Tuesday, September 16, 2008

What Do Therapies Look Like Pt. 3

Sophie's first IFSP with Early Intervention (for her therapies) was last October, (the 6 month was in April) so were due for another in the next couple of weeks. In my mind IFSP stands for I Feel Sophie's Perfect.

To prepare for this meeting her therapists have been testing her, which means working her hard, scoring her based on how she performed, and asking me lots of questions. Questions like, "does Sophie respond to her name?" Yes, just not when you're here. "What words does she say?" Her favorite is Baby, but she'll wait till you pull out of the driveway to say it. "Does Sophie look between you and Mark when you're having a conversation?" I don't honestly know, but you should see her tackle long division.

As Sophie has a diagnosis of Ds, she does not need a 30% delay to qualify for services, but we get to see how she scores anyway. I know it's a good thing to know where we are with her speech, gross and fine motor, and cognitive abilities, and to come up with goals for the next 6 months, but dang it is not fun. Our new plan is to increase her DT to twice a month which means weekly ST, every other week PT and once monthly OT.

"What are your concerns right now?" You mean in what glaring ways has she already slipped behind in her development? Ds effects every person in different ways. Sophie has peers who have lots of different health concerns, skills, and challenges. I know my daughter is a Rock Star in her own way, but it's times like these when we're forced to put her under a microscope that it can be hard.

Today I just want to shut the world out and eat ice cream by the bucket. (give me 9 months and I'll be begging for a good red whine). Then, like clockwork, a friend showed up when she didn't know I needed her with a pair of neon pink spandex HipHelpers for Soph that she ordered herself after learning EI still hasn't gotten around to it. The order with EI was placed in early July. We both blamed my tears on pregnancy hormones. HipHelpers will help keep Sophie from doing the splits while sitting/crawling/kneeling/and eventually standing. More on HipHelpers another time, but I'll just quote Paris and say, "they're HOT."

I'm off to do some damage to the chocolate chip ice cream. And now, more on therapy...

3 comments:

RK said...

Heck, I never knew EI would even do Hip Helpers, we've ordered them ourselves all the way along, size after size. And thanks for reminding me that we're in need of the next one.

She's doing great with her therapies. She is in such good hands. Tell Judy and Louise big Hi's from Braska.

Larkinsmom said...

IFSP - too. :) the way you think it.

JRS said...

rk-
It's been 3.5 months since we ordered them through EI and we still don't have her custom pair. I'll tell em Hi.

larkinsmom-
Thanks. Me too.