Revised Therapy services..

Ok, I'm posting a lot lately, but since Ella turned 2, a lot of her specialists are having their annual reviews or follow-ups.

In any event, the Howard County Infants and Toddlers program which handles the bulk of Ella's therapy recently did their re-evaluation of Ella's progress and planned new services.

Previously at 1 year old, Ella was 50% (6 months equivalent) delayed in gross motor, and 25% delayed in communication (9 months equivalent). During the Evaluations in June she was 35% delayed in gross motor (15 months equivalent of 23) and 45% delayed in communication (12 months equivalent of 22). Those numbers are slightly skewed, as the ELAP really doesn't count use of sign language as expressive vocabulary. However, it's still clear that Ella's area of greatest need is communication. It's even more clear when you account for the gross motor progress ella has made since the evaluation.

In light of that, at the end of August Ella is being switched to a different Special Educator that has a lighter case load and can spend more time on her. This will likely result in Ella getting two special educator visits per week instead of one. This is a good thing, as the Special Educator primarily works with us on activities to increase imitation and use of sounds to express herself. The rest of her team is going to remain the same (she also has a Physical Therapist, Occupational therapist, Speech Pathologist).