Results of the Developmental Assessment

We recently had our IFSP and received the written reports from the various evaluators that were present during Abby's assessment. The physical therapist determined that there was really no concerns about her gross or fine motor skills and that her size was probably the biggest inhibitor to her crawling. (She's a large baby who likes to eat!) The speech therapist and the EI both confirmed our thoughts that she did have a speech delay-approximately a two month delay. Although this might have been expected for a baby with hearing loss, it is certainly not what we strive for and she will be held to the same communicative milestones of a hearing baby. The major concern for her speech development was her failure to babble--i.e. no repetitive sounds like ah ah ah, no consonant sounds, and no back and forth "game-like" communication. Why this might sound silly, these beginning sounds are the basis for compound sounds, then identifying sounds, and so on and so forth.

The speech therapist gave us a Nuk brush to stimulate her tongue and mouth in hopes that this will lead to a greater production of sounds. We also are going to continue to encourage the "back and forth" game play with a variety of sounds. One of the things that Ben and I learned during this IFSP is that any signs that she learns to use will count toward the "15 by 15" count. (This is a very general guideline that a toddler should use 15 words or signs to communicate by 15 months.) We are going to continue to sign to her regularly and will begin medical model speech therapy at about 12 months.

So, the IFSP conclusion...

• We will continue to have our hearing therapist meet with Abigail once a week;
• Our EI will come every other week to monitor Abby's progress in other areas of development;
• The speech therapist will come once a month to visit Abigail and provide us with ideas to encourage her communication;
• We will receive the services of a deaf mentor to help us build our sign language vocabulary and work on ways to incorporate signing into our daily lives; and
  
• We will begin medical model speech therapy at 12 months.

IFSP success for now at least...