This afternoon was Tristan’s assessment with Early Start. Â We headed over to Chandler Tripp school in San Jose. Â Showed up just a bit early – they had a little waiting area with a bead-maze and xylophone – Tristan had only managed to try to escape two or three times before they brought us in.
The assessment itself took place in a 10×20 room, with a table (for us) at one end and an area with a bunch of toys and such on the other. Â Â We met the four people who were doing the assessment – one doctor, one teacher, the case coordinator, and one other who we can’t remember what the heck she was. Â They all seemed friendly and seemed to actuallt give a shit about what they were doing, which was nice.
The teacher of the group basically spent the entire time down on the ground “playing” with Tristan in various ways, seeing what he could and would do. Â Blocks, crayons, stacking ring toys, wind up toys, bells, rattles – you name it, they more than likely brought it out. Â He was actually in a more-social-than usual mood, as well, which helps when you’re stuck in a room with four strangers for a few hours -Â and the play not only allowed them to assess his skills, it also proved useful in that it mostly kept him entertained through the questions they were asking, which made things go fairly smoothly.
The rest mostly observed him, and asked us questions – going through his history (and ours) and asking questions about anything and everything. Â Medical history, what he could and couldn’t do / say / etc. Â During the conversation, Tristan would occasionally burst out laughing when everyone else did, which is pretty cute 🙂
So in general, after all that, what did they have to say? Â Well, not much, yet. Â We’ll get the draft of their report in about a week – Tuesday, folks will convene to determine what, if any, services should be provided. Â From the sounds of it, it’s almost certain that they will be providing services – just have to figure out what.
We also need to get the official denial letter from Kaiser – something the Doctor we’d talked to previously had mentioned – basically, Early Start services require any services provided by the insurance to be exhausted. Â “Thankfully”, Kaiser doesn’t provide squat here, so it’s easy to get the letter of denial necessary. Â Still need to get him a TB test, and another hearing exam, and the full screening at Kaiser’s ASD center in Santa Teresa next month.
Many hoops left to jump through, but it feels like things are moving in the right direction there.
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In general, Tristan’s picked up a lot of neat new tricks lately – Kirin mentioned the shoes thing – he’s repeated this a few times as a means of asking to go out. Â Â I took him out last night using a Kinder Kord (http://www.amazon.com/Kinderkord-Child-Safety-Restraint-System/dp/B001JKIG4W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1271203629&sr=8-1) – worked pretty well (Tristan caught on to the whole “have to stay close” part, up until the point where he lurched towards an openish grate – I had to give a yank, and the blasted thing tore apart.
He’s started to at least tear apart the playdoh, and even plays with the container, trying to get us to open it, now. Â Although he seems to want to play with the lid about as much as the playdoh itself.