Life as we now know it...

My daughter had her first eval yesterday for her IEP. It was an educational assessment, done in a tiny room and it bothered me. Her IEP is going to be late and the pressure is really on right now. Caitlyn turns 3 Dec 20th and this whole process is upsetting me more and more.

After finding out that she will have to have a delay of approax 8 months to qualify for anything I got angry. Why would the county want her to regress? Why not keep providing services so she doesn't fall behind?

During this eval Cait did very well. At one point the administrator stopped asking her questions because they were in the 6 yr old range. Obviously my daughter is doing very well but I heard all the questions and honestly it is typical stuff that any 3 yr old should know.

My question is - How relevant are these tests? I know my little girl is smart but in no way has the intellect of a 6 yr old.

Hearing loss is hard because she really is "normal" when placed in programs that mainly deal with autistic children. This battle is not fun and I have a feeling it is only going to get worse.

Through this I am trying to keep a positive attitude but it is frustrating. Why don't they see this as a real disability? I can see that she has a hard time in noisy situations, a few problems with her articulation and even becomes shy in new environments becuase she doesn't always hear what is going on and knows that there is someething a little different about her.

Thanks for letting me vent. I am lost.

Caitlyn had her audiology appointment yesterday. She has one every 3 - 4 months. Thankfully, they started opening them up to Saturdays cause we are typically there 2 hours. We have been going to CHOP since Cait was a baby and that is where they first diagnoised her. They knew something wasn't right before we left the hospital but we didn't officially know till we went to CHOP. It has been a long and sometimes difficult road. Appointment after appointment. She has her audiology appointments every 3 months but has to go in for new ear molds every other month or so. What can I say -- the kids ears grow fast!

So, she did very well at this appointment. It was the first time she didn't have a tantrum or freak out with all the crap that they do. Her therapist has been working with her on Conditioned Response to prepare her for these appointments. Here is the definition of what we went through: Conditioned Play Audiometry (CPA): Generally completed with children approximately 2.5 to 5 years of age. The child is trained to perform a play activity each time a sound is heard. Activities might include putting a block in a bucket, placing a peg in a pegboard, etc. Using this technique, thresholds can be reliably measured for tones of various frequencies. Speech thresholds are typically obtained by having the child identify pictures or repeat words.

Cait did extrememly well with this. She did start to get bored after a little while so her Audiologist kept trying to make it interesting. If you need a good person for your kid Sarah is the best.

Her therapist wasn't able to make it to the appointment but that isn't a big deal. Miss Caity Cait is doing just fine with everything so I am not worried. We did find out that one of her hearing aids isn't producing enough gain so it needs to be sent back. This means she will only have 1 hearing aid till it gets fixed. Oh we are also starting the paperwork to get Cait an FM Receiver. The FM will help when she is on the playground or during story time. I personally don't think that the teachers are ready to use it at her school so that will come at a later time -- once we finally get the damn thing.

I ordered Cait some new Ear Gear tonight: http://gearforears.com got her the pink/purple flowers. She already has the orange/red ones. These are for soccer.

I mentioned that I will be a soccer mom in the previous post. She starts March 22nd and goes every Saturday. This gives us a month to start her skills! I am positive she will have a great time running around the field and kicking balls. Well, she kicks her dad in the balls all the time and loves it so this should follow suit.