Our schedule has finally settled down. From start to finish, it took about two months from when I started to make phone calls to experts asking if I was worrying too early, to having Ava’s therapy schedule in its current final form. That’s pretty quick. I feel lucky. I’ve read stories from many other parents talking about it taking much longer. In that time we had Ava evaluated by our state’s early intervention program. She qualified. We had our IFSP meeting and a therapist was assigned. We also found two different private therapists. We had her hearing evaluated unsuccessfully twice, found out she had fluid in her ears, had surgery to put in PE tubes, and during surgery had a hearing test done to confirm that she can hear.
So, this is what the complete picture looks like now. I do focused therapy one-on-one (with no brother around) with Ava at least three days a week for about 30-45 minutes. My therapy is guided by Ms. J. Ms. J. is a local therapist who is an expert in apraxia. She has a private practice but she only sees her private clients two weekends a month. So Ava works with her for an hour twice a month and then she tells me what to focus on for the next two weeks. Once a week for an hour we receive services from Ms. A who is our early intervention therapist and a former student of Ms. J (who works at a university). In addition, Ava gets pulled out of her preschool program twice a week for half an hour by Ms. E., the first local therapist, I contacted.
Tuesday, Thursday – 30 minutes at school with Ms. E
Friday – 60 minutes at home with Ms. A
Every other Sunday – 60 minutes at private practice office with Ms. J
At least three weekdays / week – 30-45 minutes with mama SLP at home
It’s a bit of a patchwork quilt and in an ideal world I would love a bit more consistency, but it seems to be working so I’m not complaining. That’s what we’re doing right now. If you’d like to share, I’d love to know what you guys are doing with your little ones.
My Little Man (just turned 2 yrs) gets therapy 2-3 times a week. He gets 2 one hour sessions, one at daycare and one at home by a developmental specialist from EI and every other week he gets Speech Therapy for an hour from his EI SLP. Both then tell me what to work on (and his teachers at daycare) and I do about 20-30 minutes a day with him w/o his older sister around. We are waiting on our developmental evaluation from Tuft's Hospital to see if he does have Verbal Apraxia. Unfortunately, that eval will not be done until June/July because of their waiting list.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter gets 4 sessions each week 45 minutes each, paid by our state TEFRA program. I have a private thetapist twice weekly for one hour. We plan to discontinue the private therapy in June and see if the 4 other sessions continue to bring good progress. Our therapist who is paid through TEFRA is well trained and experienced with Apraxia. We feel very fortunate.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are amazing. :-) I wish Ava's therapy was as consistent as yours. I suppose that the most important thing is that progress is being made and as long as that is happening, I have no complaints.
ReplyDeleteGentle Blue Mom: Sorry it's going to take so long to get your evaluation. I know that's frustrating. Thank goodness you didn't have to wait for the results to get therapy started!
We've been lucky that he's been in EI since 7 months (it was originally for gross motor skills which are now very close to age appropriate). We were going to go through Children's in Boston for a Speech Eval, but they are booking in August and we decided to go ahead and get everything done at Tufts in June. For whatever reason, EI won't give an official diagnosis - any diagnosis has to come from a medical doctor in order for my insurance to cover outside speech therapy. I feel fortunate that he's getting the services he's getting now and we are moving forward. He just turned 2, so we still have time on our hands before he ages out of EI and into the school system - as a teacher, that is my biggest concern, as he may not get the 2-3 hours a week he gets now - so we will need the outside therapy.
ReplyDeleteGood for you thinking ahead, Gentle Blue. I just haven't had the time or energy yet to tackle the whole insurance mess. I know it would have to start with getting an "official" diagnosis from some medical professional. At the moment we're just scraping together the money for the private therapy month to month. Eventually I'll have to at least pursue the insurance angle.
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