Early Intervention & Therapy Updates

I thought by now navigating the red tape that is early intervention would get easier. Ok well I thought that I had found a good agency for therapy providers and a good agency with a good service provider. Got that? All of our therapists came from one agency, Thursdays Child, and our service coordination came from Marathon.

As the months went on & more things needed to be dealt with, I found that I was doing a lot of the legwork in figuring out who was doing what & when. At one point my coordinator was even having me chase down therapists for annual assessments. That was just little tidbit. There were many many other things. Thursdays Child's administration became increasing disorganized. And suffering through it all with lack of therapists and wasted time was Sean.

So instead of trying to figure out who wasn't doing their job, I decided everyone needed to go. Both agencies would have to be "fired" from Sean's case. We started with our service coordinator. I started calling around. Some things I needed were to know that my service coordinator would actually coordinate. I also wanted a coordinator\agency that was willing to sit & talk for a minute to tell me about their agency, about how they would coordinate, etc. If the coordinator just assumed I would be joining their agency, I kept searching.

I called Kidcare. I was immediately transferred to Stephanie and when I told her all we had been dealing with, she was as bewildered as I was. We decided to sign with her and so far, it has been a good choice. Our speech therapist was already signed on as a provider for Kidcare so she just moved on over with us. We felt that it was good because we like her and it's good for Sean for Rosie to continue on as his speech therapist. Especially since Seany's saying so many new things. We didn't wanna put a damper on Sean's spoken word.

Sean's new vocabulary includes:

Alligator

Momma

Daddy

Doggy

Cat

Yeah

Ight deah (right there)

Up

And a whole lot of babbling

We hired a new special instructor. We're just waiting for her to be approved as a provider with Kidcare. We're still waiting on finding a occupational therapist, but Stephanie found us a new physical therapist.  Ahmed started today. We loved Erin & we loved the way she practiced. One thing I didn't love was her constant push that Sean HAD to crawl. She always wanted to work on the crawling no matter how much I said that I didn't think Sean would crawl. I think that he's just going to go straight to walking.

Well.... when Ahmed got here, he immediately started working with Sean as he spoke with me. He asked what my concerns were, what Erin had been working on, etc. He did a full assessment of Sean's muscle groups. He manipulated his arms, legs, shoulders, knees, etc. All the while telling me his "findings". He did not feel that Sean has any muscle tone issues. He said that Sean was very strong (insert pat on my back here). He watched Sean sit & transition from sitting to belly & back again (thank you Erin).

His assessment was that Sean has motor planning problems. We knew that. That has always been his issue. Once Sean is shown the steps to accomplish a task, he does it. He said that Sean probably won't crawl. I was floored! How awesome that without any prompting, Ahmed feels the same way we do? He said that most kids with down syndrome ( and yes he used people first language) walk around 24 mos old, but he thinks Sean will walk earlier than that. Now I know not to get my hopes up because we were told the same thing about crawling, but I feel encouraged. He feels Sean's lax ligaments will tighten as he gets older.

During the session, Ahmed showed me how to help Sean cruise furniture and Sean cruised my couch 5 times. He made Sean stand in the middle of the living room and he stood. Unassisted!! Ahmed feels Sean's balance is good, but he has issues with getting into a good position. Hence the motor planning issue. Ahmed poked and pushed Sean gently in the shoulders while he was standing and Sean stayed standing. He did start to get a little very annoyed, but Sean knows what he likes & doesn't like. He doesn't like being pushed out of his comfort zone. Everyone knows that.

Sean has been walking assisted for about 1.5 weeks, but he's always wanted\needed me to hold him under his armpits. He's always pushed my hands away when I have tried to help him walk that way. I'm not sure if it was because he wanted\needed the extra support of what, but today he was more than willing to allow me to hold his hands in that all to cute baby learns to walk way.

I'm so excited. I feel like we are finally moving forward. I feel like we may finally have the perfect team falling into place to really help Sean gain all he can from Early Intervention while he's still with them.

Check out the awesomeness that is Sean