I'll never forget the day I got the letter saying how long the wait times were for getting Baby Boy into see a Speech and Language Pathologist (S.L.P.) and an Occupational Therapist (O.T.). Both wait times were over a year and I couldn't believe that we would have to wait so long to just get a consultation. Even once we did get in for the initial visit it was still months for a child who was developmentally behind to finally get to see someone on a regular basis.
Baby Boy has been seeing an S.L.P. for about 8 months now and we have seen so much growth in him. His language skills have gone from not being able to understand him to still having some difficulties but still being able to understand most of his sentences. I wonder where Baby Boy would be if we had waited for him to go to school this fall before we started the process of getting him seen by specialist. I guess that we would still be struggling to understand what Baby Boy was trying to tell us and that his social play would be be lacking as other children would not be able to understand him. Thankfully with the help from his S.L.P., Baby Baby now has great social play, he is willing to accept other peoples play idea and also expand on them.
Baby Boy has been seen twice now by O.T.s to be evaluated to see where he is for both sensory, fine motor and gross motor skills. Even though it was only about 4 months since being seen by the first O.T. we were in shock by how much Baby Boy has changed, his fine motor skills have come such a long way and I truly believe that it is in part to him attending full time pre-kindergarten. Baby Boy's teachers are AMAZING, they take the time to work one on one with him and have such patience as they work though both a language barrier (Baby Boy only knew English when he started school and his teacher's mostly speak French) and Baby Boy's speech delay which made it very hard to understand him.
We are still waiting for Baby Boy to be seen on a regular basis by an O.T. but I do not believe this will happen now until he starts school in the fall as there is a shortage of O.T.s. We will continue to work with Baby Boy at home and school to help him work through some his sensory issues and also his fine motor skills.
So what have I learned well going through this process?
Baby Boy has been seeing an S.L.P. for about 8 months now and we have seen so much growth in him. His language skills have gone from not being able to understand him to still having some difficulties but still being able to understand most of his sentences. I wonder where Baby Boy would be if we had waited for him to go to school this fall before we started the process of getting him seen by specialist. I guess that we would still be struggling to understand what Baby Boy was trying to tell us and that his social play would be be lacking as other children would not be able to understand him. Thankfully with the help from his S.L.P., Baby Baby now has great social play, he is willing to accept other peoples play idea and also expand on them.
Baby Boy has been seen twice now by O.T.s to be evaluated to see where he is for both sensory, fine motor and gross motor skills. Even though it was only about 4 months since being seen by the first O.T. we were in shock by how much Baby Boy has changed, his fine motor skills have come such a long way and I truly believe that it is in part to him attending full time pre-kindergarten. Baby Boy's teachers are AMAZING, they take the time to work one on one with him and have such patience as they work though both a language barrier (Baby Boy only knew English when he started school and his teacher's mostly speak French) and Baby Boy's speech delay which made it very hard to understand him.
We are still waiting for Baby Boy to be seen on a regular basis by an O.T. but I do not believe this will happen now until he starts school in the fall as there is a shortage of O.T.s. We will continue to work with Baby Boy at home and school to help him work through some his sensory issues and also his fine motor skills.
So what have I learned well going through this process?
- Don't give up, keep pushing for your child to be seen by a specialist if you think they have a delay or sensory issue. Your general practitioner is great for general health issues but should refer your child to the correct specialist such as O.T and S.L.P.
- Keep in contact with the specialist's office, I use to call the S.L.P.s office often, at first it was to make sure they had gotten Baby Boy's referrals, then it was see how long the wait times were and if they told me it was another 3 months then I would phone back in 3 months and see where Baby Boy was on the list. I made sure not to be annoying or rude when calling and I would often take the time to talk to them about how frustrating it is that our government does not supply proper funding to allow for all children to be seen by specialist.
- Make sure there is great communication between your child's specialists, teachers and parents. I try to keep us all on the page as consistency is very important for children with delays.
- Keep a photocopy of all forms you send in, I learned this one after I filled out the same form 3 times within a few weeks of each other. The last time I filled out the form I made sure to photocopy it so I could just copy my answers, it takes a lot of time to go back through baby books to see when Baby Boy reached his milestones.
- Get a referral in early, even if you think your will catch up to were they should be developmentally still get a referral, the wait times are so long that when your child's turn comes around and your child is no longer having any struggles you can always cancel the referral and say you no longer need it, or you can go to the appointment and they can tell you there is no delays and you have nothing to worry about.