I've always liked this picture. I'm not the best photographer. I don't have an eye for it like some. But I felt this came out looking precious. It's a little dark, but it certainly conveys a feeling.
We went to Rebekah's speech therapy appointment today knowing that she was getting her speech evaluated. We've known for a long time that she was not exactly "up to speed" with her peers. But we wanted to know where she ranked on the technical charts. So the evaluation began. I was surprised at my desire to help her succeed and my fear of her feelings of failure. Then I had to remind myself that she was 3 and she probably wouldn't feel like a failure even if she didn't "pass". :)
In the end, I felt like it was an evaluation that well represented her abilities. She's a week away from turning 3, so she was graded as a 3 year old. As such, she is mild/moderately delayed in her emotional (I believe that was the word) understanding of language and she is severely delayed in her responsive understanding of language. In a nutshell that means that she knows a lot of words but has a hard time translating or computing either their true meaning within a sentence or how to respond. When the therapist said, "Show me the child that is eating" she would simply repeat what the therapist had said and do nothing. The therapist also noticed that Rebekah takes a longer time to compute things that she DOES know. She doesn't ask questions for the sake of wanting to know. She asks them because she's parroting.
So, we will have to get approval from our insurance to work through her speech and reponse issues. As of now, we are planning on holding her back a year for kindergarten and it seems like the right thing to do. I think she just needs a little more time to catch up.
5 comments:
Hi Rachel,
This is Stephanie, Eric's sister in law with the baby who has Tetrology of Fallot like your girl. I love to look at your blog to see how well she was doing because it always gives me hope that Nathan will be as normal and happy as she is. Was she born with a cleft or any other syndromes? Is it known what has caused the speech problem? Good luck! I'm interested to hear about what the insurance company says!
OH, how I know what you're going through! I know that kids learn at their own pace and we shouldn't compare, but I was always embarrased by Abby's speech delay. Especially because she has so many cousins her age that are very vocal. But now that I know she's hearing impared, I'm actually proud of the progress she has made despite her disability. Funny how a label can change your perspective.
Rebekah is a smart kid and she'll catch up with no problem. My sister has a son who was considered "profoundly speech delayed," and when he started going to speech therapy school at age three, he finally started showing a lot of progress and he's catching up really quickly!
Hi Rachel,
Nathan's TOF was a complete repair this time. He was only midly cyanotic, except when he started crying. Then he would turn blue and had a hard time getting control of himself. At 3 months he stopped gaining much of any weight so that was why the surgery was done last month. Nathan's pulmonary valve originally only measured 5-6mm instead of the 8 (normal 10-12) that the surgeon originally thought. Dr. Hawkins cut it to open it and they know his valve isn't going to hold up forever. We're all hoping that he can make it to be a teenager before the valve gives out so he can have a pig valve. No one is sure though so he'll be watched carefully. Have you see the movie "Something the Lord Made". Its about the first heart surgery on a CHD child with TOF. You can rent it from the library. You'd really appreciate it, especially having experienced yourself.
My guess is the insurance company should help you out. Nathan has unlimited speech/occupational therapy because of his oral aversion to food. Even at that I would guess that she'd get at least 20 visits a year which is better than nothing.
I'm sure that once she gets the therapy she needs she'll take right off!
We had to have Taylor tested too...he actually has to go back and be re evaluated in about a month. It's so stressful. Kelsie will have to go through it too since she doesn't talk properly either. They all come around, some just need a little more help to get there :) Hang in there!
That's great that you're getting a start on her speech needs, I'm sure she'll progress great. They say singing helps things like that too right, so she's got the best Mom for that!
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