Thursday, January 31, 2013

Cloud 9

The past few days I've been on cloud 9 with all the progress Melanie has been making.  today we had a home visit. I was informed that Melanie is having behavioral issues again. She's having a hard to sharing and is throwing temper tantrums again. She's having a difficulty time doing what she has to do "first" and getting what she wants "then." This is concerning because she has a hard time transitioning. Melanie also loves to be a leader and not a follower. She likes to tell the kids what to do. She can be a little bossy. Mrs Liz is concerned that the public schools will not have the resources to help Melanie. We plan to mainstream her but in the regular class there might be up to 20 children. The teacher might not be able to give Melanie the attention she needs. I'm worried that Melanie might hit a kid when she doesn't get her way. Some schools are starting to have a policy that if the child hits, the child will get suspended. I'm not sure if she will be protected by her IEP. The other option would be for her to go to special Ed and academically that would not benefit Melanie. I know I shouldn't stress about this because we still have a few months before public school starts but I can't help it. The plan from now until school starts is to work on a behavioral plan. I hope we figure one out for Melanie soon.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

4 year old evaluations

I took Melanie for her 4 year old check up. At the doctors office I filled out a form that was checking to see where she's at developementaly.  To the doctors surprise Melanie is developing like a  four year old. Yeah!!! Early intervention really works.

Melanie started seeing a new speech therapist her name is Stacy. With the help of Curtis, they have been doing some evaluations. Melanie is doing so good with her speech. She's right on target with her age group. She still has difficulties with articulation and social conversation.Hopefully we can get her involved in social groups, that should help her a lot. The speech path also noticed something different. She thinks Melanie might have posterior tongue tie. If she does have that. Then that would explain her articulation problems. I need to research this a little more and take her to see the specialist. I want a second opinion. I mentioned this to Amanda her ST from Parkview. She used a strawberry flavored tongue depresser to look at her tongue. She did agree that Melanie could not move her tongue side to side and up to her palate. Melanie also has a difficult time sticking her tongue out. It all makes sense now. Melanie likes to eat ice cream with a spoon. She never licks lollipops. She has trouble with the L's and TH's, there's more letters.  Hopefully soon I can get her to see the specialist. I'm hoping that speech therapy will help her and that we can avoid surgery.

On Friday the 25th. Adam took Melanie for her Autism evaluation. He said it lasted about 45 minutes. He answered questions while the psychologist observed Melanie. On Monday the 28th. We took her back for the second part. When the test started the psychologist Jennifer Morris was so impressed with how well Melanie was doing. For a moment there, she said that Melanie looked more as if she has ADD instead of ASD. To us that was a huge success. Thank you early intervention.  We did have to take a few breaks because Melanie was getting tired and irritated. She completed the test in about 2 1/2 hours. During the testing, Melanie surprised us because she knew a lot more than what we thought. Cognitively wise she has come a long way. Her greatest strength were numbers. She's great at counting. She also did great at pretend play. We are so proud of her. I can't believe how much she has improved. Thank you God and therapist, the hard work is paying off.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Updates

Everyday she impresses me more and more. This summer we took her to Disneyland and she did amazing. She was able to leave the Disney stores without difficulty. She participated in two shows. Thanks to her imitation skills she was able to imitate the other children and blend right in. We also took her to the beach which she loved. We took her to a restaurant in El Centro, where we had lunch with some of my high school friends. Melanie did so good. She was able to entertain herself with the iPad. My friends were so impressed on how well behaved she was. Yeah!!!

In August all of her friends graduated from Early Foundations. That was very difficult for her because she did not understand why they were not coming back in August. She misses her friends so much especially Emma and Cherish. The first couple of months back to school was hard for her. Every time she would go to class she would ask for her friends. Melanie began to say that they were sick and that's why they weren't there.  She's now adjusted and has made new friends but she still mentions her other friends and always wants to go see them.

Going to the stores has gotten easier. Of course she wants everything but she doesn't throw tantrums like before. If she wants something we say that we will get it for her bday or Xmas and she's perfectly fine with it. There are times where she doesn't fall for that so at the check out we have her choose between a toy or chocolate.  She always goes for the chocolate which is marvelous since its way cheaper.

In September she celebrated her 4th birthday. She did not want to be 4. Every time you would mention that's she's going to be 4, she would get so mad. She had a princess party. We had Ariel as a special guest. Melanie was excited to see her but she did not want to participate in the funny hat song. She would run to her room and cry. The other little girl who is typical did not understand but she did not say a thing and continued to play. Eventually when the song was over Melanie joined in and the party was a success.

We had no problems during thanksgiving and xmas. Melanie enjoys spending time with family. The bad part is that she hates taking picture. We did manage to get a few good ones. When she's in the mood for pictures she loves to make silly faces. She gets that from papa and her dad.