Preschool options for Hard-of-Hearing 3 year old?
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Anonymous
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OP here:
To 13:41 - yes, my daughter's problem is (well moreso used to be) that she could say single words fine but when she combined them or had a multi-syllabic word, it all went to pot and came out crazy. So she scored well with single-word articulation tests, but still had clear problems. To 15:55 - THANK YOU for such specific and helpful suggestions. I'm going to file away your post for future reference! |
Anonymous
OP, the difficulty with combinations of words or multi-syllabic words is called oral/motor/verbal dyspraxia or developmental verbal dyspraxia. Dyspraxia in general is the idea that the body has difficulty sequencing movements or ordering the movements from the brain to come out at the body part in smooth, fluent, sequenced motion. It can be global or only in certain aspects (i.e. an overall problem or just with speech or just with gross motor, etc.) My DS had this diagnosis in addition to Mixed Expressive/Receptive Language Disorder, phonological disorder, and articulation disorder (as well as dysgraphia and ADD/Inattentive). It comes out in speech as difficulty pronouncing or reading multisyllabic words -- sometimes the order of syllables is mixed up or syllables are dropped or added. He also has difficulty with things like eating an ice cream cone (coordination of the tongue) and gross motor activities that require planned movement (instead of fluent movement like running) or multiple motions in different directions. (Lacrosse is difficult, and swimming was very hard to pick up initially and required a private coach, but once the skill is acquired and automated, he can do it well. Both lacrosse and swimming have too many body parts going in too many different directions at the same time.) What kind of speech/language evaluation have you had -- only from the school or only on isolated tests? IME, the school speech language testing is very weak. If you come to DC, you might consider a full speech/language evaluation at the LAB school (which is very near River School). It takes 1-2 days and costs about $1500. I found that this evaluation fully identified all of DC's speech/language issues, many of which the school missed entirely and which likely were caused in part by early variable hearing loss due to ear infections for probably 6-9 months before ear tube remediation. |
Anonymous
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OP here:
Speech apraxia (how is that different from dyspraxia?) was a suspicion of her SLP at age 24 months, when my daughter was having problems making many sounds and her speech was seriously lagging. She had been a very quiet baby, and didn't babble much. In addition to her sensorineural hearing loss, she gets chronic ear infections (on her 3rd set of tubes now) so has had fluid issues too. Well, long story short, when she was having such difficulty with speaking at age 24 months, I took her to a new audiologist who determined that her hearing aids had never been programmed correctly, and she was under-amplified 10-15 dB at low frequencies for her 1st two years. (Yes, I was livid). Within 2 weeks of correct amplification, she started saying sounds she had never been able to make before. That was 11 months ago and her progress since then has been remarkable. I am now hopeful that with capable speech therapy and a language-rich environment, she will do extremely well. All her language testing has been done by her speech therapist (who is excellent) through the early intervention program. I am very open to additional testing. I agree that she may have motor planning issues stemming from her under-amplification and ear infections. Had a talk with an admissions person at The River School today and it sounds hopeful that they will have a spot for both of my daughters. I'm over the moon excited and hopeful that it works out financially. |
Anonymous
DD has a high frequency hearing loss so the county offered us placement there. We went for story hour and music class it was really a nice setup. Ultimately we decided against it because her loss is minute and she is fine in an NT preschool and I did not want to take space from someone who need it more. |
Anonymous
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If you are working near Union Station. You want to find housing on the red line (Metro), so you don't have to change Metro trains. I would suggest Silver Spring or Takoma Park, MD (Montgomery County). When you actually move, you can call Child Find to see if your 3 year old qualifies for a special needs preschool. They are usually 1/2 day, so you would need daycare too. Buses transport children from daycare or home to special needs preschool and back. There is an attendant and a driver, so it is not like a 3 year old on the bus with a driver. When my son was 4 he was transported on a special needs bus from one preschool to another one.
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Anonymous
| I'm the poster who suggested Hearst. I just wanted to come back and clarify that I made that suggestion because Hearst is the only school anywhere close to River with PK3. If you are able to secure a spot for you little one at River before you move, I'd look at the areas closest to River. The Palisades neighborhood near River is lovely and has some apartments if that is what you need. The school there is Key which is great (except for not having PK3) so if you needed to split up the girls (e.g. If you got financial but only enough to make 1 tuition affordable), or when the girls graduate from River. In addition Key houses (or at least used to house) one of DCPS's programs for HOH children, which means they probably already have a relationship with an audiologist, teachers with experience with things like FM systems, and an SLP who has experience with hearing loss. |
Anonymous
If you live in Palisades and drive to work on the Hill, I've always found the Southwest Freeway to be a fast ride up to Cap Hill. IME, it's rafficky, but rarely stopped up and reliably less than 1/2 hour. But, if it matters, the only public transpo is by bus. |
Anonymous
OP, I think apraxia is another name for dyspraxia but apraxia tends to be used more when there is no or very little speech yet and dyspraxia tends to be used when speech has developed but still has significant atypical abnormalities/disorder. IMO, the early hearing problems had a significant impact on my DS's academic language skills - reading (including decoding and fluency), spelling, and organization of expression (although the latter is probably exacerbated by ADD/executive dysfunction. But he did not have the right early intervention. You will have to watch this carefully as she moves up from grade to grade. Getting independent evals periodically has been critical to our knowing in detail what's going on. River School would be a good fit. We liked Dr. Julie Verhoff there as our audiologist (even though we didn't go to school at River), plus she took our BC/BS insurance! Georgetown University also has excellent audiology clinic and good ENTs (greg milmoe and earl harvey) which are close to the Palisade neighborhood. Good luck! |