Monday, February 6, 2017

Not Gonna Happen

Before I left for my England trip, I had posted about our new attempts at schooling for Tehilla. We had wanted to send her to Gan Safa (Language Development Preschool) and had been sent for a speech evaluation. I wrote how the evaluation had been completely unsuccessful. Tehilla shut down and refused to speak during the entire appointment. She pointed to the pictures and showed her cognitive and understanding abilities, but only said a few sentences during the last ten minutes of the appointment.

I received a call from the speech therapist who conducted the evaluation. She was calling to inform me that she had analyzed her notes and determined that Tehilla's speech and understanding were perfectly age appropriate and that she was recommending Tehilla for regular schooling and some additional speech therapy and did not see any of my concerns.

I tried to reason with the speech therapist that Tehilla was not cooperative and therefore the evaluation couldn't possibly have been successful. But this was not an argument that I was going to win. She told me that the little bit that she saw was enough and that no one would approve Tehilla for Gan Safa.

It's funny how you really want your kids to be able to succeed in the most mainstream setting, but when you know that there is something going on, you have to fight for your child to be deemed as having a problem.

Tehilla is being sent for an evaluation by Hitpatchut Hayeled (Child Development Center) that will have several different professionals, such as a physical therapist, a speech therapist, a pediatrician and possibly more people, evaluating her at the same meeting. That evaluation is in 3 weeks and we will see what they determine and what their recommendations are.

In the meantime, we have registered Tehilla for a regular preschool in our neighborhood. I have met with the teacher and gave her a little background. She seemed up to the challenge and genuinely kind and interested. We will also be applying for Tehilla to receive a medical shadow and I will have to train all of the staff in the basics of symptoms of heart failure and caring for Tehilla.

It's possible that a regular preschool is best for Tehilla, and that with speech therapy, that will be all that she needs. We have no choice but to find out. Alternatively, if her teacher feels that there is a problem, there are systems set up, that she can receive help within the school. We will have to wait and see.

4 comments:

  1. Everything will be alright wuth Tehilla. There is time fir everything. We continue to be happy that she is well. What us important is that she will nit suffer if any pain. She needs to be happy. Let us nit show her our frustrations. Everything is alright with our Elohim. Having his love is suffecient.
    Bear that in our minds, Our Most High Elohim loves us. He loves Tehilla. Dont forget the other 2, they also need their ima.
    Praise Yah! Be happy HS is with us, no matter what hapoened, Baruch hu.

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  2. I had to deal with similar issues in the US when my daughter was evaluated for speech therapy (she had delays due to hearing loss). They dropped the ball on her therapy and education and I spent three years battling them against incompetent teachers... don't get me started.... Some things seem universal and not listening to the mom tops the list. After all, they're the experts, right? What do we know?
    Remember, you're the mama bear. Growl a little louder.

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  3. I am thankful Tehilla is well. I pray their evaluation will correct and HaShem will work everything for good. That she continues to improve in her health each and everyday.

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