The Early Intervention Saga

After being home for almost two months, we finally got our early intervention evaluations. Finally. You may be wondering why we sought them out, and that is simple: all children who grow up in orphanages, no matter how loving, have delays and are considered "special needs" for a time. Orphanages simply cannot provide the kind of attention required for optimal development. Tommy was, we believe, physically delayed due to parasites and poor nutrition and as a result is small for his age (25^th percentile), despite being a large baby when he arrived as a newborn at the orphanage.

Because of his background Tommy's pediatrician gave us the referral we needed for an early intervention evaluation.

Now, at the time we were aware that we would be moving from Cook county to DuPage county. My referral was for Cook county, and when I called they said they couldn't evaluate Tommy because we were moving to DuPage and I should call them. So I did. DuPage said they couldn't evaluate Tommy because we still lived in Cook. I love bureaucracy. DuPage said I could call once we physically resided in the county. On Sunday, September 2, the day we moved into the Argonne Guest House, I called and left a message for the intake coordinator. It took a few days for her to get in touch and set up an intake appointment for the end of the next week. At the intake appointment we discussed my concerns and she explained the program and told me therapists would be calling me the following week to set up appointments. We had five therapists come out over the course of two weeks to evaluate speech, development, attachment and psychological state, and gross and fine motor skills. The evaluations all happened within a month of my calling.

The evaluations went well. My very favorite was the psychologist who told us that Tommy is attached! All of his body language and responses indicated a bond to us. We are still, of course, being careful of this bond, because we don't want to damage the progress we have made, but it was very encouraging news. She added that she was very impressed with Tommy's overall attitude and that many of the skills he demonstrated for her were above average for his age. She felt that he was more advanced at some things than many children born in the US. We thought he was pretty clever and fast at picking up on things, but believed ourselves to be biased...apparently not!

The Occupational therapist felt he was also at or above age level in his fine motor skills, and the physical therapist said he was doing well for an early walker (he learned to walk late, but they don't consider it delayed as long as it is before 17 months) and that his muscle tone was great and that she doesn't anticipate future delays.

The developmental therapist noted some delays, as did the speech therapist, but neither were severe enough to require services, although we can request reevaluation in those two areas in three months to make sure that he is moving forward at the appropriate rate.

But here is the kicker: the physical therapist said, in an offhand way, after saying that we wouldn't qualify under her, "If only you would have had him evaluated sooner, he would have qualified when you first brought him home"!!!

Not qualifying is a mixed blessing. Now we don't have to deal with scheduling a therapist and making appointments, but instead we are responsible for catching Tommy up with no guidance and no help. I'm not complaining about having to teach Tommy things. That is my job as his parent, and we knew when we adopted that he would have delays and had prepared ourselves for those delays to be much worse. That said, at the end of the evaluations I felt a little like I did the day when Sister handed Tommy over to me with the words "He should be walking and potty trained by now. You should work on that."

He has some delays. You should catch him up.

Thanks. He still isn't potty trained.