Our family was about 6 months into therapy. I still wasn’t sure how or if to talk about it to others. In many ways it was a relief to be honest and open. In other ways, it set my son apart from others. Of course, there is the well reasoned mid-western argument, “its nobody’s business but your own”. I hedged. I told quite a lot of people about speech therapy, but hesitated on telling people about developmental therapy. Somehow development therapy carried a stronger stigma. There was sometimes this awkward silence when I scheduled play dates, and I used the phrase, “we can’t make it Wednesday, E has therapy”.
In a bit of irony, it was the developmental therapy that was going so well. Our therapist was amazing. If E wasn’t grasping a skill, she would try a new angle, a new song, or a new book. She was even gifted at teaching new signs for E to master. Meanwhile, we seemed stuck in a rut with speech therapy. Its not that our therapist was bad, she just didn’t challenge E. She once even said that she was afraid to upset him. He was unchallenged and not making progress. My husband was home for a day and observed a session. He described it perfectly, “She’s not doing anything different than us, and we don’t charge a fee.”
This is where I must give the credit to the CDSA. Our coordinator did several observations and brought up my problem with no prompting. Paperwork started, but the real blessing was that the CDSA handled all the communication mess in terminating our former speech therapist. It was a relief to not have to make that phone call. Of course, there was the irritation in finding a new therapist. A new list was generated, but shorter this time. I didn’t have an recommendations so I choose the therapist with the most education and the most experience.
No one likes to change a toddler’s routine, but sometimes things need to change. E needed to be challenged. I had to be brave and step out of the status quo. I wasn’t doing my son any favors in providing him with a therapy that wasn’t working. I am so lucky to have had the support system of the CDSA, my husband, and an experienced developmental therapist to make the transition and the decision easier.