purpose of EI?

PipSqueak0313 · September 2014

I thought the purpose of EI was to try to minimize the gaps the delays cause between kids with special needs and typical peers. So how does this work? Had a visit with the EI teacher and SLP to have SLP evaluate ds. What I understand from the conversation is that ds's developmental age (according to the school) is around 8-9 months and his speech is around 6-8 months. Since his speech is close to his developmental age ST is not needed even though his chronological age is 18 months. ST "isn't done for kids at 9 months old." I am supposed to just talk to him more. No wonder why I feel like we are getting no benefit from EI. They are not interested in doing what can be done to keep the gap from getting larger as he gets older. One hour visits 2x per month aren't going to accomplish anything.

PipSqueak0313 · September 2014

I'm in NE. We started private PT and OT in April 2014 at 13 months and we just started private ST last week. He gets all 3 privately 2x per week and visits from the OT and PT about 2x per month, usually 1x per month from each.....though sometimes they both come together with the teacher.

hopecounts · September 2014

We were offered 1 hr a month of Speech by EI, we took it because we could double dip and get private as well. It's so frustrating.

ToastieSimons · September 2014

In our old state in the midwest DS1 got ST 1x/month. Yep 1 45 minute session a month. He was 2. He had 0 words or babbling.

We moved to NJ and we get ST 2x/week.

It really varies on your state and what they are willing to give. Our old state wanted preverbal skills prior to starting speech therapy, etc.

PipSqueak0313 · September 2014

All I know for certain is that EI here in NE is part of the local school district and is funded similarly to special education at the school age level....no charge to families (beyond taxes that is). The therapists that work with ds are all employees of the school district. It's just frustrating to me that he's 9-12 months behind and there's no sense of a need to even try to push to see if we can close that gap.....or at least keep it from widening a lot farther. We DO have him in private therapies.....that's why he's not 12-15 months behind.....or at least that's how it feels. It's the private therapies that got ds to sit, (but still working on getting into sit) grasp objects with his thumb and index finger, feeding himself, attempting to stand/pull to stand, army crawl, and more.

PipSqueak0313 · September 2014

wife07mom09 said:

are the EI therapists teaching you what to do at home?

Other than that it does require a certain level of cognotove abiltiy (both receptive and expressive) to implement speech therapy. I'm not a speech therapist but i know when we had cocnerns with DS not talking his very initial eval rated his speech at 8-9 mo level but he was16 mo. That didnt qualify him for speech. There simply wasn't anything to work with until the cognotove ability improves. He has improved rapidly though and now speaks but then all we could do and still do to keep teaching is label everything and lots of repetition. I think that is a lot of the reason why his langiage just exploded a few months ago,

No. Last year I had borrowed books from the library (Gross Motor Skills for Children With Down Syndrome, and Fine Motor Skills for Children With Down Syndrome if I remember the titles correctly) just because I had heard them referenced by something I was reading. Turns out the books were the source of the information they would copy and give to me and tell me to do this portion of the book. Well, since I had them checked out, they have stopped providing any info, even though they have been returned to the library for quite a while now. Then after we started the private PT and OT it seems like all the home visits are is just an evaluation of what he has learned since the last visit.

PipSqueak0313 · September 2014

-auntie- said:

PipSqueak0313 said:

Do you feel he's being discriminated against because of his dx? Or do they underserve all the kids in your area? Do they use a modified checklist of goals for kids with DS instead of the usual APA one? Something like this?.

I don't know that they're discriminating against him but it does feel like they feel he's not worth their time/effort. Currently, dh and I are leaning towards suspending EI and concentrating all of our time and energy into the private therapies, at least for the next 6 months. I don't know what's being used to create goals for ds other than "What does Mom and Dad want us to focus on in the next 6 months?"

Assembly_Reqd · September 2014

My first thought is to ask for another SLP. EI services are family driven. Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) I have no idea why they ask that asinine question about what you think he needs. I got asked it too and it wasn't a confidence builder for me on their ability to assess my child. I mean, I had no f'n clue what he "needed". if they don't either then we got trouble.

I think you need to keep up with the services. You need to build a file on your child and make sure the school district 'knows' him. Like Auntie said, going into Pre-school cold could be harder.

As far as the cognition part goes, I also agree. Your child has to be ready for the speech activities being presented. We probably spent about a year in speech services without much progress and Nate was 22 months old when we started. He had no cognitive delays academically, but he just didn't have the bandwidth available for rigorous speech at 22 months. He didn't walk without a walker until 28 months, so he was kinda busy. EI agreed when our SLP said he needed two sessions a week instead of 1. Without that history of how his speech trajectory was going, we wouldn't have had a prayer of getting 2x week.

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