I've been a very bad blogger this summer! I guess I just have so much to blog about that it keeps building up and building up and I need such a huge chunk of time to do it all that I keep putting it off....you know how it goes. I live by the Procratinator's Creed: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
Anyhow, there are a few things I want to post about, including Jesse's 6 month follow-up with Dr. C (developmental pediatrician). But right now I'm posting about Jesse's speech therapy.
We FINALLY, after FIFTEEN MONTHS of waiting, got Jesse in to see the SLP, Kim, that works with the development program at the Janeway. It was a good appointment in all...and it lasted for about an hour and forty-five minutes, which was kind of surprising to me. I figured it would be an hour at the most.
At first the way she spoke to Jesse was very exaggerated and simple, but after about a half hour she seemed to get the fact that there's nothing wrong with his receptive language. (I did also tell her that his private SLP had just tested his receptive language a few weeks ago and found it to be perfectly normal.) She played with him a lot to get a grasp of what he was capable of, and she spoke with Jesse's home therapist quite a bit too. She wanted to know what programs he was currently doing and how he was doing with them.
Overall, she thinks he's doing really well. He's rapidly gaining language. Right now she wants us to work more on verbs, which we've been doing anyways (and are coming along!). She thinks speech sounds should take a back seat to more general language development. I don't think I really agree with this though, since he's rapidly gaining language fairly naturally as it is now. She had some suggestions for his therapy, too, which was great. She's very familiar with ABA therapy and so can make suggestions for programs to work on. And we're planning a home visit for later this month.
My one big concern though is that she generally only sees her patients once every 2 months. I'm not liking this, since he's been going weekly and it's obviously working. But Kim said that she generally works in more of a consultative role with the whole therapy team. I think that could be partly true, but I'm also pretty certain it's in large part due to lack of resources. So, we've made the decision to keep up our sessions, on a biweekly basis, with Jesse's private speech therapist.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to update on Jesse's appointment with Dr. C.
Showing posts with label SLP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SLP. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Receptive Language
At last Monday's speech therapy appointment the SLP tested Jesse's receptive language. What she expected to take 2-3 sessions took all of 20 minutes. His attending was awesome! And it turns out that Jesse is right on target! He scored 50th percentile for 2 - 2 1/2 year olds. I'd always thought that his understanding was pretty normal, and now we know it is.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Playing catch-up
I've been slacking on this blog. Big time. So I'm going to give some brief up-dates of a few things we've been up to.
ISSP
From the ISSP meeting we came up with the following three major goals:
1. To increase expressive vocabulary to 100+ words. To be implemented by family, home therapist (HT), and senior therapist (ST) in the home environment. To be reviewed October 2010.
2. Jesse will navigate his environment using heel-toe pattern. To be implemented by family, HT, and ST in the home and in the community. To be reviewed October 2010.
3. Jesse will understand and follow one and two step commands regarding safety. To be implemented by the family, HT, and ST in the home and in the community. To be reviewed October 2010.
As of now though, I think Jesse has likely already met goal #1. His vocabulary has just exploded. Jesse's SLP has told us that we're not going to be able to keep up with writing down his new words. And it's true! I'm going to try though. Probably tonight at work. I'd like to have a better idea of exactly how many words he does have. I suspect though, that it is around 100 words. Jesse's already come a long way in terms of meeting goal number 3 as well. I can actually hold his hand in parking lots now, whereas I used to have to carry him. He's much more compliant about important things, like holding my hand, and not running off. I'm still cautious, of course, and hold his hand tightly, but it so much better.
I think that the most difficult goal to meet is going to be #2 - dealing with the toe-walking. We have activities and exercises in play to encourage heel-toe walking, but so far, he goes straight back to toe-walking. I'm hopeful, but not convinced, that this goal will be met by October.
Home Therapy
Our HT is working out really well thus far. She's here from 8 am to 12 noon Monday - Friday. Jesse really seems to like her, and she's really patient with him. He's even saying her name. The therapy is going well and Jesse is mastering his programs without much trouble at all. He's working on puzzles, letters, matching, body parts, animal sounds (he knows a ton!!), prepositions, and following instructions.
My only concern with the home therapy, and it's a big one, is that the ST and her mentor seem to be very reluctant to move Jesse's therapy outside. The weather's getting nicer, and I don't want Jesse stuck inside this summer. Yes, his therapy is only in the morning, but Jesse naps for 2-3 hours every afternoon. That leaves little time for getting out and about. So right now I'm trying to come up with ways of doing his home therapy outside the home. I need to do some research on this over the weekend.
Chiropractor
We've decided to start taking Jesse to the same chiropractic clinic Steve and I use. One of the chiropractors there works with kids with developmental issues. She's trained in Brain Gym. We had our first appointment yesterday. She did a physical assessment and asked me lots of questions about Jesse and his development. It was interesting to say the least. She does think that she can help with the toe-walking and the w-sitting. She wants to do some craniosacral work, and possibly do some adjustments as well. She assured us that adjustments in kids are nothing like adjustments in adults. I was very happy with how calm and respectful she was. She told Jesse everything she was going to do, and adjusted her assessment and treatment to suit Jesse's desire to be up and about and active. Some of what she does seems very strange (which she warned me of!) but I'm not going to discount it unless I see that it's not helping. I can't say that I understand chiropractic care very much, but I do know that it works for me, so I'm willing to give it chance to help Jesse.
And last, but not least, we took Jesse to feed the ducks at the park on May 24th. He had a blast! Here's a video. You can here him asking for "more" bird seed. Don't mind my voice.
ISSP
From the ISSP meeting we came up with the following three major goals:
1. To increase expressive vocabulary to 100+ words. To be implemented by family, home therapist (HT), and senior therapist (ST) in the home environment. To be reviewed October 2010.
2. Jesse will navigate his environment using heel-toe pattern. To be implemented by family, HT, and ST in the home and in the community. To be reviewed October 2010.
3. Jesse will understand and follow one and two step commands regarding safety. To be implemented by the family, HT, and ST in the home and in the community. To be reviewed October 2010.
As of now though, I think Jesse has likely already met goal #1. His vocabulary has just exploded. Jesse's SLP has told us that we're not going to be able to keep up with writing down his new words. And it's true! I'm going to try though. Probably tonight at work. I'd like to have a better idea of exactly how many words he does have. I suspect though, that it is around 100 words. Jesse's already come a long way in terms of meeting goal number 3 as well. I can actually hold his hand in parking lots now, whereas I used to have to carry him. He's much more compliant about important things, like holding my hand, and not running off. I'm still cautious, of course, and hold his hand tightly, but it so much better.
I think that the most difficult goal to meet is going to be #2 - dealing with the toe-walking. We have activities and exercises in play to encourage heel-toe walking, but so far, he goes straight back to toe-walking. I'm hopeful, but not convinced, that this goal will be met by October.
Home Therapy
Our HT is working out really well thus far. She's here from 8 am to 12 noon Monday - Friday. Jesse really seems to like her, and she's really patient with him. He's even saying her name. The therapy is going well and Jesse is mastering his programs without much trouble at all. He's working on puzzles, letters, matching, body parts, animal sounds (he knows a ton!!), prepositions, and following instructions.
My only concern with the home therapy, and it's a big one, is that the ST and her mentor seem to be very reluctant to move Jesse's therapy outside. The weather's getting nicer, and I don't want Jesse stuck inside this summer. Yes, his therapy is only in the morning, but Jesse naps for 2-3 hours every afternoon. That leaves little time for getting out and about. So right now I'm trying to come up with ways of doing his home therapy outside the home. I need to do some research on this over the weekend.
Chiropractor
We've decided to start taking Jesse to the same chiropractic clinic Steve and I use. One of the chiropractors there works with kids with developmental issues. She's trained in Brain Gym. We had our first appointment yesterday. She did a physical assessment and asked me lots of questions about Jesse and his development. It was interesting to say the least. She does think that she can help with the toe-walking and the w-sitting. She wants to do some craniosacral work, and possibly do some adjustments as well. She assured us that adjustments in kids are nothing like adjustments in adults. I was very happy with how calm and respectful she was. She told Jesse everything she was going to do, and adjusted her assessment and treatment to suit Jesse's desire to be up and about and active. Some of what she does seems very strange (which she warned me of!) but I'm not going to discount it unless I see that it's not helping. I can't say that I understand chiropractic care very much, but I do know that it works for me, so I'm willing to give it chance to help Jesse.
And last, but not least, we took Jesse to feed the ducks at the park on May 24th. He had a blast! Here's a video. You can here him asking for "more" bird seed. Don't mind my voice.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Amazed!!!
We had our weekly speech therapy appointment this morning. SLP was very impressed with Jesse's vocabulary growth over the past couple of weeks. In the two months since we started speech therapy, Jesse has gone from being about 14 months behind (12 month level at 26 months of age), to being just 4 months behind (24 month level at 28 months of age). I'm over the moon!!!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Just a quick update
We had our Individual Support Services Plan (ISSP) meeting this week. In attendance were the social worker, Jesse's senior therapist, her mentor, and myself. Jesse's SLP sent along a progress report to be included as well. We discussed Jesse's strengths and needs, and picked three main areas to work on in the coming six months. I should have a copy of the formal report on Monday, so I can go into more detail then. We also reviewed and signed the service funding agreement, which will pay for the home therapist that will be working with Jesse.
Speaking of which, we're finally on the ball with regard to hiring someone. We've interviewed one person already, and it went REALLY well. The only issue is that she's looking for the full 30 hours per week (as it's her income and all) and we were hoping to find someone part-time. It's an option though. We have two more interviews lined up in the coming few days. Hopefully we'll have a decision made by Wednesday and can get everything lined up for home therapy to start the week after next.
Also, I received and invited to attend a program called "Making Connections in Autism" at the Janeway. It's a program of four education sessions for parents, caregivers, and therapists of children with autism - in particular those who have been waitlisted for SLP and OT services. It's taking place over 4 weeks in May. I've already notified them that I will be attending. I'm hoping our home therapist (if we have one hired by that time) will be able to attend as well. My fingers are crossed that this will give me some ideas for how to break Jesse of his toe-walking.
Speaking of which, we're finally on the ball with regard to hiring someone. We've interviewed one person already, and it went REALLY well. The only issue is that she's looking for the full 30 hours per week (as it's her income and all) and we were hoping to find someone part-time. It's an option though. We have two more interviews lined up in the coming few days. Hopefully we'll have a decision made by Wednesday and can get everything lined up for home therapy to start the week after next.
Also, I received and invited to attend a program called "Making Connections in Autism" at the Janeway. It's a program of four education sessions for parents, caregivers, and therapists of children with autism - in particular those who have been waitlisted for SLP and OT services. It's taking place over 4 weeks in May. I've already notified them that I will be attending. I'm hoping our home therapist (if we have one hired by that time) will be able to attend as well. My fingers are crossed that this will give me some ideas for how to break Jesse of his toe-walking.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Put yer feet up....
...this is gonna be a long one!
Tomorrow is Jesse's Individual Support Services Plan (ISSP) meeting. It'll be here at the house, so I don't have to find a sitter (thank goodness). There will only be a few people in attendance - the Autism Program's social worker, Jesse's senior therapist (ST) and her supervisor, and myself. Jesse's SLP can't make it, but she emailed me a progress note. Steve can't make it either, since he's already at his max vacation time this year. He helped me write up our own contribution to the meeting anyways. It's basically just a sheet of paper with the heading "strengths" written on the left and "needs" written on the right. We came up with the following...
Strengths:
-non-verbal communication
-growing vocabulary
-will attempt new words
-imitation
-high energy
-great fine motor and gross motor skills
-likes to be around adults and other children
-transitions easily from one place to another and from one activity to another.
Needs:
-to work on increasing vocabulary and phrases
-to work on decreasing toe walking
-to work on interactive play with other children
-to work on not running away when out in public
-has difficulty breaking certain routines
Jesse's SLPs progress note also listed some strengths and needs, none of which were a surprise to me. It was very encouraging though, that she seems so pleased with his progress thus far. It will be interesting to hear what his ST and her supervisor have to say at the meeting tomorrow.
I'm also really looking forward to this, because the funding for Jesse's home therapy program will be approved. We'll actually be able to pay whoever (whomever?) we hire to be Jesse's home therapist!
Speaking of which, we have an interview set up for Wednesday night! I'm very nervous about interviewing someone. I've never really done that before, aside from sitters for Jesse. I suppose this shouldn't be that different though. I definitely need to prepare for it though! I also have to go through the rest of the resumes and try to find a few more candidates to interview. I'm thinking 5-6 interviews should be sufficient. I really want to find someone who's high energy, friendly, creative, and dependable.
Also, I figured now would be as good a time as any to share an update on Jesse's vocabulary. It's growing so much! It's very difficult to keep up with now too, since he'll at least try to imitate almost any word you ask him to say.
Imitated/prompted words:
Koko (the daycare owner's dog)
ears
hair
knees
toes
on
out
boots
shoes
go ("doe")
duck
gone ("don")
ball
arm
god
mouse
purse
pee
cheese
Spontaneous Words:
Mom
Da/Dad
Nan
Pop
Josh ("Dosh")
Jesse ("esseez")
Anna ("Nana" - daycare owner's daughter)
no
this
up
nose
baby
hi
bye
juice ("dooce")
bees (refers to nursing)
boo
uh-oh
off
eyes
poop ("doot")
hot
beep
more ("no")
ta-da
night-night
hop
ding-dong ("ning-nong")
Jesse also has a handful of two-word phrases now too, including "bye bees/Mom/Dad/Nan/Pop/Josh," "my baby," "no, Jesse's!" and "uh oh Da!"
It's quite a bit better than the list from March 11th, which was the last time I did this. And so, so much better than the 5 words he was using when we had our first speech therapy appointment with his current SLP on March 8th. That was only 6 weeks ago! His non-verbal communication has also come a long way since then, which is very helpful. He's much better able to communicate with us what he wants (to eat, for example) and when he wants us to play with him.
There's so much more to tell, but it's getting late and we have an early rise tomorrow. Speech therapy is at 8:30 and the ISSP is at 10 am! Hopefully I'll get a chance to update tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Jesse's Individual Support Services Plan (ISSP) meeting. It'll be here at the house, so I don't have to find a sitter (thank goodness). There will only be a few people in attendance - the Autism Program's social worker, Jesse's senior therapist (ST) and her supervisor, and myself. Jesse's SLP can't make it, but she emailed me a progress note. Steve can't make it either, since he's already at his max vacation time this year. He helped me write up our own contribution to the meeting anyways. It's basically just a sheet of paper with the heading "strengths" written on the left and "needs" written on the right. We came up with the following...
Strengths:
-non-verbal communication
-growing vocabulary
-will attempt new words
-imitation
-high energy
-great fine motor and gross motor skills
-likes to be around adults and other children
-transitions easily from one place to another and from one activity to another.
Needs:
-to work on increasing vocabulary and phrases
-to work on decreasing toe walking
-to work on interactive play with other children
-to work on not running away when out in public
-has difficulty breaking certain routines
Jesse's SLPs progress note also listed some strengths and needs, none of which were a surprise to me. It was very encouraging though, that she seems so pleased with his progress thus far. It will be interesting to hear what his ST and her supervisor have to say at the meeting tomorrow.
I'm also really looking forward to this, because the funding for Jesse's home therapy program will be approved. We'll actually be able to pay whoever (whomever?) we hire to be Jesse's home therapist!
Speaking of which, we have an interview set up for Wednesday night! I'm very nervous about interviewing someone. I've never really done that before, aside from sitters for Jesse. I suppose this shouldn't be that different though. I definitely need to prepare for it though! I also have to go through the rest of the resumes and try to find a few more candidates to interview. I'm thinking 5-6 interviews should be sufficient. I really want to find someone who's high energy, friendly, creative, and dependable.
Also, I figured now would be as good a time as any to share an update on Jesse's vocabulary. It's growing so much! It's very difficult to keep up with now too, since he'll at least try to imitate almost any word you ask him to say.
Imitated/prompted words:
Koko (the daycare owner's dog)
ears
hair
knees
toes
on
out
boots
shoes
go ("doe")
duck
gone ("don")
ball
arm
god
mouse
purse
pee
cheese
Spontaneous Words:
Mom
Da/Dad
Nan
Pop
Josh ("Dosh")
Jesse ("esseez")
Anna ("Nana" - daycare owner's daughter)
no
this
up
nose
baby
hi
bye
juice ("dooce")
bees (refers to nursing)
boo
uh-oh
off
eyes
poop ("doot")
hot
beep
more ("no")
ta-da
night-night
hop
ding-dong ("ning-nong")
Jesse also has a handful of two-word phrases now too, including "bye bees/Mom/Dad/Nan/Pop/Josh," "my baby," "no, Jesse's!" and "uh oh Da!"
It's quite a bit better than the list from March 11th, which was the last time I did this. And so, so much better than the 5 words he was using when we had our first speech therapy appointment with his current SLP on March 8th. That was only 6 weeks ago! His non-verbal communication has also come a long way since then, which is very helpful. He's much better able to communicate with us what he wants (to eat, for example) and when he wants us to play with him.
There's so much more to tell, but it's getting late and we have an early rise tomorrow. Speech therapy is at 8:30 and the ISSP is at 10 am! Hopefully I'll get a chance to update tomorrow.
Monday, March 15, 2010
What a breakthrough!
I feel like the big brick wall I've been bashing my head against for so long has started to crumble. We had Jesse's weekly speech therapy appointment this morning. Jesse's SLP, M., was THRILLED with his progress! I took my Flip video camera with the video of Jesse talking in the bathtub from last night and showed her. So right away she tossed her plan for incorporating signs into his therapy and wants to dive right into increasing his vocabulary and getting him saying things spontaneously.
During the appointment she got him to say "eat" and "bus." He's also now saying "bye." I can hardly keep up! She gave me some tips for how to play with him and encourage spontaneous talking and new words. Such a productive 1/2 hour!
In other news:
We had our follow-up with the physiotherapist. She gave me some more information sheets on how to deal with the sensory issues. We have some proprioception work to do with him. She's pleased with his range of motion in his ankles, but thinks that he could tighten up if he continues to toe walk so much. She advised me to do some stretches with him and keep an eye on his range of motion. She'll keep his file open, so that if I need to, I can call her up and make an appointment and we can get Jesse right back in to see her without the
wait. She did think Occupational Therapy would be a good idea though, to help with the sensory issues, and I will be asking for a referral to OT at our appointment with Dr. C on Wednesday.
I also spoke with the social worker, J., this morning. We still don't know when we'll be assigned a senior therapist. It was supposed to be a 2-3 week wait. It's now been 4 weeks. And J. said that she "hopes" it'll only be "another week or so." So frustrating! I told her that this makes it REALLY difficult in terms of hiring a home therapist. They want someone hired by the next ABA training session (April 6-8). But how am I supposed to hire someone when I have no idea how many hours I'll be hiring someone for? I don't know if it'll be 15 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours? Something in between? Who would even be willing to take a job if they have no clue what kind of hours I can offer them? So I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do about that right now. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed that someone will get the lead out get moving on this.
I have to focus on the positive though, right? And I am. I'm going to work on Jesse's speech with him and do as much as I can. He's already come SO FAR in just the last couple of weeks. It's actually really exciting!
During the appointment she got him to say "eat" and "bus." He's also now saying "bye." I can hardly keep up! She gave me some tips for how to play with him and encourage spontaneous talking and new words. Such a productive 1/2 hour!
In other news:
We had our follow-up with the physiotherapist. She gave me some more information sheets on how to deal with the sensory issues. We have some proprioception work to do with him. She's pleased with his range of motion in his ankles, but thinks that he could tighten up if he continues to toe walk so much. She advised me to do some stretches with him and keep an eye on his range of motion. She'll keep his file open, so that if I need to, I can call her up and make an appointment and we can get Jesse right back in to see her without the
wait. She did think Occupational Therapy would be a good idea though, to help with the sensory issues, and I will be asking for a referral to OT at our appointment with Dr. C on Wednesday.
I also spoke with the social worker, J., this morning. We still don't know when we'll be assigned a senior therapist. It was supposed to be a 2-3 week wait. It's now been 4 weeks. And J. said that she "hopes" it'll only be "another week or so." So frustrating! I told her that this makes it REALLY difficult in terms of hiring a home therapist. They want someone hired by the next ABA training session (April 6-8). But how am I supposed to hire someone when I have no idea how many hours I'll be hiring someone for? I don't know if it'll be 15 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours? Something in between? Who would even be willing to take a job if they have no clue what kind of hours I can offer them? So I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do about that right now. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed that someone will get the lead out get moving on this.
I have to focus on the positive though, right? And I am. I'm going to work on Jesse's speech with him and do as much as I can. He's already come SO FAR in just the last couple of weeks. It's actually really exciting!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Light bulb moment
I hope I don't have to pay Dr. Phil every time I use that, but it's the easiest way to describe how things clicked for me when I watched Dr. Temple Grandin's lecture. At about 00:02:43 she describes auditory issues in kids with ASDs. Even though auditory threshold ("hearing") is normal, their ability to hear auditory detail can be impaired. In addition to apraxia, I think that this may be part of why Jesse has such trouble with speech. One of the reasons I think this is because of his animal sounds. He makes the sounds for dog, cat, duck, and bear. But he drops the first part of each sound. Instead of "woof" it's "oof." So instead of "meow" it's "ow." Instead of "quack quack" it's "ack ack." Instead of "roar" it's "argh."
Here's a video to demonstrate what I mean. This was taken at the beginning of January of this year, just before Jesse's 2nd birthday.
The words that he has right now that start with a hard consonent sound (i.e. "mom," "da," "baby") are words that we've worked a lot on and enunciated the hell out of to try to get him to repeat. He has a lot of trouble acquiring words...a lot of trouble with consonant sounds. For example, he says "asu" for "thank-you."
Of course, I could be completely off the mark here and this might not be an issue at all. Either way, I hope that Jesse's new SLP can give us the tools to overcome whatever obstacles are in the way of Jesse being able to communicate with us.
And I thought I'd throw this in here...just because he's cute as hell:
Here's a video to demonstrate what I mean. This was taken at the beginning of January of this year, just before Jesse's 2nd birthday.
The words that he has right now that start with a hard consonent sound (i.e. "mom," "da," "baby") are words that we've worked a lot on and enunciated the hell out of to try to get him to repeat. He has a lot of trouble acquiring words...a lot of trouble with consonant sounds. For example, he says "asu" for "thank-you."
Of course, I could be completely off the mark here and this might not be an issue at all. Either way, I hope that Jesse's new SLP can give us the tools to overcome whatever obstacles are in the way of Jesse being able to communicate with us.
And I thought I'd throw this in here...just because he's cute as hell:
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