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?