Early Intervention

Isabella has been walking for months, can climb just about anything, tries to carry things bigger than she is, babbles from sun up to sun down BUT girlfriend has yet to utter even one intentional word used in context.  No Mama (in reference to me), No Dada (when referring to J.T.).    Though she can babble mamamama,  dadadada with the best of them!

So a few weeks ago I took a minute and looked up Early Intervention for our county.  One of the milestones they listed was 1-3 words by 12 months, so I decided to give them a call and see what was up.  They said they would come to the house and conduct a screening (free of charge).  J.T. wasn't super excited when I told him about it (this was before all of the health issues cropped up), but didn't want to stop getting Isabella help if she needed it.

So on Tuesday they came out and gave her a screening.  Not surprisingly she was above average in motor skills, average in cognitive and life skills, and qualified for services and additional testing for both receptive and expressive language skills as they noted she had a slight delay in both areas:(.

I took her for a vision and hearing screening today both of which she passed with flying colors.  BTW I was very curious as to what a hearing screening for a one year old would look like, but once we did it was super impressed with the work Birth-3 educators do to ensure even the littlest ones get the help they need.  What is even more amazing is that all of these screenings, assessments and plan development are free.  It is only once you get to the need for additional services that there is a charge on a sliding fee scale.

Two members of the team from Tuesday came back out today and we developed a plan for Isabella.  The process totally feels like the IEP process but for babies and toddlers!  Thank goodness I had been on the other side of the table before because had I not, even though they talked us through everything, seeing it through J.T.s eyes showed me just how intimidating this process can be.

So her goals currently revolve around increasing her attention span so she begin to acquire and then use more language, and then of course to begin to express wants/needs using gestures and label basic objects using words.  A speech language pathologist will also come out later this month to do a more in depth evaluation.  The plan lasts for 6 months and they provided some great suggestions for me to incorporate right now.

I am not SUPER concerned that there is a huge issue at hand, rather I just want to ensure I am doing everything I can to ensure Isabella can express herself.  Having worked with so many children the inability to effectively say what you want or need can be so frustrating and I was out of tricks so am super glad to have some more resources.