Feeling overwhelmed

Rink08

I've posted a few times here before but it's been a while. I have 3 boys and my oldest and youngest both have special needs. My youngest has feeding and motor developmental delays and is labeled "failure to thrive" which began after multiple reactions to foods (Wheat, Oat, Soy, Whey/Milk, Banana allergies). My oldest has sensory issues with sounds and texture, speech issues with fluency and articulation, and has dx of auditory processing disorder and possible ADHD as well as suspected Aspergers (I realize that's not the current term but that is the term that his doctor & psych have both used.)

Last school year, DS1 attended a therapy school 3 days a week after his regular half day kindergarten. He did great with the therapists there (although one is forever on his sh*t list because she dared to make him roll up his sleeves when it was warm outside) however it is almost a 40 minute drive and he will now be in full day school. In order for him to be there, the younger kids and I would stay in the van (play,have picnics, watch a movie on my phone) for 8 hours a week. It was not ideal but we made it work. He also receives behavioral therapy once a week which has been really helpful with safety issues and learning about "phrases".

At that point, DS3 was being monitored but did not start receiving therapies until DS1's school year had ended.

So with the start of September, we're looking at DS3 receiving speech/feeding twice and pt once a week (in our home through EI), DS2 starting a preschool program twice a week for 3 hours, and DS1 going to school and being immediately taken to therapy school twice a week & behavioral therapy once a week.

august06mom

Oh man, that all does sound overwhelming. What kind of support system do you have? Do they have bussing to the therapy school?

Rink08

No, it's a private therapy clinic which is the only one that our insurance would cover (minus co-pays) so it's our only option. We had him at a closer rehab facility for outpatients but had to pull him from there due to a change with our insurance.

Our families are 2-2.5 hours away however I have a sister who is in college about 35 minutes away who babysits when possible (weekend nights). We don't currently have any sitters for during the week or daytimes because we moved to this area last July and have had trouble finding anyone that we were comfortable with/was comfortable with the kids issues without being way out of our available price range.

Rink08

@auntie
He goes to a public school. We moved here so that he could go there after having to relocate for DH's job. We've found that while they may be great for typical children, receiving any help with SNs is always met with a struggle. I have spoken to a few parents in the district with SN children who have chosen to pay to put them in one of the private schools for SNs. That is not an option for us because the school can technically provide the services (speech and OT) however it is minimal (30 minutes per week of speech and 30 minutes per 2 weeks of OT both in group settings) and we cannot afford the tuition.

During our IEP meeting last year, we were told that they could then only offer him speech (this year OT as well) because he was under age 7 and it would not be approved by the district until then. He'll be 7 over Christmas break so we are supposed to have his testing done again after that (has to be dated after he turns 7) and then request another IEP meeting.

They do not have sound fields in the classrooms and we were told that his seating is at the discretion of the teacher (last year, his teacher was great and realized through trial and error where he needed to sit in order for it to be beneficial for learning. His misunderstanding of similar sounding words (has/have/had, glue/blue/drew etc.) was noted on his report card along with his difficulty to understand when there were surrounding noises (air conditioner, children talking etc.). We were also told (by the principle) that most teachers will not be open to an FM system where they would be wearing a microphone.

Until he is able to receive the therapies through the school, DH and I think that he should still receive some from the clinic. However, we don't want it to be too much for him (They offered it for an hour twice to three times a week once school starts.) The clinic currently does speech & OT regularly with him and he meets with their audiologist and does equine therapy in the summer as well. His behavioral therapy is and the biggest difference has been seen since starting that. He is extremely literal and she has been able to help both him and us with those miscommunications and his safety issues (IE. he will walk in front of a car because he believes that he can jump onto or over it since he saw it once in a movie and therefore will not stop walking into a parking lot or street without being told.)