Adventures in Child Development Programs

Referrals in tow we have a meeting to discuss the problems that we may be having with walking, talking and socialization. Yep, they want your baby to be social. You should be able to hand little Johnny off to complete strangers without so much as a peep from him. Ha! Well okay might be exaggerating a bit but they still want your child to be social. Not my son. He has always been guarded. Family couldn't even hold him. I always assumed it was a good thing. As far as him not even trying to walk yet. Who cares? My oldest started to pull himself up on furniture at 4 1/2 months and he was walking on his own at 7 months. All children progress differently. Talking? Sure it was difficult to communicate with him but I was ok with him not talking. He was quiet, reserved and content most of the time. Until he had tantrums. Tantrums from hell. But then again every child is different and I couldn't really see what the issues would really be. But when you get a referral from your doctor you must go see what the problem is. So I sit down with a counselor at my local Community Services Board Infant & Child Development Program to discuss what might be going on. We have to design a IFSP (Individualized Family Services Plan) and he has been labeled Developmentally Delayed (lacking several gross motor skill, several fine motor skills and is in need of physical & occupational therapy). The IFSP clearly states that he must attend physical therapy at least twice a week, occupational therapy once per week and speech therapy will be included a little further down the road but is given instruction on how to try to coax him into speech. If we are not able to "catch him up" by the time he is 2 1/2 then he maybe enrolled in a Special Education Services through our local school system; they have a separate preschool designed to meet the needs of children. Physical therapy was ok, nothing to it really but teaching him how to fine tune his walking skills, (by the time we had finished all the paper work, referral and finalized the IFSP he was walking independently but still required the physical therapy) walking up steps, kicking a ball all gross motor skills a child his age should have had but didn't. Working on his fine motor skill was a cake walk too. Occupational therapy would prove to be the kicker. He didn't want anyone to touch him at all. The more you tried the worse he was. Different workers would come into the room and grab on him and touch him. It was a complete nightmare. He wasn't having it all. The tantrum. Oh, the tantrums. Nobody seemed to mind them though. It was part of the process though. He needed to get use to people being in his "personal bubble space". Many people would enter into his "personal bubble space" that was just a part of life they said. I am pretty sure it was completely overwhelming for him to go through. He speech was still not up to par and all he did was scream "No!" He was not a happy camper. We had to scale back the therapy sessions and try an new approach. Speech therapy has also started. Speech would also prove to be a good way to casually incorporate some occupational. There soon would be a new approach all together as he just celebrated his 2nd Birthday. Only 6 more month to go until we could enroll him in to the preschool. I was actually excited that he hadn't accomplished some of the goals set in his IFSP. I know it sounds odd but going to preschool with other children like him would be a great learning opportunity. Speech therapy had run its course he was talking but there were things wrong with his pronunciation and articulation (and again it wasn't that he couldn't talk, he simply wouldn't but with all the delays he produced himself caused deeper issues). However once he started talking, he never stopped (LOL). He would be well on his way to Preschool in a few months. We had an IFSP meeting to incorporate the Preschool and meet with the school to discuss his enrollment. The IFSP would continue as planned and if needed by the time he would be enrolled in Kindergarten an IEP would take it's place. I was glad that there were things in place to help him and a team of people were there guiding the necessary steps to make sure that he was on the right track. The last year and 1/2 proved to be a preparation for what loomed on the horizon. What you though you were preparing for wasn't the task at hand but on a stepping stone to the solutions that you needed to have in place for what was yet to come.