Transitioning Programs

We have started the process to transition Peanut from the Early Intervention Program to the Child Find program.  For us, this is both exciting and scary.  It is exciting because EI has a maximum level of assistance that they can offer and he already gets the maximum of 4 speech therapy sessions a month.  Child Find offers an infinite level of assistance based on the need of the child.  It is scary because we have the best SLP ever who is both prompt trained and works with a lot of kids with apraxia and we aren't guaranteed to get an SLP through Child Find that has the same expertise.  Traditional speech therapy techniques don't work for a child with apraxia so that would be very detrimental to his progress.

This is a very long drawn out process so while he doesn't have to transition until he turns 3 in March we started the process so that there wouldn't be any time between services.  We have competed the first step which was where Peanut and I met with a panel of people who would determine if they needed to get further testing for Peanut to determine his eligibility.  So we met with a speech language pathologist, a psychologist, a pediatric diagnostician, a social worker and a case manager (yes, this meeting was a bit intimidating) and after talking to me, reading what our SLP wrote up and getting to hear Peanut talk a little bit they determined that they don't need further testing to determine eligibility.  This made me happy because I didn't have to put Peanut through any more testing but at the same time it made me a little sad that they could tell he needed their help after only 10 minutes with us.

He is scheduled for a hearing test and we are going back to the pediatric ophthalmologist to see if his eye sight has corrected at all.  (We already know it is inevitable that he will need glasses but haven't determined when he will start wearing them.)

Classroom Visit

Peanut's SLP went to visit him at his preschool class.  He was so excited to see her and felt very special that he had his own visitor.  We prefer to use his weekly session as one-on-one time at our house to get the most out of that time as possible but also felt it important that she get to see him in a different environment.  She felt that he did a great job speaking clearly and that the other adults in the classroom understood him about 85% of the time.  That is a great percentage for a child with apraxia and it is probably that high because he only has to use a certain range of vocabulary in his school environment.  There is so much routine and familiarity that Peanut really only has to respond or communicate about his most insistent of desires.

While Peanut loves music, he hung back during music time partly due to the introduction of a new music teacher and partly because he had a friend to snuggle up with and sit with instead of participating.  It isn't clear which of those was the bigger factor.

All in all, she felt that he is doing well and adapting as needed to school.  She thought that his teacher was doing a great job engaging him and trying to understand him.  She is planning on visiting his class every other month or so to see his progress in a classroom setting.