Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

A quick update on Brad's services:

Brad's early intervention services have exceeded my expectations on many levels. Brad's speech language pathologist and occupational therapist are both trained in Floortime, and work the philosophy into the therapy. So they, along with the developmental specialist, are working in concert to foster his overall development, rather than focusing exclusively on their discrete specialties. The results have been incredibly positive. Brad's speech has exploded, he attends better, follows directions better, uses speech spontaneously, often seeks social praise and his muscle tone has greatly improved. We do OT exercises every day, which he seems to genuinely enjoy.

The "specialty service provider" is underwhelming. In theory, we're getting Floortime, but in practice, it's really ABA on the floor, minus the M&Ms. It's entirely instructor-led, not child-directed. Also, they appear to be using the same progress and evaluation system used for ABA, in that the daily notes aren't notes at all - they're plus and minus signs. For example, under the row heading "responds to name", there will be plus marks for when he responds and minus marks for when he doesn't. She's graphing it too. I'm not an expert, but I believe these working papers are the tools of the behavioral approach. Which is fine, but it's not what we signed up for.

Also, the therapist uses "prompts." For example, when Brad doesn't respond to his name, she touches his face. Well Brad doesn't like that. At all. Brad's speech language pathologist confirmed that such a prompt is inconsistent with a child-led approach.

I'm going to continue with the specialty provider through May 12, which is when I have my next visit with the developmental pediatrician. At that point, I'll have a better indication of his hearing as well. Unless my developmental pediatrician talks me out of it, I'm inclined to kick the specialty service provider to the curb.