The Calm After the Storm

It's been a while since my last post. Seriously, I've just been enjoying the "calm after the storm". With insurance now covering unlimited speech therapy visits at 90%, we are back to a great two day per week routine, as we work around the holidays. Alex is doing well and continues to surprise me with his many successful attempts to communicate. He lights up when I mention we will be going to see Miss Kate, our therapist. She has put together a wonderful communication folder for us that I am so pleased with. I continue to carry with me a thankful heart, knowing that God was faithful to us, and a hopeful heart for how He will continue to bless our family through Alex's journey.

We're back to THERAPY!

Insurance has approved twice a week speech therapy visits until the end of this year. At that time they will review a progress report, so to speak, and our request for more therapy and approve what is appropriate at that time. This is a HUGE HUGE deal for us. We got approval on Thursday and were back to therapy on Friday morning! I know I was smiling ear to ear as we walked through their doors. No one could have been happier than I to be there that day. Wooohoooo!

There is no such thing as being powerless and hopeless - There is always God.

Guess It Isn't Over YET

Much to my surprise and dismay, I received a phone call letting me know that insurance wanted a copy of Alex's IEP (Indivualized Education Plan) from the school system's preschool he attends. I suppose they want to review what services he's getting there and base their decision as to how much (if any) therapy they will cover aside from that.

Here is where I am coming from: Any research I have done recommends that a child with apraxia in the severe category, such as Alex, receive ongoing frequent intensive therapy from a speech language pathologist who is knowledgeable and experienced with treating apraxia. Frequent is defined as UP TO five days per week for UP TO 40 minutes. Alex is receiving 9 hours of special education services, only one hour of which is SUPPOSE to be individual speech therapy. However, I have been informed that there have often been one to two other children joining Alex for therapy in a small group setting. They simply do not have the time to work individually with the large caseload of children that they have. The speech therapist is great, don't get me wrong. However, I do not believe he is probably getting appropriate therapy in the manner in which is recommended for a child with such a disorder, in the school system.

I spoke with Alex's speech therapist and she is getting together a letter for us to send with the copy of the IEP to the insurance company to let them know WHY it is so important for Alex to be getting treatment in addition to the school system. She is awesome and has been such a big help to us. We are so ready to get started back to therapy! We miss our Kate!

Seems like I've been so swallowed up in research and paperwork and phone calls lately. I cannot wait until all of this is finally past us and we can concentrate on what's REALLY important here, and that's Alex!