Early Intervention

Today was Ian's first Early Intervention appointment...Finally! Well, it wasn't officially a one on one with Ian so much as an informational appointment for me. She's the coordinator who arranges those that will ultimately assess Ian and provide his therapies.

At this point, he automatically qualifies for speech related resources because of his unilateral hearing loss. We actually have our choice of programs and I was excited to hear that each has several play group opportunities, above and beyond home visits, where he can interact with other kids in the same boat...one is a meet where he engages in play with other kids while parents take a sign language class, which is a great idea.

When she arrived, Ian was his usual shy but charming self, and Polli was her usual inappropriate jumping, "smother the stranger" self. Her baby gate wouldn't latch, so I had to pray she would settle down and leave this poor lady alone (takes me back to our homestudy meeting that went horribly wrong).

Polli did settle down, but that's when Ian's odd behavior started. He rarely tantrums and never in front of guests. Anyone who meets Ian describes him as nothing short of an angel because he plays happily and independently, even at other people's homes. Well, today, he decided that he HAD to be held by me while she was describing the programs, and wanted nothing more than to grab and destroy her paperwork. I rooted through the recycle bin to find him something fun to play with... an empty box, Gatorade bottle, and empty egg carton. I'm sure they weren't the traditional therapy toys they recommend...but I was pretty desperate for something to distract him. It worked. He was thrilled with the empty Gatorade bottle and mimicked my yelling into it to make a funny voice. The egg carton had great mileage, too...and chaperoned him on several laps around the living room.

Once we got through the paperwork and general details of the program, she wanted to get on the floor and interact with Ian to do some basic evaluations. Polli decided this would be when she would try once again to get to know her..and jumped on her, knocking her glasses off and head butting her in the nose. I was so embarrassed. Polli went outside with the door closed. Yes, I know. Canine abuse. She was out there all alone for an hour. Quick...Call the SPCA! After this, there's no denying that Polli needs to go back to school.

Ian was great from then on out. He did things that she was visibly impressed with and as she asked questions about things he can/can't do, I started to realize that beyond speech, he isn't that far behind. As a reassurance, she told me that as a child with the language exposure of a 3 month old and a hearing deficit to boot, he is doing pretty well. She said she could hear some sound inflections that are definite precursors to language and was impressed with his ability to determine the direction of sounds. Polli was barking outside and he walked over to the laundry room doorway and pointed to the back door and said "Buh", which is his attempt at the "P" sound for Polli. Later, he brought me our little photo album of Polli pictures, pointed to it and said "Buh". I don't think he understood why she was outside barking without someone running to let her in.

She asked questions about how he responds to questions, which I never really thought about, so I asked him "Ian, where's the alligator?" and he walked over and got his alligator pull toy. Put a big smiley next to that one, lady! He also showed her how he knows how to "put away" his toys and demonstrated bye & hi waves several times.

Later in the evening, in the bathtub, I asked him "where's the ball?" and he picked up the purple ball (there are only 6 or 7 balls in the tub, so he had a pretty high probability of getting it right by accident). He pointed at it and said "Bob". That's clearly ball...after all this talk about how he has no vocabulary, he pulls out "Bob" only hours after meeting with the state lady. It's official, my son is a genius.

We worked on "where's the lion" and "get sippy" and he scored 100% on both...the lion toy and his sippy cup. Since EVERY bath toy was in the tub, he actually had to search for both. I think that was enough bath time homework for one day!

She didn't say anything about positive benefits of too many toys, but we decided to empty the Boon Frog and celebrate a great meeting the proper way. I even let him bring his milk in the tub. Livin on the edge!

Everyone, meet "Bob"