Our early intervention

If you’ve been visiting here a while you know that this summer a few doctors started raising concerns that Oscar might be autistic.  As a result, I did a lot of reading and talking with therapists and tried to get a referral to Early Start.  The good people at Early Start, however, did not want to even talk with us once they found out that Oscar had been internationally adopted.  I don’t think this was because of racial prejudice, but instead their thoughts were that we should “wait and see” whether his developmental challenges were simply related to his institutionalization and whether he would “grow out of them.”  They told me I should wait until he was three years old before I started worrying about his delays (at this time Oscar was practically mute – he had said mama, but he stopped saying it and seemingly lost all desire to communicate – he didn’t even babble anymore).

I was, of course, frustrated by this.  Early Start is a program that prides itself on the fact that it has been scientifically proven that early intervention can have a life-altering impact on delays.  What bothers me is that there can be physiological complications that arise when a child has been institutionalized.  Complications that, while not as visible as a physical challenge, are just as significant.  And, from what I’ve been told by his doctors, are not something that a child simply grows out of.  Yes, the connections in his brain that did not develop over the first seven months of his life will start to be made, but it’s not as if that happens all at once.  It’s also not clear that they’ll all be made eventually.  What I find interesting is all the research being done now to see whether (and to what extent) the failure to make these connections early on leads to things like autism and ADHD. 

Anyway, when it was clear to me that I was going to have to fight to even get an assessment of Oscar’s developmental status (which I’m still trying to obtain), a few friends starting giving me ideas on how to possibly help him myself.  We’re doing something called “Floortime”, which is helpful, I think, but by far the best thing we’ve done is getting everyone in the house involved in sign language.  Oscar started off slowly, and I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was going to help.  Wow, was I wrong.  He’s been able to pick up about half a dozen signs (eat, more, banana, milk, dog, bird, cracker), and can even put two together (eat banana).   The most significant change, though, is how he interacts with me and the nanny now.  He is far more attentive.  He now mimics us, which we could never get him to do previously, and he also interacts with the dogs much more.  The coolest part to me is how he practices the signs.  At night he’ll pop up in the bed and make a sign and then lie back down.  Watching him learn is fascinating.

Perhaps it’s not all attributable to sign language, but there’s no doubt in my mind that at least part of it is.  I do think, though, that he now has a desire to communicate with us that he might not have had before.  He’s pointing and jabbering away now, when he did neither of these things just a few months ago (even though all the other kids his age (and younger) were doing so).  I’m still not giving up hope that we can get help from the professionals, but I’m not as terrified anymore that I’m failing him by not getting him help to communicate.

ps – I know there are families waiting to adopt children from the same orphanage where Oscar spent his first months who read this blog.  I don’t mean to alarm you that your child might have the same sort of issues that Oscar has.  I’m in contact with many, many parents with kids from the orphanage, and only a few seem to have issues – most are doing incredibly well.

November 5, 2008 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Parenting | developmental delays, sign language | 7 Comments