Once Linda gave her permission, a team from the early childhood intervention program at the hospital was able to come out and evaluate Tomas. They made observations mostly although they did ask Tomas to do some tasks. I noticed that he mostly ignored them at first. It was as if he put on blinders and turned his hearing off. At that point, it was hard to know if he was having residual hearing problems or not. When he did engage, he was so sweet and made lots of eye contact.
The team found Tomas eligible for services based on the fact that he wasn’t speaking. They also found delays in socialization skills and cognitive skills, especially since he was stuck on one type of play. He could use any toy to play this way, blocks, cars, it didn’t matter. What he would do is slide two objects open and closed and have a third pass between. After a while, TB figured out that he was mimicking automatic doors, like those at the grocery store. Those doors were a big issue—we’d go shopping and the little guy would get “stuck” at those doors. He wouldn’t want to leave them and he’d pitch a screaming tantrum when we had to move him. He would also actively resist us, TB and me, whenever we'd try to change the game. I'd build with blocks and he would scream and knock them down. He didn't want to build, he wanted to play the doors game.
The team explained what would happen next. The family would meet with members of the early intervention program and we'd come up with an individualized family service plan (IFSP). I was an interpreter in a school district for many years and so I knew this was the precursor to the individualized education plan (IEP) used for school age children to determine their needs, how to meet them, and to set goals so they could achieve. The nice thing about the infant-3 program was that the providers would come right to our house. Also the providers would be able to work with all of us and teach us how to best help Tomas. We also learned that as soon as Tomas turned 3, he'd no longer be eligible but could get into a preschool program with the school district. At the meeting, the team decided to send a teacher for Tomas twice a week and a speech therapist once every 2 weeks.
I would have preferred he get more services but hey, we'd take what we could get.
The team evaluators came in August, the meeting was in September, and services began in October.
Meanwhile, I'd done some reading up on autism and although I didn't think that was what was happening with Tomas, I had a nagging feeling that was part of it. I was signing with him but he wasn't responding. When we'd watch a TV program together, it would be "Go Diego Go" or "Dora the Explorer" or "Blue's Clues" which is interactive. And I would participate. Sometimes he didn't mind but other times he'd yell at me.
Our grandchildren from Tennessee came to visit and we were taking them places. Right away I could see that Tomas disliked Chuck E. Cheese and all the noise and commotion. He refused to try any of the rides and the only thing he seemed to enjoy was a slide in the infant section. If we went to the playground, Tomas didn't want to go on any of the equipment. He had a sort of parade route he wanted you to follow. He didn't want to get in the kiddie pool with his cousins and didn't want to go into the sandbox. He did enjoy playing with his cousin Taylor--our granddaughter is the closest to him in age.
What a dramatic improvement once the teacher began coming to the house! Nancy is a retired preschool teacher and she started out coming once a week while the program tried to find a second teacher. Nancy was scheduled the rest of the time with other kids but when December rolled around and there still wasn't a second teacher, I asked if she could come twice a week once one of her other kids "aged out". At first Tomas ignored Nancy but after a couple of sessions, he began to warm up to her.
By the time the holidays rolled around, Tomas was pointing at objects, was moving to music, somewhat interacting with “Go, Diego, Go” (the shows have the child get up and point at objects on the TV, etc) and was making some sounds that could be "yeah" and "hey". I was doing a lot of the modeling for that behavior because Linda and TB were at work and the kids were in school. Tomas would copy things if I did them first and he’d make eye contact and clap for himself. Nancy was very happy with all that and so were we!
Next: More tests for Tomas to determine a more accurate diagnosis
Posted by Cassie at February 8, 2007 11:04 AM | TrackBack