2008 October 20 Mama Divas

October 20, 2008

Although I haven’t posted about it in awhile, I did previously write about my concerns about littleQ’s speech development. Since a month or so after his second birthday back in February, he’s been getting speech therapy twice a week, and he’s also been going to group class once a week. The class is really just a one hour separation class, but with a very low teacher to student ratio (1 teacher and 2 assistants for 3-6 students), so each child gets a ton of individual attention. I’m happy to say that since the first time I posted about this, he’s improved immensely! His vocabulary has widened considerably and he’s now able to construct 3 word sentences on his own, definitely a big jump from his single word generalizing one short year ago.

toddler I know, I know, some people are thinking that well, he would have just progressed on his own. You know what though? The fact of the matter is, what is considered “slightly delayed” today was considered “normal” or at least didn’t cause even a raised eyebrow twenty years ago. Many kindergartens and preschools have such surprising expectations for children upon entry. Just think about it: what seems like the emotionally and socially better situation to you?: Taking a few hours out of your day while your child is a tot so he can receive therapeutic services, or having your 8 year old being individually taken out of class in front of all his classmates to go to a speech or physical therapy session and miss the day’s math lesson? Now what if you could possibly do anything to lower the possibility of the latter happening? What if you could lower the possibility of your child just not being able to communicate with the other children in his kindergarten class? What if you had the power to make sure your child was as ready for elementary school as he’d ever be? Wouldn’t you do everything you can to make life easier for your child?

baby For children under 3 years old who have with slight delays, like in littleQ’s case, early intervention definitely helps nip a problem in the bud to avoid any more serious issues, just in case the issue isn’t resolved on its own, and it helps you make sure that your child avoids falling through the educational system’s cracks once he’s in elementary school. Early intervention will help parents of tots with more serious delays make sure their children are learning with the necessary support. Either way, parents are also empowered with knowledge along the way, and I started the process without any knowledge of what would happen or how he would improve or progress, but I was well aware that if I wasn’t happy or if I felt that services weren’t necessary any longer, I didn’t have to keep on with it, so there was no downside.

Each state’s early intervention program is run by individual counties through the Department of Health’s special education division. Just do a google search for your state or county’s Department of Health division or your state plus early intervention and you should be able to find more information about services there. Here in New York, they’ll take your insurance information, and if your insurance covers services, then wonderful, but if they don’t, then it’s covered through the Department of Health. Even if you go directly to a private agency or early childhood center as I’d originally done, being absolutely in the dark about the process, they all (as far as I know) work with the DOH, so you’ll have to go through the same process. Basically, whether your child has a speech delay, a sensory delay, or anything other type of delay or disability, this is your first step if you’d like to try to get help before your child is preschool age (3+) and therefore under your school district’s special education department (with the school district’s funding, of course). Individual districts’ process for providing children with special education services are totally different, and in many cases it is more difficult to qualify for the level of service your child may need.

baby I’ve spoken to other mothers who, like me, were worried about the speech delay but were unsure of what to do about it. Most of them didn’t know about the services available through early intervention or didn’t realize it was available for these issues., and had felt lost just as I did, until they just happened “stumble” upon the information. I’ve had a great experience so far, but then we’ve worked with some incredibly knowledgeable speech therapists and early childhood development experts. These resources aren’t always common knowledge, and even when we ask questions, we don’t get the answers we need – like with my pediatrician who didn’t think I had to worry because littleQ’s hearing is perfect, but told me to contact my school district if it seemed to be a problem… totally wrong information as littleQ was too young to go through the district.