And yet another change...

The past few weeks have brought even more changes with Cameron's therapies. You might remember when I detailed the different things his therapists suggested we do to help further his speech.  I thought long and hard about their suggestions and Cody and I discussed them at length.  We came to the conclusion that we were going to take some of their ideas and put them to use, while foregoing the ones we didn't think were a good fit for Cameron. 

Then his intervention teacher came for a visit.  I won't bore you with all the details, but she basically did a few things that I did not agree with at all.  I was frustrated with her the entire visit, but the straw that broke the camel's back happened when we were dicussing whether Cameron is on the autism spectrum and she went as far as tellling me that Owen is probably on the spectrum.  Owen, my bubbly, outgoing, 4-year-old whom she is not even here to evaluate and has spent only a handful of moments with.  Why does she think this?  Because he can read and he can be very particular about certain things.  It was at that point that I decided I didn't want her treating my child anymore.

It's not that I don't think there's a possiblity that Cameron could be on the autism spectrum, because I have thought that for the last 6+ months.  It was the fact that she said in the same breath that she is not even qualified to make a diagnosis like that about Cameron.  If she is not even supposed to make such assumptions about Cameron, she really shouldn't be making them about Owen.  Even though I don't think Owen is, if he were, it was most definitely not her place to say that.  So I started to feel like, if she's saying things like this about Owen, why should I believe what she says about Cameron?  Why should I believe that she knows what she's talking about?  Not to mention the fact that Cameron really doesn't like her.  She doesn't relate to him well and the last few times she was here it was basically the two of us talking because Cameron didn't want to be around her.

I also felt that she kept changing each week what our goals for Cameron were.  She would work on something for a couple of weeks, then decided it wasn't right and we needed to change it again.  How is he supposed to reach a specified goal when she keeps changing the therapy on him?

So we decided it would be best for Cameron to just take a break for a while.  We have cancelled all  visits with the intervention teacher as well as the speech therapist.  We will continue to work with him at home and re-evaluate things sometime early next year and see where we go from there.  Part of me feels like it's just going to be a time issue for Cameron.  He's proven time and time again that he will get there, he's just going to do it on his time schedule.  I've spoken at length about this with Cody's mom and she says that Cody was exactly the same way at this age.  She sees so many similarities between Cameron and Cody.

Of course, there is another part of me that worries everyday that we've made the wrong decision in pulling him out of therapy.  But I try to remember that there really is no right or wrong answer in this.  It's really what is best for Cameron at any given time.  And at this time, we think this is best for him.  Maybe in a month or two, it won't be the best thing and we will get back into therapy.  Or maybe we'll even try private therapists.  I don't know what the future holds, but right now I'm just trying to focus on the present.  And right now, all I know is that I have the cutest little almost-2-year-old I know who is happy, healthy, and makes me smile everyday.  I don't really think life can get much better than that.


*I promise to get more pictures up soon!  We are just having a crazy, fun-filled holiday season in the Muhs household and my blogging has taken a back seat!  Merry Christmas!