Posts Tagged ‘Early Intervention’
The Therapists Who Take Care of Us
I have always been the caregiver. When I was little, it was for my younger sister. When I met my husband, it was for him, and still is. When we got pregnant with mason, it just came naturally. I went to every doctors appointment, took my prenatal vitamins, tried to eat healthy. I continued to work out and took care of myself, for my buddy that was growing bigger by the day. When he was born, he was perfect. The first time I saw him he looked exactly how I…
Read MoreJust Try Sweet Boy
I have this memory burned in my brain. And if you follow me I speak of it often. I was a first time mom. My son was 2 years old and Early Intervention was sitting in my living room. Red flags had been identified as they say. The nice woman had a booklet…it had to be a 100 pages long. Her job was to figure out what my son couldn’t do. Question after question. Always, often, sometimes, never, unknown. Bubbles filled in as we went along. It was awkward and…
Read MoreTo the Women who Heard Me
“He qualifies for the full day program.” It was like being smacked with a brick. How on earth could I put my little boy, who said nothing, into the care of complete strangers and trust that he will be taken care of the way I take care of him. When my son was 2 years and 8 months old he went to a preschool screening and I was faced with another harsh reality, that he was still so behind. He qualified for all day preschool and would be starting there…
Read MoreHonoring our Therapists
I would like to honor the amazing therapists at Accelerate Early Intervention. They listened to me when no one else did. They believed in my sons abilities and they nurtured and cared for both of us like family for three years. I stumbled into their small facility teary eyed and scared when my son was around 20 months. Owen began therapy with them at age 2 and spent 10-15 hrs a week with them for 3 years. They became an extended family. They never gave up on Owen and were…
Read MoreYou are More Than Just Teachers; You are Family
When I was 18 weeks pregnant with my oldest child I started researching daycare centers. I visited a few and while they were all beautiful, in new buildings with state of the art facilities and big corporate names attached, I always felt like I was being sold something, and not like they genuinely cared about being with my child for so many hours each week. Then I visited Little Hands Academy (LHA), which didn’t even come up on my GPS as I was trying to visit it for the first…
Read MoreI’m Thankful For You: My Son’s ABA Therapist
(Editor’s Note: This article was provided by Joann and is part of Cooper’s, ‘I’m Thankful For You’ Campaign.) This November I would like to honor and thank my son’s ABA Therapist, Ronnie. My name is Joann and my husband Jeff and I have two sons. Dylan is nine and Christian is three. Christian was diagnosed with Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Expressive Receptive-Language Disorder in March. He was also nonverbal. Christian developed typically until 18 months and that’s when we noticed he stopped babbling. All of the words he had were…
Read MoreI Can't Run or Hide From This
I am having a scared day. I am so freaking scared that I want to crawl under my desk and cry. In the fetal position. I can’t take this worry anymore. I made the appointment with the developmental pediatrician. CHECK. Being ok with the 8 month waiting list. CHECK. I spoke with the early childhood screening woman and found out that because Cooper was part of the Help Me Grow program (early intervention) he can’t be screened until he is 3 years 6 months. And they don’t do screenings in…
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