Ready, Jett, Go!

I talked to Jett’s SLP  last week about having him come in by himself for his next therapy session. I was truly expecting a ruckus when we decided to go for it on Tuesday, but he went all by himself, just fine. It was so bittersweet to watch him walking down the hall with her, hand in hand, like a big boy – no screaming or fighting. I had to hold back the tears.

She said he did pretty well, although he had a few outbursts, mainly because he didn’t want to stay in his chair. At his second weekly session, he was a little more resistant to go, but he eventually did so without a big fuss. She said it started out really rough – he was really not interested in Mr. Potato Head – but he eventually calmed and did well for the rest of the session. He said several words, including “more” with the accompanying sign. He usually brings that one out when she blows bubbles at the end of therapy. He loves bubbles.

It looks like we’re planning to stick with the solo therapy, which has its ups and downs. On the up side, he seems to be doing well with it, and it gives me a short half-hour break to read a magazine in the waiting area. However, I’m a little sad about possibly missing some of those great moments, when he says new words or does a new sign. It was rough sometimes, getting him to cooperate during the session, but I really enjoyed watching him learn, and of course, as a mom, it’s always a little hard to see your child off, in a way. It’s bittersweet.

Jett had a brief screening with ChildFind today. For the uninitiated, ChildFind is a program that works through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. They screened his development in five areas: physical, adaptive, social-emotional, cognitive, and communication. Jett scored average in physical and adaptive behavior, below average in social-emotional and cognitive, and delayed in communication, thus qualifying him for further evaluation at a later date. A preschool special education teacher will call us to schedule a “natural setting observation”, which means they’ll come to our home to evaluate him in his natural environment, and he’ll also have some further, more in-depth evaluations at another support center.

The results of the screening were about what I expected – no surprises there. I’m glad to finally have an in-home evaluation coming up. I’ve been hoping we could have him observed here at home. His behavior here at home is so different compared to his public behavior.

His speech seems to be improving already since speech therapy started. He’s picked up several new words, and he’s getting better at expressing a want or need without getting seriously frustrated. He still has some trouble putting two words together in a sentence without mumbling a lot. He’ll say “I want juice”, but it sounds like “uhnn juice”. That’s probably one of the clearer two-word sentences he says. Usually, the first part sounds like complete jibberish. I’ve read about developmental apraxia of speech, and trouble making two-word sentences is one of the classic signs. We’ll find out more about that during future evaluations.

Things are progressing, and we’re seeing some results. Thanks for all of your continued support and prayers. 🙂

Jett’s speech-language pathologist (SLP) suggested adding an extra weekly session of therapy to his schedule, so we’ll be seeing her twice a week now, on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays. She wanted him to become more familiar with the therapy routine, so hopefully he’ll participate better. He gets very overstimulated when he’s in a new place with new people, and adding an extra day should better familiarize him with the environment.

He spent most of this past week’s session fixated on the bubbles that we played with last week, which I was afraid of. He was so distracted the whole time, asking for bubbles over and over again, that he didn’t want to pay much attention to anything else. He still did alright, considering he’d had a couple rough weeks in the past.

We have another evaluation next week with another organization – one that works through the public school system. I’m sure I’ll have more updates after that eval. I’m a little nervous about the possible outcomes, and I’m starting to get overwhelmed by all of these different organizations and appointments. I’m taking it one day at a time, just trying to keep up. Just keep swimming!

I meant to post on his birthday, but the time sort of got away from me. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Jett!

Newborn Jett

First Birthday

Second Birthday

Recently, with baby brother Dax and myself

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

Jett has speech therapy every Wednesday. He had his first session a few weeks ago, and I’m sure it could’ve been worse, but it wasn’t great. He really didn’t like staying seated at all. He wanted to run around and play with everything, and he kept having little outbursts every time he didn’t want to do cooperate.

This week was much better. The pathologist suggested letting him sit on my lap instead of in the chair, and she said that rubbing his legs and/or holding him really tight might help give him some of the sensory input that he could be desiring (we’re still waiting for our occupational therapy evaluation to find out more about possible sensory issues, so, more on that down the road). He really seemed to participate better when he was on my lap, and he even made his first sign – the word “more”! I was so excited, I almost cried. It was so nice to see some little improvements, even if it was only the second official session, and they were small steps.

The pathologist suggested possibly starting a second day of therpay every week, or maybe a full hour instead of a half hour. Hopefully, this will help him become more comfortable with the surroundings and the pathologist, and maybe we’ll see more improvement as a result.

Thanks for the continued support and prayers!

This is a difficult subject for me to approach right now. Our son, Jett, is in the process of several evaluations and therapies, with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder on the table. Having grown up with a special needs sibling, I am especially aware of those struggles that a parent faces when they have a special needs child. Honestly, it terrifies me.

We know that Jett has speech delays. We started speech therapy last week, and we’re hoping to see some improvement pretty soon. However, during his speech evaluation, the speech pathologist pointed out something that we hadn’t quite picked up on. She noticed that he went up on his toes a lot, and tensed up his arms when he got excited – signs of overstimulation. She recommended an occupation therapy (OT) evaluation, believing that he may also have a sensory processing disorder (SPD).

During his first speech therapy session, she noticed a few other things as well: he takes object and spins them instead of playing with them normally, he lines up like objects in rows, his eye contact is extremely limited, and when he gets frustrated, he bites his fingers – behaviors that could be signs of an autism spectrum disorder. I had picked up on a few of these, and I planned to bring them up at our OT evaluation, hoping that maybe it wasn’t indicitive of any further issues and we wouldn’t need OT. I also kept hoping that the speech therapy will help his speech, and he’ll grow up to be a normal, neuro-typical boy with age-appropriate speech and developmental skills.

She (our speech therapist) brought up developmental pediatricians after noticing these behaviors. That’s when I really started to worry. I thought this is real. He could have something more serious. How am I going to give him the special care he needs? I’m not strong enough to parent a special needs child.

It keeps hitting me in bursts. I’ll start thinking about it, and the word “autism” pops in my head, and I just start crying. My greatest fears are that A) I somehow failed as a parent already, and I caused this, and B) I’m not a good enough parent to handle this – if I haven’t failed already, I’m going to.

We don’t have a definitive diagnoses yet (other than speech delays), but I’m calling tomorrow to schedule an evaluation with the developmental ped. Our OT evaluation isn’t until May 26, and we probably won’t see the developmental ped until after that, even. We’re hoping for some answers then. The wait will probably drag, but at least I know we’re getting the ball rolling.

Right now, I’m reading The Out-Of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder. We don’t have a formal diagnosis of SPD, but several people have recommended the book, and we’re fairly certain he has some sensory issues. I’m hoping to find some helpful information there.

Thanks for reading. I know this wasn’t exactly a coherent collection of thoughts as much as a splatter of emotions and run-on sentences. I’m hoping it gets better from here. 🙂

Thanks for checking out my new blog! I’m new to WordPress, so please be patient while I figure this out.

Upon finding out that my son, Jett, has speech delays and possibly some sensory disorders, I experienced a myriad of emotions, ranging from sadness to guilt, and even anger. These feelings keep creeping up on me in little bursts and I’d suddenly start crying, seemingly out of nowhere. I thought I was doing so well as a parent, and then I found myself lost in a sea of evaluations, developmental pediatricians, waiting lists, and speech therapy.

I decided that an outlet for these emotions would be a very healthy thing for me right now, and a public blog could open up a wealth of opportunity for support, information, and, of course, I’d be journaling my thoughts instead of bottling them up. I’m still processing a lot of these feelings and emotions, so my posts won’t always make sense, but it’s part of the process.

I’ll continue to share more about my son and his therapies in the future, but for now, I must get some sleep. Thanks for stopping by!