IFSP Meeting

We had our IFSP meeting yesterday.

Audrena showed off a little for her team. She walked between me and Daddy, holding our fingers, many times. The physical therapist was happy to see that! We decided that Audrena should have physical therapy once a week for 30 minutes. Her 6 month goal is to play while standing and to walk 10 steps independently. I know the point of the goal is to be realistic, but it seemed a tad silly to me. I feel like she'll reach them much sooner than 6 months. But I do know that her balance will cause challenges. In the meantime, we can adjust the schedule as needed, so if we feel like she needs more sessions we can work that in. I had not met our physical therapist at the initial evaluation, so I didn't know what to expect. I'm happy to report that I think he'll be good to work with.

The early childhood education teacher recommended evaluating Audrena once a month using the HELP method and set some goals for her as well. We feel confident with those things as well.

The speech therapist from the hospital was able to be there as well. We felt like speech therapy once a week until she has her first implant activated was a good approach to take. Then from there we can increase to twice a week. I'm thinking more like 3 times a week would be good, but we'll cross that bridge after we speak with the professionals at Boys Town next week. Our team was open to us consulting with Boys Town and switching things up as necessary. We were glad to hear that, although we don't have a certified Auditory Verbal therapist in our area, our speech therapist is educated in it. That was one thing I was not sure about since I admittedly don't know a whole lot about speech therapists' educational training.

We did tell the team that, although it may be a bit out of the norm, we want AV therapy and possibly down the road when Audrena's language is caught up to her peers we would work in sign language. I'm not sure that really fits any therapy model we've seen yet. I think that usually a family would pick just one method, which is essentially what we're doing with AV therapy, but I'm not sure that other families work in sign language at a completely different point in time. The fact is, we don't know if we will even need sign language. With bilateral implants, the chances of both implants failing at the same time are probably pretty slim, and there are waterproof implants now, so she can wear them while swimming. We do know absolutely, however, that our main focus over the next few years will be developing Audrena's ability to speak normally and to really learn to listen with her implants.

Yesterday was also the first time we met our SD School for the Deaf outreach person. I had talked to her on the phone a few weeks ago, and I had a good impression then. She stayed after the meeting for quite awhile, just talking with us about the implants and different things. She doesn't get many clients who use Boys Town. A lot of them go to the Mayo Clinic (which was one of our options, too) or just use one of the two surgeons in Sioux Falls. We shared our experiences with her, and we can truly say that we do not have one bad thing to say about Boys Town up to this point. Every single person there has been nothing short of amazing. When she finally did leave our house, we had a great feeling about her. We think she will be really good to work with!

So overall, we feel like we're on the right track. While we're at Boys Town, we hope to be able to go over things with them a bit to determine if there is anything we need to change. Next week is truly the beginning of an intensive journey for us. We began this journey several months ago, but it's about to get more crazy with many, many therapy appointments, pre-op appointments, the surgeries themselves, activations, mapping appointments, etc. The next 3-4 years will be hard, but this is one time shot. We cannot afford to screw up. These coming years will be a sacrifice in some ways for us, but they will affect Audrena's entire life. Yes, this is the beginning of building the foundation for her whole life. We are dedicated to giving her the best foundation that we possibly can.