Don’t Sit On it!

:::Results of Brayden’s preschool speech evaluation::::

Many of you have asked how Brayden’s speech evaluation went in regard to qualifying for services due to his speech delay in articulation (read about how wrong I was here), and I apologize for not updating you sooner.

So in a nutshell, he definitely qualifies for services, two times per week for 30 minutes.  

But here’s the kicker…he can’t start the services until September.  This felt like our sucker punch! #ouch

Because he is a preschooler (age 3-5), services are given during the academic school year.  Now that we are in the month of June, we have to wait until the Fall.  If he had an extreme delay, I believe (don’t quote me) he’d receive services all year round; since his articulation isn’t THAT severe, September is our start date.

Now, we could reach out to a private agency and see if our insurance company will cover services if we were to do them now. The Hubs and I are exploring this option.  But one thing I can tell you… I am kicking myself in the you-know-what for not completing the initial paperwork when I requested it.  

I won’t lie.

I probably sat on completing the paperwork for 2ish months or so and I feel pretty terrible about it now.  My thought process is if I completed it sooner, maybe he would have received services this academic school year?   

But instead, I held it off-convincing myself he didn’t need it and got upset with the Hubs when he asked if the paperwork was completed (because who wants to fill-out 13 pages of questions, anyway?)

Sooo…. we are just going to take that “mama of the year” award and throw it out the window…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this whole process, even when we did this for Sophia, is an evaluation in any area of concern CAN’T  hurt.  If you are a little bit concerned your child isn’t speaking clearly or maybe you’re noticing some fine motor or even sensory issues, get him/her evaluated- it’s free through your school district!! 

Take your pride (I’m a middle school special education teacher #irony) and throw it out the window.  Although we’d all like to think we are experts when it comes to our kids… I learned pretty quickly articulation is clearly not a strength of mine. 

If you’re debating about starting the process for any evaluation, feel free to contact me and I can point you in the right direction.  As difficult as it may be to admit our babies need help that they can’t get from us, it’s our job to make sure we get them what they need in order to thrive and be successful.  

Take it from me, it’s not a sparkling moment NOW, but when your child can say “leaf” instead of “weaf”, you’ve done right, mama <3