When we went in for the IEP in April, we asked the city to provide ESY services for speech therapy, at the very least. Because their speech therapist hadn’t sent a new report that proved her concern that there’d be some regression (she only sent a letter stating in three paragraphs that she was concerned at the possibility, without evidence), the city denied the request.
Now, it’s not like he’s not had speech therapy over the summer. My insurance is covering a session a week at the Hearing and Speech Agency (HASA), and he’s attending a special day-camp three mornings a week that provides more speech therapy.
One thing I have noticed is that he’s certainly stagnating over the summer – his patterns aren’t evolving any further from the same ones he was using when he was getting speech twice a week. Coupled with the fact that this is his last week of the special-needs camp, I’m expecting that we’ll see some regression over the next three weeks before the school year starts.
Another thing we’ve noticed is his use of volume.
The Monster has tended to speak quietly in most circumstances. This has been an ongoing problem with him, either as a constant low level or as a slow drop of his voice off into a whisper as he gets to the end of a sentence. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve noticed this has become more pronounced. At times, he’s entirely whispering or the like, rather than using his voice as we know he can.
On the flip side, over the weekend, he’s inappropriately loud at night. The major reason I ended up taking him out for a car ride was that, at 4 AM, he’s singing to himself and speaking to us in bed in a tone that’s a few shades shy of shouting.
We haven’t yet found the magic words to get him to change that volume either when it’s appropriate – he doesn’t respond to encouragement (even when we’re shouting to demonstrate) to raise his voice so we can hear him during the day, and he seems disinclined to quiet down at night on those occasions where he gets going.
His next speech therapy with HASA is on Monday – I think its time that perhaps we say something to his therapist there (since we’re assuming he’ll continue with that even after the school year starts) so we can see if there’s something we can do to encourage proper volume…