Early Intervention Update

I am writing this all down so I won't forget the details, but this might be a boring post to most.

Monday was our intake appointment for early intervention.  It was basically paperwork and a parent interview.  Beau did so great and I was so proud of him! He sat with me on the couch for the first few minutes and then he warmed up to the evaluator and played around during the rest of the time.

Towards the end of the meeting, she asked what our family's greatest strength was.  I quickly said that my background is in early childhood education, Raleigh's bachelor degree is in child life, we have access to lots of resources, etc. etc.  But as I reflected on that a bit more, those are not our greatest strengths.  Our greatest strength is that is that we love Beau.  We love the way he calls chicken "la la."
We love the way he giggles when he gets excited.  We love the way gets so excited about playing in water.  We love the way he runs to Raleigh with pure joy each afternoon when Raleigh gets home from work.  We love the way he kisses and pats his toy puppy.  We love the way God hand picked Beau for our family.  He is our perfect son and our fierce love for him is our greatest strength.

Tuesday was our 2nd and final evaluation.  When we arrived, Beau immediately thought we were at the doctor's office and started crying.  It was a very run down building with dead plants in the lobby.  We signed in and had to wait about 30 minutes to be called back.

When we got into the designated room, the first evaluator immediately sat down beside Beau and tried to make him do her games.  If you know Beau, you know that it takes him a little while to get comfortable around new people and he is definitely not going to immediately perform tasks on command for a stranger.  He pretty much refused to do most of her games.  He did finally take a crayon from her and she told him to draw a circle.  He scribbled on the paper and she said, "Oh, he just scribbles."  Let's just say I was not pleased with her unpleasant disposition.  I told him his scribbles were beautiful!

The speech therapist was much nicer and Beau interacted much better with her.  She was impressed that he showed lots of communicative effort.

In the end, Beau qualified for early intervention because he showed moderate delay in gross motor skills and cognitive skills.  The tasks he couldn't do for gross motor were walk up and down 2 steps without holding onto a hand or rail, jump with 2 feet off the ground, and put on a shirt.  Also, he was a late walker (19 months) which also impacted his score.  The cognitive skills were low because he refused to do the games with the unfriendly evaluator.  He can do all of things she asked of him (pour a crayon out of a water bottle, stack 2 blocks, uncover a toy car hidden under a scarf) but he just didn't do anything because she started "testing" him the second we walked in the room and she verbally critisized the things he did do.

His score was borderline in speech.  Since he is still 1, she give him the test for one year olds.  The only tricky thing is that he will be 2 next week.  The speech therapist mentioned that if she gave him the test next week, it might show more deficit because the expectations for 2 year olds are more rigorous than the expectations for one year olds.

In the end, he qualified for the program since he showed moderate delay in 2 areas.  (You can qualify by showing moderate delay in 2 areas or severe delay in 1 area.)

The speech therapist was very nice and gave us several strategies to try at home.  Most were things that we already do, but she did provide a few new pointers.  I have never heard Beau produce the /k/ sound, so I asked about that.  She said to try to model it a lot by coughing, to make it a game.  She also mentioned that it might be beneficial to put his favorite things slightly out of reach.  Then Beau will have to ask for things he wants.  Even if he just points to what he wants, say the word several times.  We do this all day long, so I'm not sure if putting it out of his reach will make a difference or not.

They also mentioned getting a very small step stool that Beau is allowed to move around as he wants.  That might help him become more comfortable with independently walking stairs.  I have seen him walk one stair several times, so I don't think it is lack of muscle tone or ability, but lack of confidence.  He doesn't put much weight on my hands as we walk up and down stairs, but he likes the reassurance holding my hand or knowing that there is something he can hold onto.

We should hear back from someone in 2 weeks to set up scheduling.  Basically I am praying that we are assigned a therapist that will be patient and loving and encouraging to Beau...someone that will see his strengths and and help him improve his areas needing growth.  Beau has a tender heart and he will not warm up to someone that is harsh with him.  Hopefully our therapist will be a huge blessing.  If we are assigned someone that does not mesh well with Beau's personality, I am happy to back out of the program and look at getting private speech therapy.

So for now, we will wait for the next step.