Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Mae: The Latest

Here's the latest Mae update.  I included all the names of the tests for anybody curious or interested about that sort of thing:

This morning kicked off the first meeting, in a week full of appointments.  Mae and I left the house bright and early, her little hand clasping mine excitedly as we headed towards the car.  So far she's been enthusiastic about going to all of her tests and appointments, since they usually involve bubbles and balloons and play dough, and this morning was no exception.  She hurried alongside me to the van and giggled as I strapped her into her car seat.

Today's appointment was to discuss the results of the two 2-hour tests we'd done at the ABA therapy center, called the VB-MAPP (The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program).  On Thursday we'll head back over to State for her second 2-hour test there (they re-did the ADOS for the study and began the Mullen Scales Assessment last week and will continue with the Mullen this week).  Friday morning will be Mae's first therapy appointment here at the house and in the afternoon after Paul gets home from his classes there's a cognitive test back at CMH.  And since therapy will be here at the house six days a week, she'll have her second session on Saturday morning (and then it will be Monday through Saturday, every morning).  I think this new schedule is definitely going to take some getting used to.

Mae was ready to play when she got to the therapy center this morning.  She picked up a tiny piece of balloon that she found on the floor, looked at me and said "ba-lloon!  ba-lloon!" in a perfectly clear little voice before jumping into my arms and giving me an excited kiss, pleased with her new word.

Mae's case worker, one of the heads of the therapy center, one of the therapists that Mae will be working with (there will be three and each will be here two days a week), an intern and Mae and I all went into the little assessment room to go over her test.

The graphs showed that Mae could do about 3/4 of the things in the 0-18 month category.  In the 18-30 month category there were a few lone boxes filled in and the 30-48 month category was completely blank.

We talked about the fact that Mae is obviously very smart, but she's very good at ignoring people and stubbornly refusing to do what she's asked.  She's also gets very attached to little toys very quickly, but if she's told she can only have that toy if she completes a task, she'll switch her attention to something else very quickly.

So basically the assessment wasn't a perfect example of what she actually knows or can do (for example, she's really good at puzzles, and zipped through them when we were at the university test, but refused to do them when we were at the therapy center), but it's a good starting place for working on getting her to do more.  They said they have a feeling she's going to zip through the goals once she really gets going and that we'll probably have to set new ones before the four months are up (when we'd normally set new goals).

And we talked about how we set up a new downstairs baby gate today that is heavy duty and six feet tall and she scaled it this morning... and about the "eloping" problem, so all that will be going into the plan too.

That's the latest!

3 comments:

  1. Wow. Teresa is a climber, but a 6 foot baby gate? How does she get her feet on it? I mean, Teresa climbs the bunk beds, but those have ladders. I sense a mountain climbing hobby in her future. And a helmet for Christmas. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am amazed and happy that you have access to such wonderful programs for Mae. It also makes me very aware of how this varies markedly, state to state, and at what a disadvantage many folks down here are. There is a clinic at the local university, but the services available seem sadly lacking in comparison to what's available to you.

    I see God's hand in that move up North!

    Marie

    ReplyDelete
  3. And here we hear that it's way better on either coasts. The upside is that the options at this point are huge! The downside is that if we don't have private insurance by the time she's 6 (if the state's rules don't change), which I am cautiously optimistic that we will, she'll be cut off... In California I've heard it goes up to 24... but here the intake worker said the services will only go until she's six years old. It's just mind boggling to me!

    But I am super grateful for how amazing the system is for the little kids. And who knows what can happen in three more years (and I'm going to be learning as much as I can so that I can do things just in case her services are discontinued at that point).

    ReplyDelete

I love comments and I read every single comment that comes in (and I try to respond when the little ones aren't distracting me to the point that it's impossible!). Please show kindness to each other and our family in the comment box. After all, we're all real people on the other side of the screen!