Early Intervention

Behind every young child who believes in himself, is a parent who believed first. - Mathew Jacobson

In the first blog post I touched on some of the services Drew recieved. I wanted to dive into that a bit more.

January 2018 we had our early intervention consult and we started speech services. By April we had a physical therapy (PT) consult and later that month an occupational therapy (OT) consult. We started speech out weekly, OT bi-weekly, and PT monthly. Eventually we added special instruction and increased speech to twice a week for a hour and a half. We also fit in horse riding therapy, swim lessons (I would recommend private lessons, because sitting on the side of the pool while each kid takes their turn with the instructor is NOT fun), and dance lessons.

At the age of 3, Drew aged out of Early Intervention and transitioned to the IU preschool program. We had an IEP meeting and goals were set based off his assessments. Since he turned 3 in June, he started during summer school. In the fall, he started going two days a week for two and a half hours. (Later in the year, I asked for three days a week and the IEP team determined it was in his best interest so it was approved.)

 In his classroom there is a teacher, speech therapist, and aide. He receives speech, OT, and PT at school. We also opted to receive those services outpatient as well, so we do speech twice a week for 30 minutes along with OT and PT once a week for 45 minutes. For outpatient services, I have to drive him to the clinic to see the therapists. He also participates in the county's Parents as Teachers program monthly, horse therapy weekly for six weeks during the summer, and tap dance on Saturdays. He also receives services from a BSC and recently his TSS hours were filled at three days a week for two hours. 

So, what does a therapy session look like you may be wondering. Basically, PLAY! Most of his sessions are just play with different strategies thrown in. Of course speech tries to get him to make sounds and utilize the speech program on his iPad. PT has different animal cards that he pretends to be to work on physical activities, like a cheetah for running or kangaroo for jumping. OT uses putty or threading beads to work on finger strengthening. It is amazing the little things that build on one another. One example recently he was working on hand strengthening and the OT said using a hole punch was a safe way to practice cutting skills and building up those muscles. Also the way you hold the hole punch matters so you use the correct muscles. 

Furthermore, you can plan the most extravagant activity, but if he isn't into it, it's kinda pointless. Just the other day we ended up sorting counting bears into plastic cups with a play spaghetti spoon, and never in a million years would I have planned that! We just had to adapt. He wanted to play with the counting bears but we wanted to work on colors. We tried just making piles of bears, but he kept pushing them all back into the middle, so I grabbed a few plastic cups and he was into it. Then I thought maybe we could get some OT skills by using a spoon so I got one, but it was too big and he could scoop multiple bears up and that made it hard to sort into colors. So I was looking for something he could only scoop up one bear with and found a play spaghetti spoon. So he got to play with the counting bears and we got him to work on colors and an OT skill of using a spoon to scoop. 

So even though therapy is only 30 or 45 minutes a week, the things I have learned during his sessions can carry over into his day and are so valuable because I am his biggest advocate! 

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