Oh boy it has been awhile since I wrote. Logan had his progress report for Pre-K and as I expected, he is "Not as Excepted" on most everything. While he has made MAJOR progress since going to Wauka Mountain, he still has several communication problems and we are learning more about his sensory processes issues. They informed me that he is doing better at circle time as long as he does not have to sit within the circle (a sensory issue). He still has bad days whenever anything is off schedule or routine. They said as far as his skills go, he needs more practice at home. Which we work with him every evening and on the weekends. So we decided to get him the V Motion gaming system from V Smile. Our friends has one and we watched him play a sorting game and a pattern making game. He did pretty good, but I could see where he was having problems. So maybe between that and us working with him at home, we can get him up to par with his classmates.
The good news is that he is being more social now with his classmates. They said if one of them falls, he will ask them if they are ok. He will also go up to one of his classmates and ask if they would like to play with him. If they do not answer him, he will say "Please play with me. I said please." However, the social comes with newer problems we haven't experienced before. Around strangers Logan used to be very quite and not speak to them at all. Now he will walk up to anyone and tap them on their leg to talk to them. We need to start teaching him some boundaries. It's hard, you try to remove some of their boundries they put up because of their disabilities and now I have to teach him to put one up.
I am still trying to find an answer to get him to sleep more at night. He is almost 5 and he will only sleep 8 hrs a night. Then he falls asleep at school while they are reading stories. When he wakes up in the morning, he is so wide awake it is hard to tell him to go back to bed. So we are working on that and teaching stranger danger.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The looks
My son does not have a physical disability. I have not had the experience that some Moms have had with looks that people will give a child that has a disability. Since he has a Speech & Language disability, it is very hard for people to tell unless they ask him questions. His biggest problem right now is answering "How are you?". He will answer with his name or his age. This weekend we went to see the Monster Trucks and an elderly lady asked him how he was doing. He answered with his name and she gave this look of confusion. She then looked at me and I told her that he has a Speech & Language disability. She then gave the look that I have seen so many people give children with physical disabilities. It is so frustrating to see that look. We moved on to our seats, but I was still frustrated over it.
Then I started to question myself and what we have been teaching Logan. I have been working with him a lot on answering the questions "Who are you?", "What is your name", and "How old are you?". We haven't completely started on "How are you?", but I can definitely see how he can get them confused. We are working more on answer how we are doing, but it seems to be harder for him to grasp than the other questions. One of his daycare teachers mentioned that she thought he might have a Cognitive Learning disability. The speech therapists and teachers at his current school said that they do see some signs of that, but not enough to call it that. However, they have started to notice that he is showing aggressive body language when he can not find the right words to say.
So now they are suggesting Occupational Therapy. I have found out from his doctor that this could help him and possibly even prevent ADD or ADHD which might happen if we do not teach him early how to deal with different stressful scenarios. I told them to teach me how to deal with the looks I am getting now when Logan can not speak to another person the way a normal 4 yr old can. She told me you get used to it after a while, because the look you will remember a year from now or 2 years from now is the look on his face when he answers a question properly. I agree, because I can see his face right now when he was telling us about the Monster Trucks the day after the show. He was so super excited and had so much fun! Now we will continue our work on "How on you?".
Then I started to question myself and what we have been teaching Logan. I have been working with him a lot on answering the questions "Who are you?", "What is your name", and "How old are you?". We haven't completely started on "How are you?", but I can definitely see how he can get them confused. We are working more on answer how we are doing, but it seems to be harder for him to grasp than the other questions. One of his daycare teachers mentioned that she thought he might have a Cognitive Learning disability. The speech therapists and teachers at his current school said that they do see some signs of that, but not enough to call it that. However, they have started to notice that he is showing aggressive body language when he can not find the right words to say.
So now they are suggesting Occupational Therapy. I have found out from his doctor that this could help him and possibly even prevent ADD or ADHD which might happen if we do not teach him early how to deal with different stressful scenarios. I told them to teach me how to deal with the looks I am getting now when Logan can not speak to another person the way a normal 4 yr old can. She told me you get used to it after a while, because the look you will remember a year from now or 2 years from now is the look on his face when he answers a question properly. I agree, because I can see his face right now when he was telling us about the Monster Trucks the day after the show. He was so super excited and had so much fun! Now we will continue our work on "How on you?".
Friday, October 17, 2008
Remembering
I am so super excited. For the first time Logan has remembered something that happened 6 months ago and spoke about it very well. He has mentioned our car accident before, but usually it is just "Mommy broke her car" and nothing more than that. This is not something he normal does. I ask him what he did a school today and he will tell me "I go school and afterschool I go see Dalton." We never get any further details.
So this morning we were headed to School and we stop at the end of our street. I am waiting for the cars to pass so I can turn left. Logan says "Careful Mommy. We got in accident, hurt Mommy's car. I hurt my finger. Mommy you cried. You sad." I said "That's correct Logan, we did get into an accident. " He then said "But everybody OK, Mommy got new car. No more accident." I then asked him if he tried to fix Mommy's car (which he kept telling us the day of the accident that he needed a screwdriver so he could fix Mommy's car). He said "No, screwdriver not fix car, car broken. We saw Firetruck." I told him he was correct and asked if he saw anything else. Then he told me to go to school and afterschool he goes to Grandma's (not part of the accident).
Normally when we ask questions about events, he repeats back what we say and does not go into any detail at all. This time he actually answered my questions!!!!!! I was soooooooo happy to have this conversation with him this morning. It was definitely a good step in the right direction.
So this morning we were headed to School and we stop at the end of our street. I am waiting for the cars to pass so I can turn left. Logan says "Careful Mommy. We got in accident, hurt Mommy's car. I hurt my finger. Mommy you cried. You sad." I said "That's correct Logan, we did get into an accident. " He then said "But everybody OK, Mommy got new car. No more accident." I then asked him if he tried to fix Mommy's car (which he kept telling us the day of the accident that he needed a screwdriver so he could fix Mommy's car). He said "No, screwdriver not fix car, car broken. We saw Firetruck." I told him he was correct and asked if he saw anything else. Then he told me to go to school and afterschool he goes to Grandma's (not part of the accident).
Normally when we ask questions about events, he repeats back what we say and does not go into any detail at all. This time he actually answered my questions!!!!!! I was soooooooo happy to have this conversation with him this morning. It was definitely a good step in the right direction.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
How we got here
Sorry, this is a long one.
Logan was born a month early due to minor pregnancy complications. I wasn't feeling him move, so called up the doctor and he took a look. Next thing I know we are being admitted to the hospital for observation. They told me to rest. Well anyone who has been in the hospital for observation knows that you do not rest. They constantly come in and take down more information. So I was ready to go home and then the doc told me that Logan had to be born that day. So we opted for a C-section since I wasn't in labor at all.
Our beautiful son arrived healthy and crying. He was a good baby for a while. Then became really fussy and we discovered it was the formula (sorry he never would take mother's milk). So we switch and things calmed down again. Until he was 2 months old. He began to get ear infections. The Pediatricians asked if he was around smoke, had too much water in the bath and so forth. None of which we were doing, so it was unknown as to why he kept getting so many ear infections. We were going to the doctors every single month for another round of infections.
At 9 months we moved to North Georgia and hoped that a climate change would help some. Nope, still had ear infections. Pediatrician's here tried different medicines, tubes, making sure he doesn't drink milk and immediately go to sleep (didn't quite understand that one). We were talking to another parent about it and she told us the craziest thing...Call the Chiropractor. I did some research and it sounded like it might work. So we made an appointment. By this time, Logan was 2 years old and still getting infections. I was tired of giving him medicine and was also concerned about all that medicine in his little body.
The Chiropractor told us that babies born by C-section sometimes get pinched nerves in their necks or upper back from being pulled. So they layed out a plan to get him healthy and to the point where he no longer needed to see the Chiropractor (that was a plus!). The first week was scary and horrible. They warned us, but I never thought it would have been like that. Not to gross you out, but after the second adjustment his nasal and ear passages started draining like crazy. Two weeks into the treatment, Logan would go in and knew exactly what to do and where to go. He walked around like he owned that office. Two months later and no more ear infections, I was ready to do a dance! Logan still liked going and never complained about the adjustments.
Now it has been 2 years and he has not had another ear infection. About 13 months ago, we stopped seeing the Chiropractor. I still worry when he spikes a fever or gets a little sniffle, but he has been doing so well. According to the Speech Therapist, the time when toddlers really learn to vocalize and mimic words, was the time when Logan was going through ear infections. Since ear infections muffle the sound, he was not getting the full effect that other kids get. So now we work with him on using his words.
Logan was born a month early due to minor pregnancy complications. I wasn't feeling him move, so called up the doctor and he took a look. Next thing I know we are being admitted to the hospital for observation. They told me to rest. Well anyone who has been in the hospital for observation knows that you do not rest. They constantly come in and take down more information. So I was ready to go home and then the doc told me that Logan had to be born that day. So we opted for a C-section since I wasn't in labor at all.
Our beautiful son arrived healthy and crying. He was a good baby for a while. Then became really fussy and we discovered it was the formula (sorry he never would take mother's milk). So we switch and things calmed down again. Until he was 2 months old. He began to get ear infections. The Pediatricians asked if he was around smoke, had too much water in the bath and so forth. None of which we were doing, so it was unknown as to why he kept getting so many ear infections. We were going to the doctors every single month for another round of infections.
At 9 months we moved to North Georgia and hoped that a climate change would help some. Nope, still had ear infections. Pediatrician's here tried different medicines, tubes, making sure he doesn't drink milk and immediately go to sleep (didn't quite understand that one). We were talking to another parent about it and she told us the craziest thing...Call the Chiropractor. I did some research and it sounded like it might work. So we made an appointment. By this time, Logan was 2 years old and still getting infections. I was tired of giving him medicine and was also concerned about all that medicine in his little body.
The Chiropractor told us that babies born by C-section sometimes get pinched nerves in their necks or upper back from being pulled. So they layed out a plan to get him healthy and to the point where he no longer needed to see the Chiropractor (that was a plus!). The first week was scary and horrible. They warned us, but I never thought it would have been like that. Not to gross you out, but after the second adjustment his nasal and ear passages started draining like crazy. Two weeks into the treatment, Logan would go in and knew exactly what to do and where to go. He walked around like he owned that office. Two months later and no more ear infections, I was ready to do a dance! Logan still liked going and never complained about the adjustments.
Now it has been 2 years and he has not had another ear infection. About 13 months ago, we stopped seeing the Chiropractor. I still worry when he spikes a fever or gets a little sniffle, but he has been doing so well. According to the Speech Therapist, the time when toddlers really learn to vocalize and mimic words, was the time when Logan was going through ear infections. Since ear infections muffle the sound, he was not getting the full effect that other kids get. So now we work with him on using his words.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Where we are
I have a wonderful son that can brighten your day with his smile and laughter. He has so much energy that it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. He also has a speech problem and he tries his hardest to not let it get in the way of having fun. When I would hear other moms speak about speech problems that their child was having, it was more about the way they pronounced their words or that they couldn't speak at all. I kept an eye on the developmental skill charts and he was keeping up with them. So I never even thought that my son had a speech problem until he was 3 yrs old.
We started noticing that kids 6 months older than him could carry on a conversation and make up stories. Logan could talk and he would carry very short conversations with us, but nothing like the other children could. He was also beginning to "parrot" questions that we would ask or sentences we would say. So I called a Speech Therapy center to see about getting him tested. I had heard speech lessons could become very costly, so I was surprised to hear that our local school system could ask for the test to be performed and could provide speech therapy for free. Through speaking with Logan's daycare director, I found out that many Mom's are unaware that the school system can help their kids before they are of school age.
In fact, that is the very reason I decided to start blogging about Logan's speech therapy and progress. It is such an unknown area for us and we have been working with him for a year now. He has made good progress, but since he had a delay in his language skills he is having problems in Pre-K. I am very smart about most things IT, but I am not very knowledgable about what available resources there are for Speech Therapy. There is so much on the internet and we are taking everything in as much as we can, but all the information can be overwhelming and not all speech sites apply to him or his needs. So my way of figuring things out will be through this blog. They always say keeping a journal can help you more than you know, and I've heard the same is true about blogging.
We started noticing that kids 6 months older than him could carry on a conversation and make up stories. Logan could talk and he would carry very short conversations with us, but nothing like the other children could. He was also beginning to "parrot" questions that we would ask or sentences we would say. So I called a Speech Therapy center to see about getting him tested. I had heard speech lessons could become very costly, so I was surprised to hear that our local school system could ask for the test to be performed and could provide speech therapy for free. Through speaking with Logan's daycare director, I found out that many Mom's are unaware that the school system can help their kids before they are of school age.
In fact, that is the very reason I decided to start blogging about Logan's speech therapy and progress. It is such an unknown area for us and we have been working with him for a year now. He has made good progress, but since he had a delay in his language skills he is having problems in Pre-K. I am very smart about most things IT, but I am not very knowledgable about what available resources there are for Speech Therapy. There is so much on the internet and we are taking everything in as much as we can, but all the information can be overwhelming and not all speech sites apply to him or his needs. So my way of figuring things out will be through this blog. They always say keeping a journal can help you more than you know, and I've heard the same is true about blogging.
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