Speech Therapy

Austin does speech therapy once a week. Before we took a break, we could never get a set day and time, and that made things hard. The ST would set various times, sometimes call at 8 am saying she'd be here at 9, never really could get things on a schedule. So when we started back up again, that was one thing I pushed for, and got it, but not at a good time. For the past month, ST was Mondays at 1:15. That's nap time, and putting him down for a nap before just did not work. We also moved it to the office because it was hard to focus him at the house.
First week we did it in the coordinator's office. It was a new space, lots to explore, and while he didn't have a total melt down, he was not interested in what the ST was doing. The next week was moved to a conference room. It had lots of swivel chairs (fun) DVD players (more fun) marker boards (lots of fun) and a phone that had the speaker turned on that was continuously squawking. I did what I could to make accommodations in the room for him, but that should be the ST doing that - not me. I took Chick fil A lemonade (he LOVES to drink from a straw) and a snack. It didn't work, he was only interested in the new room. It got rough, he was not wanting to read the book, just explore. So he started to melt and melt, and that turned to crying, and then to screaming. I was almost in tears. I took him out of the room, and we walked. The coordinator stuck her head out of her office, and I explained that he was exhausted. She said she was sorry, but that it was the only time we had. We went back into the room and he took his drink and sat with the ST and worked with her.

Thankfully this past Monday was cancelled - I don't think I could have gone through that again. The ST left a message on my cell saying she needed to cancel, and reschedule for the next day, but the message on my home voicemail was for next week.  I called her back, and left a message asking for her to confirm, which she never did. ST calls next morning says she can get Austin in at 8:45, and if not, 11:15 would work. I was frustrated - the communication is horrible. I told her no, she did not confirm, and we already had plans.

I did email the coordinator, who is now working on finding a better time for this. If she can't, she can't, and I'll just work with him.