Speech Therapy and IFSP Meeting - September 10, 2009 (Ella Marie 4 months 10 days old)

Today Ella Marie and I went to Birmingham to meet with Kelli our Auditory Verbal Therapist and Jackie who is our Early Intervention Service Coordinator. The first thing that we did was to write our IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan). At this meeting we discussed our goals for Ella Marie. These goals will be updated every six months. I should receive a copy of our IFSP soon. I also asked for funding for mileage through early intervention to get to Birmingham weekly since there are no AV therapists in our area. I will get funding for every other week/session to birmingham.

After completing the IFSP there was still some time for speech therapy. Here are the things we discussed today:

• Play tickle games with Ella Marie placing a consonant in front of vowels ex. ba, ba, ba, beeeee. You should have great contrast in pitch with the sounds that you are making.
• We are continuing to sing nursery rhymes or songs with Ella Marie but replacing the words with consonant +vowel sounds. This week we will work with the m sound and next week with the b sound.
• We discussed that Ella Marie will have a CT scan at a later date and this will really look at her cochlea.
• We discussed looking at the Advanced Bionics website. Go to the Listening Room
• I asked for a list of toys that would be helpful for our therapy at home. You will notice that all of these toys are toys that hearing babies would use too, we just truly do therapy with them so I need to make sure I have them. Here is a list of a few of them:

hand-held noisemakers
activity toys (with lots of buttons, mirrors, etc.)
board books Y cloth books, squeeze toys (some make noises)
stacking toys (especially blocks)
stacking ring
textured balls
shape sorters (the EASY ones - she may around 7-9 months enjoy taking things out)
other containers to fill/empty
nesting toys
snap beads
pop-up toys
early role-play toys - play telephone, baby, etc.
pull toys
puppets
musical toys
playset w/ animals (farm, etc.) - 12 months or older
Other enjoyable toys are those that encourage physical development, such as walking