Madison's Speech Therapy

We had a transition meeting for Madison's speech on Friday. It went well. It was funny...there were teachers from Altus Public Schools there as well as teachers from the Headstart program. Madison and I walked into the room and they were all sitting around a table waiting for us. It was weird! I felt like we were in trouble! lol Anyway, all we did was discuss the next step after Madison is no longer eligible for Sooner Start (the Oklahoma early intervention program). This will happen when she turns 3 in April. I was actually more impressed than I thought I was going to be. I originally thought that, because receiving speech therapy in the public schools falls under "Special Education," that Madison would have that label following her throughout her school years. And while speech therapy does fall under that category, she won't be in a special education class. If they find her eligible, she'll go see the speech therapist for 45 minutes a day. If she's in school (preschool, k-garden) and she still needs speech therapy, they'll come and get her and work with her that way. They reassured me that kids this age are just too young to make fun of another kid for receiving "special ed" services. So, we're just waiting on a call to have her evaluated, to see if she's even eligible. She's made alot of progress.

The other option is Headstart. The Headstart locations are in bad parts of town here, so I'd like to take a tour before I consider that option. I think that if I can get her into Mothers Day Out (I've got her on the waiting list for 2 churches), we won't need Headstart. The more time she has away from me, amongst kids her age, the better. That's one thing I've learned throughout all of this. We're quick to think that something is wrong with our kids when they're not up to speed with other kids their age. We just have to remember that they'll do things when they're ready. No kid ever graduated high school in a diaper or with a binky in their mouth (since we're working on getting rid of the pacifier and potty training also, had to throw that in there...lol!)