Vent: She NEEDS to qualify for EI again.

[Carrots]

DD was a 31 weeker and is now almost 2. She has been receiving Early Intervention services since she was 4 months old. We have worked thorugh a variety of feeding, allergy, GI and motor issues, (she is receiving outpatient services for PT now since she is still has motor delays as well as speech delay and ongoing GI issues). She qualified for EI in only speech during her last evaluation. Her next eval is on Wednesday and our service provider has been prepping me that she might not qualify again. She needs to be 6 months or more behind.

Her provider and I both agree that she is not ready to be discharged, and is very supportive of me/us. She has told her team to score DD "hard" because DD can still benefit greatly from weekly services for another 6 months.

DD only has about 7 words that she can say unprompted (mama, dada, up, down, "i do" and a version of "all done" and "more". However, she still garbles her speech and generalizes using grunts, pointing, signs, and made up "words" to communicate. She still doesn't have a word or name yet for DD A or our dog.

I am very hands on with her and use touch queues, pictures and signs to aid in her communication. She is making progress, but she NEEDS more time with EI services.

If she does make it in, she is just going to squeak by. I feel like I should be happy about this, but I am not. I want her to have the BEST shot at developing normally. I am trying to cover all my bases with out-patient support, community groups, like library time, playdates, etc. It has crossed my mind to keep her up really late the night before and wake her up early, so she will not do "well" during the eval.

I am just afraid she will be edged out before she is ready. Blah!

Anyone else gone through this?

[crl]

We were worried that ds wouldn't qualify at certain points and joked that we should sabatoge him. It always worked out for us without doing tha. Good luck to you!

Catherine

[KrisM]

DD has been in speech for 2 years now. She was over 3, so not EI, but through the public schools. She's in kindergarten and they pull her out twice a week for 10 minute sessions of one-on-one.

Anyhow, her IEP was up in January and she's pretty much on target age-wise now. But, her teacher still has some difficulty understanding her at times, as do we. Most of her sounds that are just above age 5.5 years are tough for her, so it's a mess for some words. She seems to struggle with each new sound on her own. But, she works hard and makes great progress! Anyhow, the SLP wrote the IEP so that she can stay in for another year. It didn't take much to keep her and I was happy to have her continue.

I wish she was progressing more on her own, but am happy she's able to continue.

[mousemom]

Sounds like your DD has made great strides. We've been through quite a few evaluations (for speech), so I know what it is like to "hope" your child will qualify for services despite their improvements. And how those services feel like a safety net. Hope you have a mostly good, but just sufficiently bad evaluation that you'll be able to continue receiving services.

[Uno-Mom]

Best of luck!
Gosh, that verbal description sounds much like my friends' two-year-olds who qualified just fine.

Looking at everything from a different direction: wow, congratulations to your daughter for making such progress and to you for doing such a great job!

[Indianamom2]

I understand where you're coming from.

DD had a major speech delay (at least 12 months behind in expressive, but way ahead in receptive language). At that age, she couldn't say even 7 words, IIR. I guess I would be really surprised if your daughter didn't requalify, especially given her preterm birth status.

I think a lot of times, the therapists will do their best to "help" the children qualify when they know that they truly need it. I know we were in the that position and everyone involved knew that DD still definitely needed therapy. They will usually work with you to help your child qualify.

Good luck...I know it's mind boggling sometimes!

[MamaKath]

Thinking of you! Crossing fingers and toes and saying an extra prayer that today's eval allows for continued services!!!

[Carrots]

Now that it has been over a month since my OP, I thought I would update that DD 2 did qualify for EI again. However, I know she won't the next time around. We are doing all sorts of outpatient services, PT, S&L and just had a feeding evaluation. We are busting out bums to help DD.

We now have another layer to add to the SN cake and DD 1 is going to be evaluated for a Sensory Processing Disorder in May.

I would love 1 day without stress!

[crl]

I'm glad she is continuing to get services.

Catherine