Pax!

Brant