Friday, June 5, 2009

Early Intervention


Because of Ellie's prematurity and some concerns I have had about her communication skills, I contacted TEIS (our early intervention program) and we scheduled an intake to see if she qualified for services. HA! The joke was on me, I suppose.

Apparently, in order to qualify, one has to be 25% deficient in 2 or more areas or 40% deficient in one area.

There was a base number in six (or seven??) categories that she would have to score below in order to qualify. She scored higher in all categories.

She was borderline, however in communication and motor skills. I was really surprised at the motor skills, however, since it includes walking and she's not doing that on her own yet, it made sense. Apparently, if we are still at the same place developmentally in those two areas in four months, then she will qualify. My concerns were primarily the fact that she's not saying enough words for her age. Granted, she was a preemie and I should look at her developmental age and not her chronological age, however, at this point the words we feel she understands and uses correctly are: daddy, bubba (sometimes), kickee (kitty), goggy (doggy -- an only a few times), mama is RARE and we are not sure she uses it to relate to me and yeah. She has just begun to shake her head no on occasion. And that's all. Nothing else. I'm certain Josh was further along in his talking skills by this point. I could be wrong, I guess. However, because she is so high functioning in her ability to understand us and what we are saying to her, she scored high.

The funniest part of the whole day was the section on PERSONALITY. It should come as no surprise to those who know her that Ellie did very well in the personality category. In fact, the coordinator was concerned that her office would think she didn't administer this section of the test correctly. In order to qualify for services, her score would have to be below 8. Ellie was a 17. She tested at the age level of a 3-4 year old in the personality section. We are certainly in trouble when she gets a little older, huh?

So, now we wait and give her a few more months to develop those skills that she is border line on. The TEIS office will send us some literature on how to help her develop her communication skills. We are working hard at allowing Ellie to walk more and not carry her so much. I jokingly said I was going to make her a t-shirt that says, "My mama says DO NOT pick me up, I have to learn to walk." *smile* We are going to try to read more to her, point out pictures of things and tell her the words frequently, do more stacking games and have her try to develop her communication more by trying to encourage her to ask for things instead of just offering her things before she wants them (ie, food and drink and toys). Hopefully we'll see a big difference in the next few months now that we are more aware of some of the areas where she is lagging behind a little.

We were pleased to find that she is doing so very well developmentally given her less than ideal beginnings and based on the information we were presented with during her records review by Dr. A., who indicated prematurity was often a cause of developmental delays. We are hopeful, however, if she does shows signs of any delays we will be able to get on those very early and help her catch up before they become an issue and before she starts school. So far, though, she seems to be doing well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With that much personality the silence right now will be a very distant memory soon!