Jackson now gets a speech therapy/feeding (yes, they can be related) visit each month in addition to the twice-a-month visits he gets from his primary EIS. And, his primary EIS is now Marsha, who is the specialist that came while his original specialist was on maternity leave. Yea! We liked our old specialist, but Marsha just really hit it off with Jackson and she even helps Jefferson with some of his problems (like interupting and speaking too loud, etc.). And it turns out that Marsha was really upset that she wouldn't get to see Jackson again, so she was super excited to become his primary EIS. So it all worked out.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Glad to hear that he's got a therapist he like so so much. Just curious, how does the feeding fit into everything?
Okay, so what's up with Jackson? I know you had some suspicions when you were here. What's the diagnosis?
Angela-
The feeding therapy is to address separate issues from speech as well as to help with his speech. It helps with speech by promoting improved muscle development around the mouth among other things. Jackson has low muscle tone and also an overbite, which can prevent proper mouth form to produce certain sounds (like d, m, and p). With feeding therapy, we are not only monitoring if he is eating a good variety of foods (since he is on the small side) but also we are learning what foods will help with his muscle development and watching to see how he chews his food (and whether he just stuffs it all in at one time- like he does with bananas). He also no longer uses a sipper cup and has switched to only using straws or drinking from a cup. The sippy cup is bad for proper speech development because is promotes a suckling motion instead of a sucking/blowing motion- meaning it doesn't promote the right muscle development for speech. Most kids don't have a problem with muscle development, so sippy cups aren't as much of a problem for most kids, but since Jackson has low muscle tone, it was very important to get him off the sippy. Umm, I know there are more things, but that's all I can think of right now. Hope that helps!
Joanne-
Right now Jackson has been diagnosed with a significant speech delay. He also has some difficulty with his gross motor skills- he doesn't walk as well as his should, falls A LOT, and still has difficulty with steps. His primary EIS (early intervention specialist) works with him on his motor skills (fine and gross), speech, eye contact, communication, and behavior. We teach him sign language to help him be less frustrated and because it also helps with speech. The primary EIS comes twice a month.
The feeding and speech EIS comes once a month and she focuses on his speech and then we go over Jackson's eating and she provides ideas to get him to eat more of what he needs (despite his two-year-old stubbornness).
We may have a physical therapy evaluation for his gross motor skills and if he qualifies, we'll have more appointments every month- although those may be at Kids on the Move (the early intervention center).
We are still looking into whether there may be something that is causing all of this. It's usually a slow process. Jackson has made a lot of improvement already- he's saying more words although most words don't have any consonants- but he's still behind other kids his age by a lot.
Joanne-
If you go to the August archives (here: http://fairlite2u.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html) then you can read the first post I did about Early Intervention.
Post a Comment