Therapy Sessions

Monday Connor and I went to his combined Physical and Speech Therapy session. We love Laura, his PT, and Julie, his ST-- they are awesome! Connor and I were sporting his new groovy FM system, which was much admired. After I told them about my grocery store newscaster fantasies, Julie told me it makes me look like a "diabetic spy"-- which, after looking at pictures of blood glucose monitors, makes perfect sense. Here's Connor's FM system:

And here's a blood glucose monitor:

So now apparently I look like I do undercover work for the ADA. I just need a trench coat and a fedora.

At any rate, Connor had a great PT and ST session. He is starting to recognize pictures as representations of objects, which is a huge step for him. Once he understands that pictures on cards can be symbols for things he wants, we can begin using a picture communication system for him-- possibly a modified version of PECS. He's already making choices between two pictures. He also did a great job standing up to play. We won't see Julie and Laura again until after Christmas as we'll be leaving for Texas soon-- it's crazy to think that our trip is that close!

When we come back from our vacation, Julie and Laura will begin administering the Bayley Scale of Infant Development to Connor so that we'll have that data for when he starts school in April. I'm glad that they will be giving the test to Connor so we'll have an additional set of data other than what the school's assessment will show. This is because Connor refuses to cooperate with developmental exams given by people he doesn't know. Connor reacts to strangers giving him developmental assessments like they are terrorists trying to get him to give up government secrets. In his case, name, rank and serial number are all represented by the sign "no," and that is the only thing the therapist will see him do during our two hour time together.

Therapist: Connor, can you see this ring?

Connor: No.

Therapist: Let's touch the ring. Can you touch this ring?

Connor: No.

What color is this ring?

Connor: No.

And that's if Connor's in a good mood. If he's in a bad mood, he'll stare at a fixed point about three feet to the left of the therapist and pretend she doesn't exist. If she tries to move into his line of sight, he'll look in the other direction. He was in a bad mood at his last assessment, and they placed his cognitive level at three months.

For the most part, I could care less about what the developmental tests say. Anybody who spends ten minutes with Connor in a setting he's comfortable with knows that he's got a cognitive level way above three months. If anything, it's nice that they assess him that way because then we are certain we can get all the services he needs without a fuss. The problem with this being the only assessment the school sees, however, is that we want Connor to split his time between the developmental preschool and the Deaf/HoH preschool, and if he's assessed too low, than there's a chance they won't let him attend the Deaf preschool. So we'd really like to have some data that shows he will benefit from being in a school with Deaf peers who are not developmentally delayed.

~Jess