Hellobee

HJ is now seven years old and in second grade and overall doing pretty well, but when we adopted her at the age of 15 months we had no idea the ups and down we would face in terms of her educational and developmental growth.

Looking back, it was really a steep learning curve for my husband and me in terms of figuring out what she really needed. For any parents facing similar issues, whether with adopted or biological children, I’d like to share some of the mistakes we made and the lessons we learned in the past six years.

Sometimes you need to listen to your mom’s intuition. 

HJ was not walking or saying more than a few words when she first came home. A lot of well-meaning friends and other parents, including my own, assured us that she was probably just a late bloomer and that she would catch up on her own time, but I was still worried. People would tell me things like, “Oh my brother didn’t really talk until he was four!” or “Don’t worry, she’s not going to be crawling to kindergarten.” Although HJ did end up walking and talking sooner rather than later, I have absolutely no regrets in having her evaluated by early intervention as recommended by our adoption agency.

We had literally the best experience with most of our early intervention therapists (HJ ended up receiving speech, occupational, and developmental therapy), and because the therapists came to our home, it made the whole process so much easier. That’s not to say we, or I should say HJ, didn’t click with some of the initial therapists we were assigned, but once we found the right match, I wasn’t sure why I had been so uneasy about getting on the early intervention bandwagon. Perhaps it was a cultural thing, as I discovered that many first generation Asian parents (or grandparents) were suspicious of such therapies and “labeling” early on, but as I got to know more families that had experienced the benefits of early intervention, I began to see that receiving therapy wasn’t so unusual or upsetting as I had originally thought.

Sometimes you need to admit you made a mistake. 

On the other hand, there are times where I wish I had listened to others’ advice rather than going with my own feelings. When HJ turned three, she aged out of early intervention and had to transition into the special education program at our public school district. This is where things got a little more complicated. Not to blame our school district, but our options were a bit limited in that they did not have a blended type of preschool program for children with developmental delays. It was solely a self-contained special education classroom. For that reason, our early intervention therapists and the specialists that evaluated HJ were unsure of what would be the best placement for her.

Because I really emphasized wanting to put her in the least restrictive environment, they ultimately decided that she should be placed in a regular preschool classroom and receive speech services once a week. One of the staff members, the woman who would become HJ’s special education preschool teacher for the next two years, made a case for HJ going into the special education class because she thought there were some other social-emotional issues going on for HJ that we were not taking into account. Unfortunately, she was overruled, and we ended up putting HJ into the neighborhood Christian preschool that everyone raved about.

Long story short, it did not turn out to be the best fit for HJ. She went into a smaller “Young 3’s” class, but even that was not enough support for her. She was still not potty-trained, she had major separation anxiety, and she was dealing with quite a bit of sensory processing issues. HJ was ending up in the “principal’s office” nearly every day and by November, I requested another evaluation from the school district. For numerous reasons, typical school bureaucracy and administration being a large part of it, she did not end up switching into the special education classroom until the end of March. But can I just tell you, the change was immediate. The teachers were simply better equipped to handle kids with developmental delays. For example, if a child was melting down, they knew not to punish the child, but to give them a sensory break by taking a quick walk outside the classroom. HJ started thriving in the class, and the only downside to me was that we had lost more than half the year having her in the wrong school.

The difficulty of arriving at a diagnosis

Between the ages of 4 and 5, we went through quite a bit of rigamarole in going to different developmental pediatricians, therapists, and neuropsychiatrists to try to figure out what was really going on with HJ. My husband and I tended to disagree on this subject. For me, it was all about coming to a specific diagnosis so we could know how best to help HJ. For my husband, he was more concerned with how all the testing and evaluation would affect HJ, and whether having a label would really make any difference. Looking back, I’m sure the right answer was somewhere in between. I’m the type of person who finds it hard to not be in control of a situation, and who can never accept the phrase “it is what it is” without trying to figure out how to solve things. As I’ve learned over the years with HJ, not everything comes with a quick and clear solution. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.

A side note: after several appointments with a highly recommended developmental pediatrician in the city who specialized in screening for autism, he pretty much told me he just didn’t have any definitive diagnosis for HJ. Perhaps it was because she basically refused to participate in any of the screening questions, but I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he told me she was one of most difficult cases he had seen.

In the end, though, I wish that I had spent a little less time driving HJ around to these appointments and more time just finding out what private therapies HJ needed and pursuing those. One of the hardest things in all of this was that our insurance did not cover private speech or occupational therapy at the time, so I feel that we also lost out on some valuable time with HJ where she could have been receiving additional support outside of the public school system. As soon as my husband switched jobs and we hit the jackpot with the one insurance that almost every private therapist would take (there were some therapists I learned that did not take insurance at all), we were able to get her signed up for private speech, counseling, and O.T., and once again, I felt like HJ made enormous strides once she was in the right kinds of therapies.

Where we’re at right now

In a nutshell, I’d say we’re probably still making plenty of mistakes and still doing our best to learn from them. For example, last month I wrote a post about how HJ was having a really rough beginning to the school year and that I had over-enthusiastically enrolled her in one too many after-school activities. Well, I’m happy to report that she’s doing much better with getting on the bus and enjoying school (save for a couple bad mornings), but she’s also not doing soccer, violin, or swimming. And if she’s happier for it, I’m ok with it. I know that the most important thing right now is getting her into the routine of school and helping her to have a positive experience with that. Once we have that down, we can start thinking about other activities that she might enjoy. A possibility that she is interested in right now is Girl Scouts. It’s right up her alley with all the crafts and projects and earning badges, so I hope that is one way she can socialize with other kids her age and not feel too anxious or overwhelmed.

As for soccer, I talked to her occupational therapist about it, and she very gently told me it’s not really the best sport for children with sensory issues. She reminded me that it takes quite a bit of physical and mental coordination, and that the unstructured nature of running around the field with the high probability of bumping into other kids and getting jostled would probably not sit well with HJ. How did I not know this after parenting HJ for the past six years? Well, I got her out of soccer as quickly as I could after that conversation, and I have to say I was pretty thankful for that professional perspective to steer me in the right direction.

I’d love to hear about your experience with early intervention, positive or negative, and whether you’ve found other ways to help your child with developmental delays. I know that Mrs. Bee, Mrs. Chocolate, Mrs. Tiger, Mrs. Oatmeal, Mrs. Deer and others have posted about their experiences in detail, and I would love to hear from other parents as well.