Winter Storms, IFSPs, & developmental focus

We are in the middle of another Winter Storm. Depending on the weather forecast you pay attention to it is all over the place in terms of severity. It looks as though we will get 4-8inches. We finally got rid of the Christmas snow just yesterday. We saw the green grass for the first time in a long time, but now it is covered in white again. Elias spent sometime this morning watching the snow. He was standing at the backdoor in our kitchen just looking out curiously. As he made his laps around the main floor, he would stop and look out with each pass. It was very cute and interesting to watch. Speaking of cute & Interesting, have you seen the video of Elias walking backwards yet?

We finally were able to hold Elias IFSP meeting to set goals and strategies for the final 15 weeks before he ages out of the early intervention program. The meeting was suppose to have been 3 weeks ago, but illness and inflexibility from the providers left us in quite a lurch. Even the final make-up meeting was only going to have the coordinator and one therapist there. That one therapist at the last minute called to inform the coordinator something had come up and she was unable to come. I am going to stop there to prevent a raging rant from occurring. Just in case you can’t pick up the tone in the writing, Katharine and I are less than thrill with what has transpired the past few weeks. Our plan is set, but we have yet to confer with the therapist on if they are on board. One thing we are adding this period is a Developmental Interventionist. This type of therapy is a broad base cover all points of development. Unfortunately we are only going to be able to have four, maybe five sessions between now and may 1st. We did this by a request from Elias developmental pediatrician. She also is calling for an intensive level evaluation for program development. We added this into the plan to be processed for approval.

So over the next 15 weeks Elias is going to be receiving the following therapies – Physical, Occupational, Speech, developmental intervention, and Assistive Technology. We will also be continuing the Aural Rehab Therapy and the consultative Occupational & Speech Therapy for his total communication recommendations. We also have to have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) developed for him by May 1, his third birthday. The next few months are really going to need to be focused for Elias. There is many decisions that we will need to make, some of which will be manipulated by Elias’ performance and decisions his providers (doctors, therapist, etc) will need to provide us with along with the information to help us best decide these items. We are fairly certain that Elias is not going to be allowed to go to school because of his tenuous airway. Pulmonary has made that abundantly clear and with good reason. In this scenario, school will come to him in various ways. Wish us luck as we embark on this phase of our journey. Lots of thoughts and prayers for clear vision to help him have the best possible future.