Mikey update

BACH just left our house a little while ago. Mikey did really great interacting with them and giving them a good representation of his "normal" behavior. He does qualify for services so an early intervention therapist will be coming out twice a month for 45 minutes to work with him and brainstorm with us. If we feel she needs to come more or less often, I think we can request that. Kids qualify for BACH for three different reasons or a combination of those reasons. This is kind of a quick description of those reasons.

1. Diagnosis of a certain disability or disorder that requires them to need extra help.
2. Developmental delay, either physically, emotionally, or physically
3. Unusual behavior or unusual lengths the parent need to go to in everyday life with the child.

I think they're accepting him into the program on the basis of his language delay and the whole unusual behavior thing. The unusual behavior, I suppose being the occasional rocking he does. They said that lots of kids do that to self soothe or unwind and that's it's not necessarily anything to be concerned about but it could be. Also, he kind of has this need for things to be in disarray. And he hates to be confined. *Update to previous post* I kind of misunderstood this part. The fact that we have to sign with him to communicate is part of the unusual behavior thing too. Not that it's unusual to sign, but that we have to do that daily to handle him is somewhat unusual. I still may not be fully understanding this part of the equation. Phillip, feel free to clarify in the comments.

But overall, he plays with toys the way an 18 months old should and interacted with the therapists really well. He amazed Phillip and me by doing some simple puzzles and putting pegs in holes. He sat very controlled and worked on the puzzles. We have a few puzzles but they are too hard for him and he just gets mad and throws the pieces everywhere. So, honestly, I'm not really sure why he was so interested in accurately putting the puzzles together and yet, he seems to love disarray.

I think the main thing they're concerned with is his inability and/or unwillingness to use actual words. They said the signing is really great and that's helping him bridge the verbal gap. They encouraged us to keep doing that. We need to sit down and really engage him more and sing songs and nursery rhymes and that kind of thing. Also, the t.v. needs to stay off. If we do let him watch something, we need to try to interact with him while he's watching it. So, Nana, Granddad, Granny, we're going to have to start unplugging the t.v. I know that stinks, but these people seem like they know what they're talking about.

It was good to sit back and watch him play and kind of see his behavior from someone else's eyes. My fear is that they would come and try to "diagnose" him or put some label on him. Not that there's anything wrong with diagnoses. But I just think he's too young to be categorized as anything other than cute just yet. I think (and they think) we're doing a really good job of trying to figure him out and help him communicate his needs. It will be good to get input from the early intervention therapist on other ways we can help him. He's certainly a very complicated little fellow and it will be nice to have some extra help with him. I'll update again if there's anything new to report.