Intervention
Parenting a NICU graduate can be scary. A child who begins life in the NICU by definition had something wrong at birth. Sometimes the abnormality is life-long. Sometimes the abnormality disappears during the NICU stay. Sometimes the abnormality is undetectable at birth, and only becomes evident when the parent notices that his 3-year-old communicates mostly by screaming.
Parenting a 3-year-old who communicates mostly by screaming can be scary. Every mangled sound emanating from her mouth is a reminder of her speech delay, and that her speech is falling farther behind.
Parenting a pair of NICU graduates in the shadow of a 3-year-old who communicates mostly by screaming can be pants-filling scary. After spending months fretting over Abbie’s speech, wondering if I could’ve done anything differently when she was younger to help her catch up, I get to put my fretting into action with the boys and their speech delay.
The boys’ NICU stay was as uneventful as possible; they only needed a little help breathing and eating until all their plumbing matured. Still, there’s this little voice that occasionally pops up, worrying that their prematurity will manifest itself as they age in a developmental delay. If I correct the mistakes I made with Abbie, I could encourage their mental growth in spite of any hurdles that probably don’t exist. With proper attention I could have them speaking, potty-trained, and ready for preschool by age 3, something I obviously missed out on with Abbie.
Determining the mistakes I made with Abbie is the tricky part. Maybe I listened to the radio too much around Abbie, limiting her exposure to speech. Maybe I should’ve sung more to Abbie. Maybe I should’ve exposed her to developmental experts soon to give her the earliest professional intervention possible.
Correcting mistakes those mistakes is even trickier. I’m not giving up the Cub games on the radio, heartbreak be damned. I barely have time to change everyone’s diapers, let alone sing to them. I could give them earlier access to developmental experts, though, especially when they work with the kids in the home, giving me time for essential activities with the other children like singing and diaper changes.
That was on my mind when I took the boys to their 18-month NICU follow-up visit. The developmental specialist noticed that their speech development was lagging. That delay could be related to their prematurity, the same genes that slowed Abbie’s speech, and/or head traumas resulting from Abbie shoving them to the ground several times every day. The developmental specialist asked if I wanted a referral to the same early intervention program that worked with Abbie, and I agreed.
They came to our home yesterday to evaluate the boys. They needed to assess all aspects of their development, but the boys’ ability to climb onto the countertops to snitch snacks quickly assured them that their motor skills were up to par. When they handed me the verbal questionnaire, I was certain they were hopelessly behind in speech, much like their sister was. As I moved down the list, I realized they’re speaking better than Abbie did at the same age. They have more words, more sounds, and are more likely to imitate actions. Their speech is still behind normal, but it’s not hopelessly behind. It’s more like depressingly delayed.
After seeing Tory had a ten-word repertoire with Ian’s slightly smaller, I was worried that they might not qualify for intervention; that’s borderline normal. They assured me that their prematurity alone was enough to qualify for intervention, no matter how many words they can speak, or how high a countertop they can climb.
Since they weren’t too far behind, we had a choice to make. We could obviously do no intervention, we could have bi-weekly meetings with a speech therapist, or we could drop back to monthly meetings and see how they did. I looked at my beautiful boys searching for a stepstool, listened to my lovely daughter whining unintelligibly, and chose maximum intervention. The more people work with them, the sooner they might master speech and tell me what they want. That could free me to do luxurious activities around the house, like leisurely listening to the radio.
Parenting a 3-year-old who communicates mostly by screaming can be scary. Every mangled sound emanating from her mouth is a reminder of her speech delay, and that her speech is falling farther behind.
Parenting a pair of NICU graduates in the shadow of a 3-year-old who communicates mostly by screaming can be pants-filling scary. After spending months fretting over Abbie’s speech, wondering if I could’ve done anything differently when she was younger to help her catch up, I get to put my fretting into action with the boys and their speech delay.
The boys’ NICU stay was as uneventful as possible; they only needed a little help breathing and eating until all their plumbing matured. Still, there’s this little voice that occasionally pops up, worrying that their prematurity will manifest itself as they age in a developmental delay. If I correct the mistakes I made with Abbie, I could encourage their mental growth in spite of any hurdles that probably don’t exist. With proper attention I could have them speaking, potty-trained, and ready for preschool by age 3, something I obviously missed out on with Abbie.
Determining the mistakes I made with Abbie is the tricky part. Maybe I listened to the radio too much around Abbie, limiting her exposure to speech. Maybe I should’ve sung more to Abbie. Maybe I should’ve exposed her to developmental experts soon to give her the earliest professional intervention possible.
Correcting mistakes those mistakes is even trickier. I’m not giving up the Cub games on the radio, heartbreak be damned. I barely have time to change everyone’s diapers, let alone sing to them. I could give them earlier access to developmental experts, though, especially when they work with the kids in the home, giving me time for essential activities with the other children like singing and diaper changes.
That was on my mind when I took the boys to their 18-month NICU follow-up visit. The developmental specialist noticed that their speech development was lagging. That delay could be related to their prematurity, the same genes that slowed Abbie’s speech, and/or head traumas resulting from Abbie shoving them to the ground several times every day. The developmental specialist asked if I wanted a referral to the same early intervention program that worked with Abbie, and I agreed.
They came to our home yesterday to evaluate the boys. They needed to assess all aspects of their development, but the boys’ ability to climb onto the countertops to snitch snacks quickly assured them that their motor skills were up to par. When they handed me the verbal questionnaire, I was certain they were hopelessly behind in speech, much like their sister was. As I moved down the list, I realized they’re speaking better than Abbie did at the same age. They have more words, more sounds, and are more likely to imitate actions. Their speech is still behind normal, but it’s not hopelessly behind. It’s more like depressingly delayed.
After seeing Tory had a ten-word repertoire with Ian’s slightly smaller, I was worried that they might not qualify for intervention; that’s borderline normal. They assured me that their prematurity alone was enough to qualify for intervention, no matter how many words they can speak, or how high a countertop they can climb.
Since they weren’t too far behind, we had a choice to make. We could obviously do no intervention, we could have bi-weekly meetings with a speech therapist, or we could drop back to monthly meetings and see how they did. I looked at my beautiful boys searching for a stepstool, listened to my lovely daughter whining unintelligibly, and chose maximum intervention. The more people work with them, the sooner they might master speech and tell me what they want. That could free me to do luxurious activities around the house, like leisurely listening to the radio.
posted by Matt at
11:20 PM
2 Comments:
I took Brayden for a speech eval last month. While Baylee is stringing together sentences and knows how to say just about anything she could possibly need to say, Brayden is still learning some basic words and hasn't come anywhere near a sentence.
I KNOW you're not supposed to compare, but come on... The 2 month NICU stay is always on my mind, too.
Unfortunately, he did not qualify. He was borderline, but she recommended not pursuing it right now--to come back in 6 months if he still hasn't improved.
Incidentally, my insurance wouldn't pick up any part of the eval or the therapy, should he have qualified. I hope that had no influence over whether she would have gone ahead and qualified him because, obviously, we would have paid it if it would have helped him developmentally...
Good luck with your boys and, of course, with Abbie.
By
Amy, at 7:56 AM
That has to be aggravating that he's "borderline." Either he is or isn't developing normally. That's cruel to make you both wait 6 months to see if he catches up.
Our boys will get assistance through the public schools, a program called Early Access. They worked with Abbie, and they'll work with the boys automatically since they were preemies, and it's all free to us. If I remember right, you work for the schools, so you probably know what they offer, but I'd recommend looking into it. I'm sure things are different between Iowa and Louisiana. Maybe Iowa is just more active in early intervention. Good luck to both of you.
By
Matt, at 9:37 AM
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