Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Time Warp - NaSePiMo

Woo-Hoo! Today marks the half way point of this tedious exercise NaSePiMo! Woot!

Yesterday Beck started speech therapy. He's come along way in just 2 short years with us, but because he spent nearly his first 3 years in an orphanage there is the lingering issue of the oral-motor muscle development. This lack of muscle development was most likely caused by the fact that he wasn't encouraged to speak or even babble, due to the lack of one on one contact. And additionally, the constant mush textured food they were given daily. We take for granted the development that occurs in just eating different textured foods as babies and toddlers.

In order to get him enrolled in this therapy he had to sit through 2 hours of testing. TWO HOURS OF TEDIOUS TESTING!! He rocked it while I started turning my socks into hand puppets and naming lint balls ! The therapist recommended testing for me noted how well he stayed on task which enabled her to complete the entire test, a feat that doesn't often occur.

I was so proud a week later when I received his scores and cognitively he out-scored me scored at the age of a six year old! Not bad for a four year old who heard English for the first time only 2 years ago!

As I suspected, he did score poorly in the oral-motor skills. No big surprise.

Because he's one smart dude, he doesn't qualify for help through the SAU... and because we're self employed, our health insurance will only start giving us a hand after we shell out the first $10,000.00 - what saints! So we're gonna drain any chance of him getting to college be paying out of pocket for the therapy because although he's doing awesome, we want him to be totally prepared when he enters kindergarten next year.

So how much does speech therapy cost? $100/hour! Yowzaa! I'm SOOO in the wrong business!!!

So we went to our first session and Beck loved it. They worked on letter sounds and tongue exercises and 45 minutes later we were in the car heading home...

WHAT???? Back that truck up?!

Yes, FORTY-FIVE MINUTES! It seems that if you're getting paid $100/hr, that hour is really only 45 minutes TOTAL which includes signing in at the desk, removing shoes, and a little play time at the end, getting shoes back on and pushin' the little rugrat out the office door. What...the...???

Any of you out there working for an hourly wage, go ahead and try this with your boss tomorrow. Cumulatively, on an 8 hour day this would mean you could knock off 2 hours early every day! And still get paid! Woo-Hoo!

But something tells me, in the real world, that sort of thing just gets you fired.


"Show me the look Mommy makes when she gets our bill?"

13 comments:

Samsmama said...

$100 an hour??? Sam's in speech but it's through the school district so it's free. Except for last summer when his teacher gave him private lessons. $45 for 45 minutes. Which included play time in her backyard with her son. I feel your pain. But it's so worth it! My poor baby couldn't even say his own name.

So, anyway, way to go Beck!!! And don't worry about college, I have a feeling there's going to be some scholarships in his future.

Bev said...

Beck is incredible! It's clear when you hang with him that he understands everything that is said, so I'm glad that you're getting him help so he can get a word in edgewise from now on! He's a smart little dude, for sure.

For those prices, they need to throw in a hand job or somethin'. What? Just sayin'.

Stuart said...

Okay, what the McHell does NASEPIMO mean anyway? I keep seeing it as "NAtural SElection PIsses Me Off", but that can't be right.

Hi!

Frank Irwin said...

I didn't make $100/hour or get paid hourly, but I sure didn't work 8 hours/day, either (unless you count reading blogs as work). Of course, now I'm not working there at all...

I had in-school speech therapy when I was in first grade. I guess I had trouble with S's. I remember playing the game So Sorry.

Here ya go, Stuart.

onebadmamajama said...

Was the testing w/the local school system? I know here in BFE, the local schools have preschool programs that do the testing AND will provide the therapy for free.

Sounds like Beck is gonna be just fine:)

Mom..maybe not so much..naming lint balls can't be a good sign ;)

MtnMama said...

Good news about Beck! Hang in there, Mom...

And yeah, like Frank said. You KNOW that Office Space wasn't really fiction, right? I spend four years at Denti Cal basically doing TPS reports. Now I have to read on my OWN time. Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

I love the caption for the picture.

Toni said...

We adopted our son at the age of 26months from KZ and he also lags behind in speech (mostly because of the same reasons), but is up to par on everything else. We live in CA and he started speech therapy 2-1/2 years ago through the local elementary school and now that he has started kindergarten he still goes to the same speech teacher they just pull him out of class. Might check to see if you can get it through your local school system, because it is free.

Stuart said...

Dammit, Frank! You should know I'd rather jump to my own conclusions. Got a mat for it and e'eythang.

Frank Irwin said...

"oops."

Samsmama said...

Jump to conclusions mat? You should market that.

Mala said...

I'm SOOO behind on my comment responses. Forgive me?

According to the school district he doesn't qualify. We've tried. Once he's in kindergarten they may provide him some services, but our feelings are we don't want to wait that long. We want him to have a positive start to school and not feel left behind right outta the gate.

So we'll suck it up.

And as always, ya'll are some funny mo-fos! and I love you.

Jillinator said...

not sure if you'll see this since it's pretty beyond the time that you wrote it... but seriously, that's the listed rate but almost every doctor, therapist, etc. has a posted rate but will willingly charge a lesser amount for people who self pay - you just need to ask and let them know you aren't being reimbursed (they don't know when someone is paying their $300 bill and submitting it to insurance) and ask if they might have a discounted rate for services not covered by insurance (considering they bill insurance $100/hr and the insurance comes back and pays via a 'provider discount' some lesser amount anyway... they don't expect to get $100/hr). Okay... too much info? - I've heard that women usually commiserate (sp?) and men are 'fix it' people... no wonder every test I take about personality type says I'm masculine ;)