speech therapy goals

I am feeling much better about our speech therapist now. Today I got a "Plan of Care" packet from her, which I have not gotten from our other therapists, but now I want to ask for it. It details her background for therapy and the goals they will be working on. It says they are working with a diagnosis of "Mixed Expressive-Receptive Language Delay", and "Severe" is marked as the degree of delay. That's the first I've seen anyone mark her with any kind of diagnosis, so that seems like progress, even if it's just descriptive.

Her short-term goals seem specific enough, so I thought that was good too.
*Expand her sound repertoire and frequency of vocalization by imitation of sounds during floortime activities with 80% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions
*combine single sounds to form syllables 5 times during a therapy session with 80% accuracy
*use signs along with sounds to request "more," signal "all done" or to choose between activities with 80% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions
*identify common objects in her environment by pointing, matching, or choosing from a choice of two with 80% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions

In related news, she is doing really well with walking and is now walking about 50% of the time. She impressed everyone at LLL last night because it was the first time they have seen her walk. :)

speech therapy looking up

I attended the speech therapy session today and am feeling better about the speech therapist. She seemed very positive and cheerful. I feel like maybe the negativity I perceived when I talked to the early intervention coordinator was maybe just a miscommunication through a chain of people. In therapy today, the therapist tried to get Sweets to say "ba" for different things that start with B - ball, book, block, bubbles. We know she can say "ba ba" for bye-bye, so the therapist is trying to expand on that. Sweets didn't do it, but the therapist was fine and I saw what she was going for. So, I'm feeling good again. :)

speech therapy twice per week

This morning I signed the papers for her to be changed to two 30 minute sessions per week instead of one hour long session. I will have to pay the copay for each one though, so that's double the copays. We are going to try this for 2-3 months and then probably move back to once per week. Hopefully by then she will be comfortable enough with the therapist to work with her for longer. My husband or I are also going to try to attend her therapies as much as we can at the daycare. I am already trying to attend her other therapies at least once per month each. So at this point she's going to have 4 therapies per week: 2 speech (30 min) + 1 physical (60 min) + 1 developmental (60 min).

speech therapy snag

Hmm. So here's the report from the first therapy session.

The speech therapist came right after the developmental therapist - they basically just did a hand-off. The speech therapist was new to Sweets and was alone with her because they were at daycare, so I wasn't there. We expect that she's not going to take to a stranger right away - it took about a month for her to get comfortable with the other therapists. In the speech therapist's note to me, she mentioned that it took Sweets a little while to warm up, but that that's expected. Also that she didn't make very many noises for her during therapy, but it's prob b/c she didn't know her. Okay, seemed pretty normal to me. It sounded like it went as you'd expect.

Today I get a call from my early intervention coordinator saying that the speech therapist recommends that we cut the sessions from 1 hr to 45 mins b/c she doesn't think that Sweets will be able to do therapy for that long, and she also had concerns about how long it will take her to become comfortable. Which I don't get, because that's not really what her note to me conveyed. :( For one thing, she piggy-backed right after another therapy session, so if she thinks that my daughter can't do therapy for that long, I would think that the first thing to do would be to change the time so that it's not right after the other therapy (which I had told her when the other therapists come).

Anyway, the EI coordinator said that it was my choice. We can stick with the 1 hr sessions for a while and see how it goes, we can switch to 45 min sessions, or she also suggested doing two 30 minute sessions per week. I thought that two sessions per week would be better for Sweets getting used to the therapist more quickly, but I wonder if that means I will have to pay double the copay - one for each visit. The coordinator was concerned that they wouldn't get much done b/c if the session is 30 mins but it takes 20 mins for her to warm up, they won't have much time left to do much therapy. So I don't know about that. But I'd rather do the split session I think because then we still get the full 60 minutes per week, and it seems like more therapy wouldn't be a bad thing, and I think after a few weeks she will be used to the therapist anyway. Then the coordinator said that she doesn't know if we would be approved for the two 30 min sessions anyway though and that it's not what they usually do. Hello - she's the one who suggested it in the first place! Argh. So, she's going to check it out and see if that's a possibility and how it would work financially, etc.

Anyway, sorry for rambling. It's really just a vent I suppose. But now I feel like I'm already starting out on the wrong foot with this therapist.

speech therapy starts today

Sweets is 18 months and is delayed for expressive and receptive language and also gross motor. In the past few weeks she is starting to do a lot of new things though. She is starting to walk and now walks almost half the time and crawls half the time. She is also starting to say some new sounds and even a few words! She has doubled the different sounds she makes just recently, adding several consonants and a new vowel as well - was just MA and BA until very recently. She can now say something that sounds like "Hi" and "Bye Bye" and "Uh Oh" in context. Funny, because Munchkin's first word was "Uh Oh" too! We also sign with her and she has several new signs lately too. She's just having a growth explosion! It's very exciting!

So, she has been getting therapy through early intervention for 4 months now. She has been getting physical therapy and developmental therapy each once per week. We wanted speech therapy, but they said at the time that she was too young. We pushed again, and now we are getting speech therapy! She starts today! Woo hoo!