Help Me Grow

We've decided to take the next step to help progress Gavin's expressive language.  After continued concerns, seeing him become frustrated when unable to effectively communicate with us, and witnessing other kids that are receiving speech assistance make incredible progress, we decided it was time.  I spoke with the pediatrician about our concerns at one of Abigail's appointments.  It was recommended that we start with Help Me Grow, as the doctor has had many patients have positive experiences with the program.  She explained that if we weren't happy with Help Me Grow, she could make a referral to outpatient therapy.

First, I met with our Service Coordinator, who briefly observed Gavin at home and asked me several questions. Based on our intake appointment, she predicted that he would qualify for services.  Our next step was to complete an evaluation, using the Battelle.  At the evaluation, Gavin scored well within the normal limits for all measured areas -- cognition, receptive language, motor skills, adaptive behavior, social, etc -- with the exception of expressive language, where he scored 1 point below average.  His score alone did not qualify him for services, but the evaluators agreed that he would benefit from services and he qualified through clinical override.  We met with our Service Coordinator and Early Childhood Intervention Specialist and developed our Individual Family Service Plan.  Our EIS will meet with us 2x a month. Since he qualified through clinical override, he will be evaluated again in 6 months.  He won't receive direct therapy, but we'll be given strategies and resources to help encourage his expressive language skills. 

We've toyed with the idea of also starting him in outpatient therapy but are putting it on hold for now.  He scored higher than we expected in the area of expressive language through HMG.  Through my career, I've yet to see an outpatient therapy report not find area(s) of need, but we wondered if he would qualify.  Also, through talking with the office, we've discovered it will be difficult to get him to therapy sessions while we are both working full time.  Of course, if we take this route, we'll find a way to make it work. The pediatrician provided us with a referral, which is good for a calendar year, should we choose to pursue this option later.

Of course, as kids like to do, Gavin has decided to prove us wrong.  Since our initial intake appointment, he has gained many words and is very willing and excited to repeat words -- something he showed little interest in doing before.  He has the sweetest voice when he says words and is very proud of himself!  His language skills still need some work, but we're heading in the right direction!