It was a busy week, and I saw evidence of that in the very bad day Dima had yesterday. Oh, I hope I don't have to go through that again anytime soon. :)
On Wednesday, the boys had their appointment at the International Adoption Clinic at St Louis Children's Hospital. We met with an infectious diseases doctor, an audiologist, a psychologist, and an occupational therapist. Everyone thought that the boys are progressing very well, both with their attachment and with their English. In fact, we had an interpreter for the first part of the morning and she left to go with another patient because she wasn't doing anything with us. :) The boys were very cooperative and most of the things that the medical staff did involved mimicking so they didn't need any verbal instructions, or at least not complicated verbal instructions. And we now know that both of the boys have normal hearing, so no excuses for ignoring us. LOL
Actually, the hearing test and the OT tests were the ones we were most interested in. They confirmed what we already suspected--Dima needs speech therapy starting soon. He has some significant speech issues and we now know they're not related to hearing. He also has coordination issues and is not functioning at the appropriate level for his age. He's more than 2 standard deviations below normal on his development and would definitely benefit from some therapy. Don't get me wrong--Dima is fine, and he would probably catch up eventually even without therapy. But if we can get him some structured help (aka therapy :) ), he should be able to catch up sooner and with less frustration at not being able to do the same things as his peers.
So the boys got up early, were very overstimulated, and we had a rough afternoon as a consequence. Then we had something Friday morning and they were up early again. Yesterday afternoon was terrible for Dima. I'm not going into all of the details, but needless to say he was exhausted and reverted to some behaviors I haven't seen for a few weeks. Once we got past all of that, we had a good rest of the day and we put the boys to bed early last night. By 8am this morning, everyone was up, dressed, and fed and we're having a much better day. :)
We've been doing a phonics program online called Starfall and the boys love it. I now get asked a few times a day "Mama, A B now?". They are learning their letters and can recognize quite a few.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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2 comments:
I'm sorry Dima had such a rough day, but I'm glad to hear you haven't seen this behavior in awhile. That's good! It probably won't be the last time you see the behavior, but I bet it will be even longer in between episodes.
Glad to hear everyone is back to normal today.
We're hoping to get Maddie back up to Omaha for her appointment with the ear doctor soon. The sooner we get her that hearing aid, the sooner she can REALLY start to learn English.
I love starfall! Solomon and Lyra play it.
Lyra has signifigant speech issues too. It's almost like she doesn't understand how to SPEAK english although she can understand it perfectly. She still talks like a 24 month old but since she is so young, and doesn't seem at all frustrated, we are not pursuing therapy as of now. It will be interesting to see how Dima progresses. He's little, but he slings those puzzle peices around just like 5yo Solomon does. He'll be caught up in no time:).
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