Joey's Speech Therapy

I've been trying to get Joey into a "classroom" setting for a long time now. WE have a program called SPROUTS that takes "normal" kids as well as those in the EI programs. It's like a preschool class, once a week, but for infants up to 5yrs old and it's free! There's a HUGE waiting list for it and when your name pops up, if you're not available for the time and day of the week that pops up, you go to the bottom of the list :( this has happened to us on at least 2 occasions now.

So I was talking to Joey's case manager now that she's back from maternity leave (had twin boys a few months back) and she told me about a speech therapy class which is 1x weekly, 4 kids to one ST in a classroom setting. I talked to his speech therapist about what she thought, if Joey would benefit from it or if it would hinder him (she's the one who would be his teacher in the class as well) She felt he would better benefit from doing both not just one or the other. However, she didn't think that they would go for that as a budget thing.

My problem with this budget thing is MY insurance is covering this therapy so whatever joey needs and is covered should be available to us! KWIM?

So I talked to the case manager about my concern and preference based on Miss Rita's experience and she said she didn't have the authority to ok it but would talk to her boss and one of them would get back to me.

Well Suzanne, the boss, called me back a couple hours later (she's great about getting back to you unlike the others!!!) and we hashed it out......

She moved us to the top of the list for SPROUTS and gave me the day and time that would work for us, we start on Monday (9-11am) then he also will get the ST that he has been getting on Friday's with Miss Rita as well!

I'm so much happier with this set up, he'll get the classroom, the interaction with other kids both older and younger at all different levels of development as well as his one on one with Miss Rita. He is also slated to start their Preschool in the fall and that stuff is mostly set up already too.

Oh and did I mention that Joshy gets to go to the SPROUTS too and so will Jonny once he's born??? Ok well I don't know what a newborn would do there other than be in my arms but it's for birth on up and I'm so psyched!!!

I've learned 2 things from this
1. It's all in who you know (talk to)
2. The squeaky wheel gets the oil! LOL

I'll keep you all update as to how this works for Joey. I am hoping an praying that it will get him to just explode his expressive language!!!!