Developmental Pediatrician Observation

Katie's developmental pediatrician came to Katie's school one morning last week to observe Katie and her educational team. She specializes in deaf communication, so it was really good to get her input on some things.

She really likes Katie's interpreter (as do we!) and feels she has a really good handle on Katie and her communication needs.

She did have some concerns about the effectiveness of Katie's expressive communication. She thinks Katie's signs seem apraxic in nature. Apraxia is a problem with motor planning and sequencing. I know of at least one or two other children with CHARGE who have apraxia, so I'm in contact with them to learn more about this and what we might do to help Katie with this. Dr. Wiley also has some resources that she plans to share with Katie's team about fine-motor development as it relates to sign formation.

Katie is going to be trying out a Dynavox--an augmentative communication device that has pictures and will "speak" for you--to help with her expressive language. Dr. Wiley thought this was a great idea. The school has one on loan from Ohio State for two months and started working with Katie on it as of last week. We hope that she'll pick it up quickly and it will give her another avenue for expressing herself. Dr. Wiley thought we might also want to start some private speech therapy, in addition to what Katie gets at school, to focus more on learning how to use the device.

Dr. Wiley had several other observations and suggestions that were right on target for Katie. Arlin and I will be meeting with Katie's educational team on January 5th to discuss her findings. We are so lucky to have such good professional and educational resources for Katie--we feel very blessed!