I am sitting here at work this morning and I get a wonderful text from my husband about Tyce and his speech therapy session. As I left for work this morning I was once again bummed at the fact that I can't be with Tyce this morning as he has his speech therapy session. I really
hate (strong word I know, but dude, its how I feel ok) missing his speech sessions because I have so many questions, I love to watch and mostly I just dislike missing anything that has to do with my children. But, I trust my mother in law and she knows what she is doing and I know that she is going to do her best to catch every little detail in his speech development/progress
(pretty much what I am saying is, make sure speech lady does work). Fortunately it is presidents day and TJ got to be home for a few extra hours this morning and he was able to be there too.
Tyce will have his big all around evaluation for special education services for next fall as he starts 3-school at Maplewood ECSC, he will be going to Maplewood next year for four half days of school (not sure if he will stay there long term- but for one year for sure). Anyway, I requested an all around evaluation on him to make sure they are servicing HIS needs as best as possible. Let's be honest, I know that some kids with special needs just get grouped and
SOMETIMES PLANS DON'T EXACTLY GET INDIVIDUALIZED. And I know I open a can of worms when I say this, but WHATEVER, he is my kiddo and I am am learning the system... I don't want to be flagged as "that mom", and I want to play my cards right when it comes to yes, ADVOCATING for his needs (but dammit, fighting for his needs if it comes to that). I just have felt lately that his sped needs were falling through the cracks, that his therapist didn't really know what he was capable of, so I decided to speak up this past November and requested an in-dept evaluation so they can really understand his needs and progress before he moves out of early on. It seems like after this request I've seen major improvement in these therapists getting to know Tyce and his capabilities. (As you know we moved school districts this past May, therefore he has all new therapists) who were
getting suppose to be getting to know him better. Unfortunately, one had underestimated him and had no clue what he could do or was capable of doing, mainly because she didn't put forth enough effort to get to know him. I wanted to wait it out a bit and see if she could figure things out, then after six months of continued cluelessness and cut short therapy sessions, I began to get frustrated. Now, finally, finally we are getting somewhere and he is being pushed to reach his full potential. He is getting his full eval on March 4th, and today, my husband texted me that as the speech therapist was doing her pre-testing with him he got a 15 out of 16 on identification and approximation, he would have had an 100 percent on the whole speech evaluation if he could have identified where the broom was (sorry I don't freaking have a broom people, its 2013 I have the iRobot... geez, ask him where the iRobot is? he knows, he turns the dang thing on all the time and chases it around the house to scare his brother with. Ha... anyway, this made me happy. He is trying to talk and he is making valiant efforts, he attempts to repeat what we say, he struggles, he seeks motivation through applause, and applause we provide! A lot of his success in this area has to do with his passion for books, and that brain of his is always going, he is very inquisitive. :)
Anyway, my point is, I don't ever want people to sell him short or group him in any category. I want him to be individualized, I want him to be strong, independent, I want him to be Tyce. And even if I had to be patient, give his therapists time and then after not seeing what I wanted, begin to advocate for him I am glad we are where we are today. I know this won't be the first hike we go through so that he achieves and gets the services he needs, but I am glad this happened, and I am so proud of him. I love figuring out his little personality, seeing him grow into a toddler, a big brother and most of all his understanding and curiosity of the world around him continues to amaze me. He is more then I ever could've asked for.
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| Baby walker, in backwards, hey... if it makes you happy! :) |
