We are finally plugged into a speech therapy program again. We're working with an Early Intervention Program called, Early Steps. The paperwork and processing time that went into getting us into the system was rather extensive. Between the holidays and vacation schedules, we just couldn't pull it together in December but now that we're into the new year, it has all come together. It's a much more complicated process to get set up with therapy here, rather than in Spain where there was one option, and our therapy was immediately started upon request. This time around, we had to choice a therapist based on what our expectations are for his speech and/or signing and then be matched up with a therapist that shared our vision and had the background to support it. Does that make any sense? Well, there are two main sources to pull therapist from. One from the Deaf and Blind School (DBS) who would encourage and teach signing with speech OR one from Clark, an auditory/oral-only school, where they won't use or teach any signs to hard of hearing kids in order to strengthen oral speech.
It was hard to decided what to do because Isaac is doing so well with using his signs to communicate with us. He catches right on with new signs and appropriately uses all of the ones we know at this point. However, his hearing loss is at a level that, by wearing his aides regularly, we anticipate that he'll be able to hear and speak as normally as the rest of us. We want him to learn all the necessary speech skills while he's young and starting to build his vocabulary. Patricia, from Chatterbox Therapy, is our new speech therapist. I really think she'll be very good at working with Isaac and keeping him motivated to play and speak with her. She's an independent therapist who is not opposed to us signing with Isaac but she doesn't sign with him at all. She worked at the Clark school for many years prior to starting her own private therapy. She keeps his attention toward her and gets him to really focus on listening and following directions or mimicking. My first impressions are good so far. I pray that we chose the right path...only time will tell.
